Escaping the Siren Prince

The Morning After

For several seconds after the stranger smiled, Cora forgot that she was standing in the ocean.

She forgot the cold water pressing against her thighs and the uneven stones beneath her feet. She forgot the sandals she had abandoned on the beach and the village somewhere beyond the cliffs, its narrow streets and terracotta roofs hidden from view. Even the warnings that had been tumbling through her head seemed to recede beneath the far more immediate awareness that there was a man thirty feet away from her, standing calmly in water that should have been several feet over his head.

And he was smiling at her.

Not broadly. Not kindly.

It was barely a smile at all, just the slow upward movement of one corner of his mouth as though he knew something she didn't.

Cora's pulse hammered painfully against her throat.

She looked toward the beach.

The movement lasted no more than a second, perhaps two. Her eyes found the pale stretch of stone behind her and quickly calculated the distance. Twenty feet, maybe a little more. The water was already shallower in that direction. If she moved carefully and didn't panic, she could be out of the cove in less than thirty seconds.

Her phone was in her bag.

The village wasn't far.

There were houses less than a five-minute walk from here.

All perfectly rational thoughts, except for the fact that Cora was having them because a man who appeared to have temporarily exempted himself from the laws of buoyancy was watching her from the middle of the Adriatic.

She looked back.

The man was gone.

Cora stopped breathing.

The water where he'd been standing was empty.

Moonlight trembled across the surface, broken occasionally by the small movement of waves, but there was no head disappearing beneath them, no dark shape swimming away, no disturbance large enough to suggest a fully grown man had just submerged himself.

There was simply nothing there.

Cora stared.

"No."

She wasn't sure whether she was speaking to the ocean or herself.

She took a step backward, then another, nearly losing her footing when one of the stones shifted beneath her heel. Her arms flew out instinctively to catch her balance, sending a splash through the otherwise quiet cove.

The sound snapped something inside her.

Cora turned and moved.

She abandoned any attempt at dignity as she pushed toward shore, water resisting every hurried step until it dropped below her knees and she could move faster. By the time she reached the shallows, she was nearly running, stumbling over the stones as she climbed out of the Adriatic.

Cold air struck her wet legs.

Her sandals were exactly where she'd left them beside the rocky outcrop.

Cora grabbed them first, then snatched up her bag and shoved one hand inside until her fingers closed around her phone.

12:48 a.m.

No missed calls. No messages. Nothing unusual.

As if her phone might somehow confirm whether the last twenty minutes had actually happened.

She opened the flashlight and turned toward the water.

The beam was useless beyond the nearest stretch of beach, swallowed almost immediately by darkness.

"Hello?"

She regretted saying it as soon as the word left her mouth.

Nothing answered.

Cora dragged her shirt more securely around herself and shoved her feet into her sandals without bothering to dry them. She was reaching for her bag when a sound came from the water behind her.

A soft splash.

Every muscle in her body locked.

Don't turn around.

The thought came immediately.

It was also absurd. If someone was behind her, not looking at them was hardly an effective survival strategy.

Cora turned.

For several seconds, she saw nothing.

Then a head broke the surface.

Cora's breath caught so sharply it hurt.

He was closer this time, positioned near the place where she had been standing only moments before. Moonlight caught wet, dark hair as he rose just enough for his face to clear the water.

The rest of him remained beneath it.

Cora couldn't see his expression from this distance.

She didn't need to.

He was looking at her.

Again.

Her body moved before her mind finished processing it.

Cora ran.

She didn't stop until the cove disappeared behind her.

By morning, Cora had developed six reasonable explanations for what had happened.

None survived breakfast.

The first involved alcohol.

She had consumed enough rakija to impair her judgment, although not nearly enough to hallucinate an entire man standing in the sea. She remembered everything else about the evening with irritating clarity: Hannah's french fry emergency, the walk to the cove, the stones beneath her feet, the temperature of the water.

The second explanation was that the man had been treading water and darkness had made it appear otherwise.

That one lasted almost three minutes before Cora remembered how completely still he'd been.

The third involved a submerged rock.

She discarded that immediately.

She knew where the drop-off was.

Four through six became progressively less convincing.

By the time Cora gave up on sleep shortly after eight, she had accepted only one conclusion.

Something had happened at the cove.

She simply didn't know what.

Her reflection in the small bathroom mirror looked appropriately terrible. Her red hair had dried overnight into a wild mass of waves, and faint shadows sat beneath her green eyes. She had showered before climbing into bed but still imagined she could smell salt on her skin.

Cora leaned closer to the mirror.

"You're fine."

Her reflection appeared unconvinced.

After dressing in shorts and a loose linen tank, she twisted her hair back, gave up halfway through, and headed downstairs in search of coffee.

The guesthouse was unusually quiet. Sunlight poured through the windows along the stairwell, warming the old stone walls and making the previous night feel even more impossible. Somewhere outside, a scooter buzzed along the road. A church bell sounded from farther up the hill.

Normal.

Everything was offensively normal.

Cora reached the bottom of the stairs expecting to find breakfast laid out on the small terrace.

Instead, she found Marija standing in the doorway.

Waiting for her.

The older woman's arms were crossed.

Cora stopped.

"Good morning?"

Marija did not return the greeting.

"Where you go last night?"

Cora's stomach tightened.

"To dinner."

"After dinner."

There was enough accusation packed into those two words to make Cora feel sixteen.

"I walked."

"Where?"

"Around."

Marija's eyes narrowed.

Cora sighed. "I went to the northern cove."

Marija's face changed instantly.

Not irritation.

Fear.

It disappeared almost as quickly, replaced by something sharper.

"I tell you."

"I know."

"I tell you no water."

"I didn't exactly plan on getting in."

Marija stared at her.

Cora winced. "That sounded worse out loud."

"Why you go?"

"Because everyone kept telling me not to."

Marija closed her eyes briefly.

"Yes," Cora said. "Also worse out loud."

When Marija looked at her again, however, the anger had faded.

"Did you hear anything?"

The question was so quiet Cora almost missed it.

Her humor vanished.

"What?"

Marija's gaze remained fixed on her.

"Last night. At water. You hear something?"

The song returned to Cora with such vividness that for a moment she could almost feel it beneath her ribs again.

She remembered the longing inside it.

The strange peace.

The terrifying realization that she had walked thigh-deep into the Adriatic without consciously deciding to move.

Cora opened her mouth.

Before she could answer, a man's voice came from the terrace.

"Marija."

Cora looked past her.

Someone was sitting at one of the breakfast tables.

The first thing she noticed was that he didn't look like a tourist.

There was something too settled about him, too completely at ease in the space around him. He sat with one arm resting across the back of the empty chair beside him, a small cup of coffee untouched on the table.

The second thing Cora noticed was considerably less useful.

He was gorgeous.

Annoyingly so.

His hair was dark, nearly black, and thick enough that it refused to lie completely flat despite having been pushed back from his face. His skin held the warm bronze tone of someone who spent more time outdoors than in, and there was an angular sharpness to his features that should have made him severe if his mouth hadn't been quite so distracting.

Broad shoulders filled a dark linen shirt with the sleeves pushed casually to his forearms. He looked somewhere in his mid-to-late twenties, although there was something in the stillness of his expression that made the estimate feel uncertain.

Then he looked directly at her.

Cora stopped.

For the briefest instant, something cold moved through her stomach.

Dark hair.

Broad shoulders.

A face turned toward her beneath moonlight.

No.

She dismissed the thought immediately.

She hadn't seen the man in the water clearly enough to recognize him. She had barely seen his face at all.

And this man was sitting on Marija's terrace in broad daylight drinking coffee.

Marija stepped aside reluctantly.

"This Luka Varek."

The man stood.

He was taller than Cora had expected.

Much taller.

At 5'10", Cora was used to being taller than most women and enough men that height rarely registered with her anymore. Luka still had several inches on her, and when he straightened fully, the terrace seemed smaller for it.

His eyes moved over her face.

Not flirtatiously.

Assessingly.

Then they settled on her eyes.

Again, Cora had the strange sensation of being examined rather than admired.

"Luka," Marija continued, "family here long time."

Something about the introduction sounded deliberately vague.

Cora looked between them. "Okay."

Luka's expression didn't change.

"You were at the northern cove last night."