“Melité,” Yara says tightly. She is standing at my side; I did not even hear her rise from the bench.
The name is familiar to me. It takes a long moment for it to surface from the back of my foggy mind. “Soren’s half-sister?”
Yara nods. Her eyes are locked on the woman, her cheeks flushed red as her hair. “And half-siren.”
Half-siren.
That explains her allure. No one at Ledge seems entirely immune to her presence, but some are clearly more affected than others. Men are tugging at their collars and curling their hands into fists; women are crossing and uncrossing their legs, shifting in their seats. A few reach out toward her as she drifts by,desperate for the whisper-soft caress of a curl against their fingertips, the fleeting slide of silken skirts brushing against their own legs. Those not close enough to reach for her reach for one another instead.
In a shadowy corner by the taps, a couple presses against each other—hands sliding up skirt hems and slipping under waistbands. One table over, I watch two Hylian soldiers join eager mouths, their tongues dancing together with delirious abandon. Alaric’s hand is no longer at Arwen’s hip but sliding up her rib cage to cup her breast through the sculpted leather of her uniform.
Gods, what is happening here?
A drowsy, damp heat begins to gather between my own thighs. My nipples harden through the fitted fabric of my shirt. I tell myself to look away, but I cannot quite manage it. The more I stare at the half-siren, the more my blood sings in my veins, an escalating need I cannot explain, cannot deny, cannot—
“Melité, that’s enough.”
My eyes tear away from the siren at the sudden boom of Soren’s voice. He has not moved from the barstool where he’s been camped out all evening, conversing with Arwen, Alaric, and a rotating parade of soldiers.
Our gazes lock instantly, and I suck in a sharp breath at the thick silver maegic churning through the blue of his irises. Even he is affected by the siren’s thrall. I have never seen that look before—not on him, not on anyone.
Dark lust.
Driving need.
It is there in the tightness of his grip on his glass, the sharp set of his shoulders beneath the linen. In the line of strong white teeth sinking hard into a full bottom lip. More still, it is there in the bond.
His hunger, flooding into me.
Mine, whispering back to him.
His teeth sink harder into his lip.
My stomach drops straight to the floor as I stare at him. Stare and stare and stare, unable to shift my eyes even as the rational part of my brain screams at me to look away. Look anywhere else. Anywhere but at him. But my body is not complying with my mind’s demands. My heart is rampaging inside my chest, my core throbbing with a violent surge of pure desire.
It doesn’t matter that it was manufactured by Melité. It is there all the same, shimmering through my bloodstream. Surely Soren can see it written on my face as plainly as I see it on his. Mortification rises up, tangling with the coursing need within me.
Skies, make it stop.
Soren’s nostrils flare. A muscle jumps in his cheek as his jaw flexes. His throat works on a thick swallow as he speaks again. “I mean it, Melité. Quell it. Now.”
At his harsh order, the lust-drenched haze clears from the air. Melité is tamping down whatever power she exudes to inspire such animalistic attraction. All around, people are blinking at one another, looking dazed and disoriented as sanity returns. Pairs of lips part, hands cease their wanderings.
I jerk my eyes from Soren and direct them to my feet. My pulse is thready. My lungs scream for air. Squeezing my thighs together against the unabated throb, I take my first true breath in several moments. It does precious little to soothe the raw feelings within me.
The half-siren heaves a dramatic sigh. “Ever the spoilsport, brother.”
Her voice is just as melodic and enticing as one would expect. There is a breathy quality to it that steals over my skin with impossibly corporeal weight. Beside me, Yara shivers and stareshard at her boots. Her breathing is as uneven as mine. Bretiax is gripping the stone rail so hard, her knuckles are white.
“If you care to spark an orgy, stick to the thermal baths and pleasure clubs,” Soren says, sounding like his fury is in jeopardy of escaping. “Do not use your siren song on the unwilling. Not unless you want me to ban you from public spaces.”
Melité comes to a stop a few feet from Soren’s barstool, skirts swishing around her shapely legs. “Theunwilling? How absurd. I do not cause any harm, nor inflict any pain. I merely lower inhibitions. I liberate the chaste from their tedious shackles of convention.”
“Not all inhibitions are meant to be indulged.”
“That’s not the refrain you sing when you visit the pleasure clubs. Not according to my sources. I’ve heard you’ve quite the appetite…” She is practically purring. “You like to sample a wide variety of flavors. Isn’t that right, O mighty king?”
“Who I fuck is really none of your business,sister,” Soren snarls softly. “If you’ve a point to make, either make it or get out of my sight.”