Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

James POV

There’s a deep sense of depravity thrumming in my veins.

The type of depravity which should disgust any decent being.

It centres around her. Only her.

Even as she lays underneath me, bare to only myself. I can’t hide the need to devour and consume.

Can’t help the slightly harsh nips that I scatter across her neck, her chest, her inner thighs.

Because the sounds she makes, as she mewls and twists her hands into the locks of my hair keep me up at night.

I am the beast and she the beauty.

It’s all I can do to keep her alive, to keep her as mine.

She will be mine.

Always.

F

O

R

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V

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There will be no one after her.

Though there were plenty before her.

This will be the crescendo I have been craving ever since I surfaced from the deep depths of the ocean. My only purpose to find the one who would quench my thirst, my loneliness and my self-indulgent hunger to destroy the fragile balance between humans and my people.

She is my Ruby, and I will be her cerulean ocean.

There will be no escape.             

The ocean is ripe with promise and disaster in equal measure, and as I surface for the first time in what feels like eons for a creature of the depths like me, but only a mere month for the humans who dwell on the surface. I feel the unpleasant sting of the fragile gills that line my throat sink and disappear, collapsing, making themselves hidden, as though I was never capable of breathing underwater. I force a lungful of air into the very recesses of my lungs, the transformation fiery and I almost recall when I was a boy and the change used to leave me writhing on the seafloor, unable to scream  — sirens don’t speak, not underwater, we save our voices for the humans who dare to come to close to our homes.

Lifting just a little more out of the water and waiting for it to drip from my skin and back into the home of my people, I run a hand through my hair, my pupils narrowing as I open my mouth to assess the sharp shark-like triangles reforming, shifting and making themselves the pitiful blunt things that humans have, with the only remain being that of my canines, those remain exaggerated and deadly; like all who have siren blood can claim to have.

Other aspects that make me a glaring non-human revert, I can only be glad that unlike mermaids who build up scales that need to be stripped and scrubbed off for as long as they remain on the surface, sirens are blessed without. In my nudeness, and with the very last drops disappearing and taking with it the light of the moon, I step out, knowing that there’s no one who could possibly be awake; though humans have always felt safest near the ocean when there’s a full moon, even in the blackness of a new moon; like this evening, starlight and moonlight so faint that it’s imperceptible to even the most advanced human technology, will still shine and shimmer off of a siren.

“Welcome back Master Beaufort.”

Human ears are fucking pitiful, but the voice belonging to the male addressing me, is welcomed. Percy, a half-breed siren-human mix, bows his head and offers an outstretched hand where a white thick robe waits, shaking off the last potential grains of sand that wants to stick to me like a second skin, I take it eagerly and once adorned, tie a tight half knot and brush past him.

“Will you be here long?”

“Depends how good the prey is.”

“Shall I inform the rest?”

“No, they know I’m here already.”

We step in line with each other, up the rickety old wooden steps of the dock, and I wonder why no one has bothered to replace it — granted, none of us actually use it to descend the tall cliff that makes up the very edge of the property, sirens are able to leap from great height into the otherwise dangerous and wild depths of the ocean with no risk of injury.

My first encounter with another member of my family, is that of my twin sister. Lydia, who is splayed out on the white cotton cushions, one hand twisting her damp hair, the other reading something on her phone screen nonchalantly. Her nostrils flare and her eyes go from focusing on whatever she’s indulging in to look at me, immediately both hands free themselves of their objects and she leaps up with inhumane grace, to embrace me.

“Welcome home.” She coos.

My siren assesses her, just as much as her mermaid nature does the same. Both sending each other a silent signal, all is well. Neither of us are hurt, but still, that doesn’t prevent Lydia from stepping back and scrunching her nose.

“When was the last time you fed? You look… sick. Feel… too thin to hug.”

“That’s why I’m here baby sister. To hunt.”

“Well don’t let me stop you. It’s good to see you.”

Her own scent of Hyacinth and white musk clashing with my own scent, but it’ll fade quickly as I move towards my human-illusioned bedroom. Here in this version of a human sanctuary, my own deeply anchored scent of burning tobacco and opium makes me feel less like a fish out of water, and more grounded. Lightly trailing my fingers over shirts and pulling open drawers for slacks, I soon find myself looking more and more like the pretentious human façade that I must uphold as the heir to my family’s human empire.

I snap my fingers to turn on the lights inside of the ensuite bathroom, the shower immediately activating, heating to my preferred temperature, shedding the robe given to me by Percy and letting it lie in a heap by the bathroom entrance, I diligently clean myself of the sea, the sand, anything that might make my prey suspect that I’m not what I seem to be.

Pondering who or rather what I want to eat, I think about the recent places I’d visited, as it’s too soon to return to my other usual haunts — humans notice sirens and mermaids too easily, our energy calls to them, brings them in so we can take what we need from them, for some that’s blood, pleasure, pain, but any siren who wants to keep a clean record knows it’s better just to drain a human of their vitality and leave it at that. I’ve personally never found the need to completely strip a human of their energy; that’s more my father’s preference; makes it so that you can’t accidentally keep bumping into the same victims over and over.

“Aiiiiiiiii where is he?!”

I hear the loud, boisterous voice of my best friend echo and bounce off the walls of the house, as I emerge from by bedroom, adjusting my shirt cuffs and looking at Alistair with some measure of humour and annoyance. He’s always one to rush when he hears I’ve returned from my long periods at sea.

“Miss me that much Ellington?”

Jumping off the very last steps, as we give each other a quick side hug, not even a hug really, more like our sides bumping each other as once more the more primal parts of us assess and evaluate the social value of our relationship. Alas, Alister’s blood is mottled with more mermaid than siren, so he’s almost like my twin sister in that sense, more mellowed out, less need for dominance and control. Still, there’s an edge that I would not ignore if I was a betting man and Alistair was the only certainty between victory and absolute defeat.

“Mate, you look sick, like your sister said. We need to get you more than one body.”

“I don’t need to be incessantly reminded about my needs.”

“And you need to remember your human mannerisms.” He teases anyway.

“Gentlemen, the night is young but late for the humans, if you are intending to hunt, it would be advisable to leave now.”

Official Playlist

Chapter Text

Ruby POV

“Don’t stay out too long! I don’t like the look of the skies!”

Referencing the mass of dark grey clouds that look ready to impose upon our seaside town, I still decide that it’s worth the risk of being soaked by the potential storm than staying at home and wasting anymore time listening to my father’s old radio programme. Retrieving my basket, phone, camera and an apple or perhaps two. I finalise my appearance with one of the very thick woollen shawls I must have knitted three or four seasons ago; back when we had sheep and when my father felt strong enough to herd them properly.

I’m pleased by the equally neat nature of my shoelaces that shake only slightly as I step out the door. With it shut tight behind me, I look over the small overgrown front yard garden that I’ve been struggling to maintain since well… forever. I stride towards the gate, which I note with some annoyance is starting to rust and become even more weathered; that’s the problem with metal by the seaside, too quick to turn orange from the salt in the air. Again, I don’t let this stop me as I resolutely head in the direction of the only other place besides my home that I know better.

The weathered roofs and whitewashed walls of buildings is familiar and though I’ve walked the tiny Main Street of the village a million times before, there is one store besides the grocer that I cannot help but want to venture into every time I pass.

Inside the store, the faint scent of a beeswax candle imbued with orange blossom and cinnamon greet my nose. It’s almost drowned out by the consistent and pungent scent of old books, handmade ink - sometimes using the harvested ink from the squids sometimes caught. The tinny bell rings to signal my arrival as I begin to navigate through the hodge podge stacks of weathered and faded hardbacks, paperbacks and skinny volumes of modern-day gossip columns and other such insignificant dribble.

Although technically illegal, albeit totally creative — the staircase to the top alcove area of the store is made up of cardboard boxes filled with lord knows and milkcrates of uncertain heritage, though if I had to guess, some of them were probably taken from the grocer next door in exchange for cheaper newspaper rates.

Standing behind the counter, a metallic jug of milk in one hand and a mug in the other, the store owner and maybe one of the three people I speak to in town when I do come by is the man whose eyes never seem to be anywhere but on his books: Graham Sutton. It’s as I start to make a beeline for the ‘classics’ section that he calls out.

“Good morning, Ruby!”

“Morning to you, too. Mr. Sutton.”

“Graham, we’ve been over this.”

Correcting my lapse into what he believed to be a ginormous error on my part, and sure he’s not even ten years my senior and sure it would make sense for us to be on a first named basis; but every time I try, I choke on my words and end up having to default to his surname.

“I… know. I know. Can’t help it.”

“Mm. Perhaps one day. What can I do for you?”

“Oh, uh. I’m just here to read.”

“Bloody mutts. Another body, completely nude. Poor girl.”

I catch the words in fragments and it’s a rather strange string of words to put together, the person who said it, a regular at the bookstore, holding onto a crumpled well-used communal copy of the store’s daily cache of newspapers, tosses it down in disgust as his companion, a woman gasps and pushes the paper away.

“And to take a photo too! Have the police no decency?”

“It’s the bloody press, I tell you. Losing it.”

“Another body? Mind if I see that?”

I step towards their small circular table, completely forgetting the point of my visit to the store, I snatch up the paper, scanning it for the offending words that the elderly couple are upset about and when I finally see what they mean, I blanch. Trying to refrain from gagging or vomiting at the sight, I force myself to read the accompanying newline.

There’s very little hiding the disgust I have for the overdramatic use of language. Ever since I could remember living here, we’ve been dealing with the local culture that believes that there’s a monster or two lurking in the very waters that provide the town with a reliable source of income, tourism and food. Legend dictates that the ocean nearby, the one that’s practically across the street and in the view of the store, is home to mermaids and sirens alike; that only the most courageous and often time aged sailors are permitted out onto the waters; because they won’t be lured in by the dangers that lurk in the deep.

Others say the monsters have recently gain legs and the ability to roam on land, hence attacks and newlines like this, about young men and women being found naked, clearly assaulted and drained of their vitality — no blood evidence, no sign really of foul play, but just dead. Course, there’s the occasional attack that does show more violence, those are the ones that are the most terrifying, implying that the large castle on the cliffside; on the opposite side of the bay is home to wolves and bears that rip into anyone idiotic enough to try to trespass in the woods.

Placing the paper back on the table and thanking the couple with a grim smile, I turn away and back towards the counter where Graham holds out a mug.

“Looks like you need this, more than usual.” It’s peppermint tea, my favourite.

“I…” I didn’t bring my wallet, damn it.

“Don’t worry, it’s on me. Cannot believe the attacks are starting up like this again.”

“I mean do you believe in the legends?”

Graham assesses me, clearing his throat as he reaches for something to wipe down.

“Yeah, I guess. Lived here long enough and seen and heard enough stories about it, can’t be a coincidence, happening what every time there’s a full moon, or a new moon.”

“And yet the police still haven’t caught whatever… whoever is responsible.”

“Course they wouldn’t.” the old woman at the table scoffs. “It ain’t a human doing these things, nor a beast with four legs. It’s the damned sea people. Lot of them are savages.”

Deciding that I no longer want to think of the horrors of imaginary creatures, I take the mug from Graham and gently blow on the steaming contents before taking a long, drawn-out sip, perhaps now is a good point to return to what I was supposed to be doing before I got distracted by the gossip and local news.

Collecting the tome that I’d been reading on and off for the last few days, I toss the required borrow slips for it onto the bench as Graham is busy serving a customer and lift it to show that I’ve 'paid', he only barely reacts, nodding before he resumes talking to the customer.

Placing it in the corner of my basket and retrieving the first apple that my fingers come into contact with, I decide to take the more scenic route back home, for whatever reason, despite living in a coastal town, my father managed to find the only property that is more in-land than the rest of the town, with none of the windows facing the direction the sea, like he’s worried that if we’re facing the sea, the monsters that lurk in the deep will come out to play and probably snatch me away.

I’m contemplating if I have enough time to visit my next favourite place of local haunts, when I inevitably stumble over the uneven pavement like I’m a newborn foal learning to walk for the first time, but before I can hit the pavement and cut myself to bits on the rough surface, a strong set of arms emerge and stop me from near disaster.

“Careful.”

An exotic and breathtaking blend of scents that I’d never imagine a perfumer could ever put together consumes my senses and I almost want to scream in protest when the scent diminishes just a little. Holding me in outstretched arms, is a male who I have never ever set eyes on in the village.

He’s tall, much taller and I have to crane my neck just to be able to finally set my eyes on my would-be rescuer. The first thing about him besides his scent that I’ve now decided is the best smelling thing I’ve ever been welcomed to experience; are his eyes. They’re piercing blue in their depth, as if the whole ocean — an ocean I have been told to expressly stay away from, are in them, he blinks once, twice. His body is all muscle, toned, and lord do I want to run my hands over them, is he a living statue? The cliché of Adonis brought to life, realising that he’s still holding me and I haven’t moved away, makes me blush and when I finally realise, I can stand on my own two feet, I step back and clear my throat. Another observation quickly follows about this male, but my mind is too rattled to think straight.

“Thank you.”

“No need. See you.”

He lets go, the warmth of his hands, branded onto the surface of either side of my hips. Lord, what the hell is wrong with me? He moves past me, confidently and self-assured, like he owns the fucking pavement we’re on, his muscles, a sight to behold and I swear to the lord he might as well be naked from the rippling show of the fabric, like it too knows it cannot hide his godlike fucking frame. There is no disguising that he is a born swimmer and has the figure to match. Broad shoulders on either side, his hips are narrow but by no means unsubstantial and with his height it combines and thickens out to legs that I’m sure mean he can run faster than most males our age. Swallowing down what amounts to an embarrassing amount of saliva, I look to where my bitten apple is, and sigh. Maybe it’d be best if I head home, and not to the boulder.

I’m getting closer to home when, out of the blue a mini scooter with a female comes zooming past, only to turn back around like she’s forgotten something and stopping just as I think to cross the street.

“Ruby!!”

My eyes widen and a smile covers my face as one of my best friends, Lin stops the engine of the bike in the middle of the road, unbuckling her helmet and tossing it aside before she comes running towards me, we collide in a tight huddle of muscle and giggles.

 “Hey! You’re back early! What happened to ‘I need to be in France now’?”

“Oh, don’t get me started, what have you been up to? Excited for school… in three days?”

In just three days’ time, she and I will embark on our journey to a hopefully fruitful and opportunity expanding set of years at the notoriously rich-kid and legendary academic institution of Maxton Hall. Maxton Hall is an exclusive and elusive academy that promises its students — those who survive the two years of hellish curriculum that the school strives to promote as a one-way ticket to second year in whichever ivy-league institution a student can set their dreams on. I hope to use the time there to heighten my chances of being selected as only one of two students to get into Oxford University.

“Earth to Ruby!”

“Huh, what?” I blink; Lin laughs softly.

“Silly, I asked if you’d any plans to go to the bonfire party.”

“Bonfire party? You mean the one… the night before school starts? The one in the woods? Haven’t you been paying attention to the news? More dead bodies.”

“Oh, come off it, everyone knows the stories about the deaths in the woods are just to scare children, we all know there’s no such thing as a wolf or a bear in England. The fucking medieval idiots got rid of both.”

Lin has a point there and I sigh, knowing that if I point out any more local news, she’ll just clap her hands over her ears and drown me out with terrible singing. She’s always been more free-spirited and far more courageous than I have ever likely been. Lin turns back to her bike and then looks over at me again.

“We should go, I’ll come pick you up. This year, it’s actually on the beach. They changed the location.”

“Since when?”

“Since apparently this morning, you need to keep up Ruby. Reputation and information are going to be the best tools we’ve got to make Maxton Hall our bitch.”

Chapter Text

James POV

It hadn’t been my intention to touch a complete stranger, in fact as she steps back, I force myself to keep my palms out of sight, the flesh burning and tingling in agitation, but I take in the sight of her, with those chocolate brown doe eyes, there’s no indication of malice on her; like she’s absolutely unawares that her clothing has injured me. I’ve also personally never seen her before, so I can’t even deflect her attention away from my state of agitation. Still when she thanks me, her head bobbing up and down in a series of nods, I can’t help but give her some kind of polite reaction back.

I hear her make it a little further up the road, and when it’s clear she won’t turn back and stab me like hunters are wont to do, I examine my hands, seeing the red imprints on both of the inner palms of my flesh, it’s a mark, a protective knot presumably underneath the surface of the girl’s clothing that I have never seen before; but my mother will most certainly know.

It's one of the few indicators that, although we might be the stuff of legends. There are humans out there who know the truth, who know how to counter us and how to keep us at bay. This girl must belong to one of the dwindling hunting families — whether or not she knows it, that makes her my enemy.

Awaken, now and growling under the surface of my skin I contemplate turning around and stalking her, figure out where she lives, see if there’s anything out of the ordinary or if this was just a mere coincidence, because sometimes humans who don’t know accidentally end up in the possession of clothing items made by hunters; it’s the only reason I can think of for a girl to dressed as an anti-siren fire alarm. But when the marks don’t fade and my skin becomes increasingly agitated, I decide that it’s better to have them looked at and my parents notified to the dangers that there might be hunters sniffing about where they ought not to be.

Sirens and Mermaids have walked alongside humans for centuries; we go hand in hand like those who enjoy indulging in champagne and oysters. Realistically the only difference between my kind and my sister’s kind is that unlike Mermaids who can live lives of near human resemblance, we Sirens cannot. We hunt humans to absorb their energy, their souls. Each subsequent lethal feeding is another boost and another step to becoming even more powerful, more godlike if you will.

The only humans who are safe are those who have been doubly blessed and cursed as our mates. Not that I think they exist, at least not anymore.

Our parents are a rare example of a mated pair of Siren and Mermaid. Father hasn’t had to hunt in decades since meeting mother, content to live off mother’s affections and all the benefits that come with being her mate.

When I arrive home, the house is relatively silent, absent of life. Presumably, the staff have been wrangled into some disastrous preparation or other scheme by Lydia for the upcoming school year. So, it’s easy enough to make a beeline for my mother’s studio-study.

Mother’s back and head are turned to me as she works to sew tiny iridescent pearls and jewels into the bodice she has been working on for the past few months, the masterpiece for the next couture collection; and the only dress that my mother has insisted she must be the one to work on.

I have to look around on her haphazardly organised desk for a scrap of curled paper, the kind that can be easily thrown into the fire once it has no longer served a purpose, once I have the scrap in hand and a piece of charcoal in the other, I sketch and replicate the knot marks on my hands, before dropping the charcoal back into the tin and approaching her.

Mother stills, needle poised and looks at me expectantly.

“James, how lovely of you to drop by.”

“Mother, have you ever seen a mark like this?”

“A mark?” she lowers the needle and reaches for the scrap I offer her.

“A knot.”

I correct myself, remembering that my mother prefers I use the correct terminology in instances like this. She glances and stills, nearly dropping her box of priceless pearls and beads, pushing off of her stool and then snatching my palms, but not touching the skin that is raised, inflamed.

“This is a hunter’s knot, an old and sacred one. The kind used to detect your kind. Where was this?”

“A girl, one I have never seen before. She nearly tripped onto her face as I was walking around. She didn’t seem aware of the pain she caused me.”

“Did anything else happen? Did she touch you anywhere else? Place a trace on you?”

“No, she was completely ordinary. Should I have done something else?”

“This knot, it belongs to one of the oldest families of hunters, the very successful kind. I didn’t think any of their members survived, not after the last war.”

By war, she means the brutal massacre, led by my father against the once numerous and overly boastful hunters who had gotten too comfortable, too close to locating our ocean-homes. Neither of my parents enjoy talking about it, even if amongst our people, it is seen as a considerable triumph, and besides it happened far too long in human history for any human now to remember it as anything but a tragedy where numerous vast vessels full of sailors and what have you, were killed in a vicious storm.

She places the scrap down and gently examines me before shaking her head and muttering under her breath at the barbarity of humans. Clearing her throat and moving her hands so that they cup my face.

“You need to go for a swim, to the deeper moon pools and you need to cleanse yourself. These marks, even with short exposure, will only cause dire consequences. If you see the girl again, you must, without hesitation. Hunt her.”

She doesn’t want to say what we both know she means. Finish her. As father would say, were he in the room at this very moment. As if summoned by my mother’s internal and maybe even external discomfort, the man who I resemble in species, steps into the room. Immediately the power of the room, the tension, it disappears and reshuffles itself, surrounding my father in a blanket of refined dominance and barely concealed vengeance. He has never looked at anyone, even me without a sneer of disgust and indifference; the mask and the softness only comes out for my mother – even then very rarely in front of others, he steps between us and I know to step back, to lower my gaze, I don’t need to be bitten again as a reminder of my father’s status as the head of our household.

“What’s this, your heart is racing.”

He takes the scrap and hisses when the knowledge he has answers the question. He doesn’t have to ask, doesn’t have to hesitate when he tosses the scrap into the open flame and we watch as it burns, blackening and disappearing before he wraps his arms around my mother and she has to make very certain displays of safety, her head now tucked under his chin as he runs his hands over her back, soothing her and maybe himself.

“You blackened the house, bringing that back.”

“It was not as if I meant to.”

I say to my father later, my arms healed, but the sting of his siren’s bite will take more time to heal, as we look at each other from across the circular pool of water that glows with the power of the moon and the depths of the ocean. My skin had practically rejoiced when I’d submerged them, the pool extracting the evil intent of the knots and turning the usually crystal-clear water momentarily a dark crimson. But father ignores my attempts to calm him, rather he gestures for me to step into his space.

“Find her, make a show of finishing her. Especially if she does belong to a hunting family.”

“Would that not cause more… division?”

“One dead hunter daughter is no tragedy for them, merely a circumstance of their expectation of each other. Make it showy, remind them of the price they paid the last time they tried to expose us.”

Ruby POV

As it turns out, Lin is not the only visitor to be at home when I finally make it back, Lin having decided to run back home to change and refuel her scooter. Though she promised to be back later to talk about our sudden established plans to go and attend the bonfire on the beach. Thankfully the promised storm that should have hit by now; doesn’t or hasn’t, as if it too wanted to give me time to spend with my older sister before coming to ruin the otherwise pleasant ambiance of the day — though it annoys me that I can’t just be alone to think about that blonde stranger who’d saved the day.

My sister and I have always been close, and with her return from another semester at the prestigious Royal College of Art in London; I can only hope to hear more about her adventures in the big city. Sliding down next to her as she mends a hole in a sweater of mine that’s slightly moth bitten, she gestures to my latest knitting project and then to our mother’s tome of intricate knots.

“You’ve been practicing.” She smiles.

“Yes, but I still can’t get them just right… they’re always left warped when I try.”

“More practice Ruby, remember when I first started trying? Mother’s instructions are perfect, but neither of us are her.”

I go to pick up my needles, and to perhaps do some more knitting now that my sister is back, before I start to interrogate her about the point of such knots, when she stops and tilts her chin, in the direction of my hips.

“Can I see that?”

“Hmm? What? Did I get something on myself?” looking down at my shirt.

“No, you’re fine, I just have a strange feeling something’s happened.”

“Oh, ha… I mean, I guess.”

“Tell me?”

I recount the blonde stranger, how he’d wrapped his hands around my hips to stop me from falling epically on my face, how that it was even possible that a man that looked like he’d been carved out of marble could even exist. Ember listens intently and nods at times before she finally moves to lift the fabric of my shirt, there under the cover material are two sewn knots; knots that cover nearly all of my clothing, all of them hidden — I had never bothered to ask why my mother, and now my sister and maybe even me, why any of us bothered with doing such an odd piece of handcraftsmanship.

“Did you happen to see the palms of the man who saved you from falling on your face?”

“No, he let go and was on his way.”

“Well, according to ma’s notes, someone with ill intent can be harmed by touching them. Even not directly, and the knots react.”

“The knots react. Please. You make it sound like magic.”

“Look at them Ruby, notice anything different.”

Now it’s my turn, and I find myself slipping out of my shirt, putting it on the table between us and flipping the shirt inside out to see that indeed my sister is right, the knots which were grey and barely detectable, had become darker, like they had been doused in dirty paint water.

“Huh, strange.”

“I think you should avoid this stranger, just to be safe.”

“Even though he helped me?”

“Especially because he helped you. Dad will freak out if he finds out.”

Chapter Text

Ruby POV

“A masquerade type theme on the beach?”

“Yeah, I mean the attires casual, but the masks are not.”

“I don’t know… this doesn’t feel like such a good idea.”

I say to both Ember and Lin as they chew on their bites of bacon and scrambled egg, I had settled for making myself overnight muesli and so was contentedly biting into the last of the crisp pears and tart raspberries in the pantry. All three of us sitting haphazardly in the tiny book-covered living room of the cottage.

“Rubes, when was the last time you went to a party and had a good time?”

I shrug my shoulders, and Lin nearly falls out of her seat, which if I’m being honest, anyone could, she’s sitting on a stool with very crooked legs. Ember laughs, and tents her fingers, her breakfast forgotten for the moment. My older sister whose hands are covered in intricate rings, some of them from our mother and others I think she made in her metalworking course she had to take for a semester.

“See it like this Ruby, it’s the last night before you start at Maxton Hall.”

“All the more reason for me to stay home, get a good night’s worth of sleep.”

“Your adrenaline won’t allow for that, the party is also an annual tradition, good luck supposedly.”

“You didn’t go.” Furrowing at my sister’s statement.

“I didn’t and look how shit was my first year, I nearly dropped out! But I went that second year and everything fell into place. I want things to fall into place for you, besides.” Ember winks. “You might have someone.”

“Eww, no. Absolutely not.”

I finish eating my breakfast and then down the rest of my quickly cooling peppermint tea and both Ember and Lin sigh in resignation, I know they’re only trying to get me to live a little, but it’s hard to logically explain the process behind going to a party the night before the start of two very stressful years; and sure I’m not doing it alone, and sure Lin is also in the same set of shoes as I, but she’s always been more socially connected and her wealth — though thankfully she doesn’t wave or flaunt it, also means she’s going to have a breeze of a time making friends and getting through the more rigorous team-work expected in the first year at Maxton Hall.

“If the three of us go, we can all have fun. And on the off chance it actually sucks, then we’ll come straight home. Watch a movie and then go to bed at a reasonable hour.”

That afternoon, as I’m helping Ember hem one of her assignments — a long-pleated skirt for a project she was doing as part of her project folio, she rummages around in her suitcases and makes a triumphant noise of pleased pleasure.

“What’s that?” I look up from my work; my fingers are starting to ache.

“I knew I brought it with me, some of the costuming department gave me a small palette of makeup, the type that reacts to UV light. We could use some of this for our masks.”

“How would we use UV reactive powder for our masks?”

Lin has said she would do her best to convince her parents to let us borrow some of the antique Carnivale masks her family seemed to collect and stockpile from their trips every other year to the floating city of Venice.

“Well, I was reading ma’s book, and there’s some knots that are meant for the skin.”

“For the skin? Like tattoos?”

“Kinda? I mean, they’re meant to act as a shield, a deterring sort of factor. Supposedly they can stop you from being charmed.”

Ember walks out of her bedroom and returns with the second thick leather bound volume that our mother left us, but unlike the one with the knots we use for sewing into our clothing or carving them into our bedposts and our walls — only to hide them with whitewash, is folio is smaller and more loose in its bindings, Ember opens the folio to the page of information she requires and spins it around, there sketched beautifully is the silhouette of a woman, with the knots on her skin, painted on.

“That might actually work, we might be able to combine them.”

I say reading the tiny, scratched inscription.

To prevent the charming of the mind from those who seek to feed on the individual. Avoid contact with sea water. Can be combined with the knot for communication, allowing for short-ranged communication between two or more parties of the same bloodline.

“I will say the description sounds straight out of a fairytale. These knots are already pretty intricate, but for them to give us the ability to communicate with each other over a distance. Seems a little far-fetched, even for mum.”

“Has she ever been wrong? Has any of her knots or any of the things she taught gone wrong? Not worked?” Ember scolds me lightly.

“Alright, well if we don’t hear back from Lin about the masks, we can do what you suggested. I’m not sure if it’ll qualify for a mask.”

“Well if you’re so worried about it, we can do that and then we can try and make our own with what we have.”

James POV

I don’t find the girl, it seems she’s utterly vanished. If a human ground and clenched their jaw as much as I did, they would be without teeth. But still, I know she has to be a local, someone who is not yet intertwined in the finer fabric of things.

Pushing the door to the bookstore in town open, I allow myself to begin to dissect the scents that are there, every creature has a scent unique to them, it’s true. However, for humans to whom we consider prey, when we want to seek out a human to kill, there are ways to be able to find them, just as much as hunters are able to place a trace on us; if they’re lucky enough to get close enough without us snapping their sorry necks first.

Just as I think to leave, I catch a whiff of the girl. She was here, without preamble I leap up the manmade steps onto the alcove, where the owner and a mermaid himself, Graham Sutton stands behind the counter, serving drinks to an elderly human couple. I eye him with some amount of annoyance, and his pupils narrow, as he assesses me with some amount of scrutiny. Because although mermaids and sirens get along politically and because we tend to share the same spaces, mermaids have always been more mellowed out, less in-tuned with their primal instincts, almost… like they want to be humans, desperately.

“Can I help you?” He asks, now no longer occupied with his human clients.

“I’m looking for something. Someone.”

“Well, what does this person look like?”

I gesture to where the middle of my sternum is.

“A female, about this tall. Dark brown hair, eyes of a similar shade.”

Immediately Graham swallows, and then he tries to feign like he doesn’t know who I’m speaking about, in fact he shifts almost deliberately to cover the wall behind him, the wall with regular customers. Exposing my teeth and letting out a nearly inaudible hiss of anger, the humans in the room, sensing something dangerous seem to freeze and Graham looks to them and then to me with some amount of horror.

Mermaids aren’t capable of the supernatural feats of strength and elemental control that we sirens have been blessed with. Their gifts are softer, human-centric, because although a siren can charm a human into letting their guard down, mermaids are able to manipulate memories and human emotions with the bat of an eye. Graham knows he won’t beat me in a fight if it comes down to it, but he also knows that he can’t well not protect his human clients.

I saunter over and lift the little wooden gate that prevents customers from stepping into the small café-kitchen area, and shove him aside, he winces, and I swear I hear one of the bones in his right leg crack. Someone hasn’t been returning to the ocean to revitalise as he should be. Behind him, the pictures he tried to hide, there the girl who has been my query and quandary for the past few hours is standing there holding up a cardboard sign, smiling into the camera. She’s grouped with four or five other locals, under the bracket book club members.

“Ruby.” I murmur under my breath, confirming for myself the name of the girl I need to kill.

“Leave her alone.”

“Can’t do that, and if I were you. I’d spend a day or two away. That leg won’t heal right.”

I return the way I came; I hear Graham let out a shuttering breath at my implications, at the intentions of my words. Ruby’s scent becomes even more apparent when I shuffle and skim through the recently returned books, picking up the cover that is just barely cooling from her touch, damn it. I just missed her. Still, memorising the scent of burning sage and rosemary, I awaken the parts of me that are all predator, I have the scent of my prey. I now just have to get to her before she slips away again.

I follow her scent until I find myself standing in a street with only one singular house, a cottage. Shoving my hands into my pockets and knowing that at any moment the protections of hunters could be sprung on me, I approach the shabby little thing, noticing that the lights are on and there are several shadows moving behind the curtains, I have to duck behind a tree when I hear the front door open and there stands Ruby. She’s on the phone to someone, her fingers busily moving over the screen before she returns the rectangular device to her ear, I tune out her voice, trying to see if there’s any way to get to her, to just get the deed done, even if it’s not what my father wants — he would want me to lure her out, to a more public place and slay her right there and then.

As she hugs herself, she rocks on her feet. Completely oblivious to my presence and the mounting danger to her safety. Moving from beyond the shadow of the tree I decide perhaps it might be best to listen into whatever she’s talking about; it might give me a clue as to her intentions and plans for the next few days.

“They’re lovely Lin, Ember thinks she’ll be able to pair the visage of the sun with her earrings. I love mine too, I didn’t know they did animal type masks for Carnivale.”

Ahh, the masquerade party on the beach, of course, so Ruby has intentions of going. Perfect.

“I mean it’s a little tacky… a swan? Really? Are you trying to get me to play Odette or something?”

She laughs, pinching the bridge of her nose, before she turns to step back inside.

“I’ll see you then, Ember and I will get there — I mean it’s walking distance. Yes, I’m sure we’ll be fine. See you there.”

Chapter Text

James POV

||The morning of the Bonfire||           

“J-James.”

Elaine bats her eyes at me, pushing her chest outwards, so that I can see more of her breasts, it's nothing that I have not already seen before, but today it appears Alistair’s sister is keener than ever to try and secure me as her mate.

All of us — Lydia, Cyril, Alistair, Wren, Elaine and I are sitting in one of the more open-aired chamber caves that make up just one part of the labyrinth system that make up our aquatic home, here we can breathe and speak like humans. Though as I run my hand through the water, which calls to me, and part of me wants to obey the call, I force myself to look over at Lydia.

My younger sister has never been able to hide when she’s in a foul mood. Today it seems someone or something has gone wrong in her perfectly planned routine, and as Cyril tries to calm her down, his hands methodically rubbing her leg, I can’t help but wonder if she’s in pain.

“Oi, Lyd.”

“What!” She snaps, realising it’s just me, she sighs. “What.”

“Your leg, what’s wrong with it? Cyril’s been rubbing and massaging it like a drowning human.”

Alistair and Elaine chuckle.

“I don’t know, it started aching yesterday. Like I’d tripped and fallen on something.”

“There’s no bruising and the muscles are fine, so are the ligaments.” Cyril rushes to say.

Huh, taking my sister’s comments into consideration, I raise up from where I’d been coasting on the surface of the water, playing with it as I am wont to do, and Cyril knowing clearly that I’ll flatten him if he doesn’t get out of the way, removes his hands from my sister’s calf and returns to where Wren is lounging, almost snoring at this point — does he ever sleep properly and when he’s supposed to?

Lydia for what it’s worth is stretched out on one of the carved cave benches made of solid granite, she barely moves her leg to make room for me when she lets out a hiss of discomfort, her eyes narrowing for just a smidge before she lets out a breath she didn’t think she needed to hold.

“Where is the pain precisely.”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Try me.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to…” her voice wobbles.

“If it’ll help with the pain, I’ll do it.”

Lydia considers her options, before she taps where the beginning of her right femur meets her knee, she makes a face at Cyril who ever insistent on jumping through the loops she provides, offers her his hands, and practically starts to purr. I can feel Lydia’s natural instinct lean into the sound; it’ll block out what I’m about to attempt.

I’ve always suspected that Lydia and Cyril were mates, but I’ve never bothered to confirm it with either of them, and so far, as our parents are aware, both Lydia and I are still waiting to be paired off with a suitable creature of pure breeding.

As gently as I can, I probe my sister’s leg, finding the exact point in which the nerves are misbehaving. When I do, and it’s only slight — normally something that shouldn’t be affecting my sister this badly, I extend my nails only enough for them to be pointed and needle like in their precision.

“Breathe deep Lyd. This will sting but it will feel better.”

“Hurry up.”

“I’ve got you; you’re ok Lydia.” Cyril kisses her hands.

Stabbing into the flesh, causes my younger sister to flinch, her own teeth maybe the only siren thing about her, elongating in preparation to bite me for harming her. I don’t let her pain distract me from forcing a small but very targeted amount of my venom into her system. Just as quickly as my nail pierced her flesh and my venom filled the space it left behind, the wound seals itself, and a harden scale — indicative of a wounded mermaid, begins to form, scabbing it over and protecting the soon to be healed misbehaving nerve.

I don’t know when I started to realise that my bite, and the sting of venom that should be lethal to most, turned out to be more soothing and healing. Like liquid gold, so long as I can access the person’s bloodstream that I’m trying to heal. It might be the only good thing about me, everything else’s already been lost to the primal destructive tendencies of a full-blooded siren.

Cyril stops purring the moment Lydia’s body relaxes and she sighs in wholehearted contentedness, good the pain has stopped. Now all we need to worry about is finding the source of her pain. Phantom or not, it’s not something that I want to sit on, especially if it causes her such a degree of distress that we’re all paying the price for her emotional instability.

“Thank you.”

“Wish you’d do that to me.” Elaine pouts.

“Fucking hell, that’s gross. No. Nope. I am out of here if you’re going to start.” Alistair gags.

“Ease up Ellington.” Lydia rolls her eyes, back to her confident fiery self.

“So, what are we doing tonight, besides having fun. We hunting or?”

Wren asks, abruptly like he’s the most lucid person in cave. I find myself folding my hands over my chest and have a think about whether or not I want to discuss Ruby, whether or not it would be worth it to get their help in hunting her down. How do I phrase it?

“That look tells me you’ve got a job to do.” Lydia murmurs.

“I do.” This catches everyone’s attention. “We have a hunter problem.”

“Shit? Seriously? How?” Cyril asks.

“Well, the other day, I met a girl.” There are a few whoops, Elaine hisses. “Not like that, she was wearing knotted clothing, the type that hurts and causes marks.”

“So, from an old one, she still here?”

“Yeah, found her house, likely coming to the party tonight to ambush us. Might bring backup. So be on guard, tell the others, but don’t approach her. Leave that to me.”

“What’s the girl’s name?”

“Ruby.”

Ruby POV

||The night of the Bonfire||

I step onto sand for the first and probably the only time in my life, both Ember and Lin just a few steps ahead of me. All three of us got ready together, Ember, as the vestige of the sun, a golden goddess, with adornments and baubles that shimmer almost timelessly, like my self-assured sister usually is. Lin, the wildcard, picking a mask that resembles something more like a flower, I think it’s meant to be a hybrid of a rose or an orchid, with the two of them together, it’s like they coordinated or something. Which leaves me, in a stunning — custom beach dress, thank you Ember. White and slightly pleated and altered to make it look as though I’m truly the swan that I am pretending to be tonight.

The two of them turn to look at me, and I hear Ember’s voice almost uncannily in my ear.

‘Are you ok? Coming? Not too much too soon?’

I’m ok, I’ll be ok, deep breaths Ruby, I can do this. I continue walking over the velvet smooth like grains, this is not at all how I imagined what sand would feel like, I always thought it would be coarse, something unlikeable, like gravel or asphalt.

When I catch up to my sister and Lin, both of them are appraising the party, there’s already a lot of people here, all of them with their masks on, all of them dancing, flirting, drinking.

“What’s our plan?”

I say under my breath, already wanting to back into the nearest metaphorical corner, already feeling too exposed, we haven’t yet spotted the so-called main event, the large bonfire; I mean it’s the reason we’re all here, right? Beside the debauchery.

“I’m going to go get a drink, explore. We’ll meet back here, or we’ll find ourselves in front of the fire sooner or later.”

“Alright…”

But before I can cling to either, bodies press up against us, and I stumble, oh god please don’t let me fall face into the sand, that would be terrifyingly embarrassing.

“Easy.”

That voice! I recognise that voice, knowing now that sand is about as reliable as the same pavement where I first heard his voice, I try to tamp down the embarrassment at being found like this again. He helps me stand upright, my toes digging into the sand below me. He lets go too soon, and I have to focus hard to see his mask clearly, or at least the design.

I am the swan, and he… well the gloriously handsome stranger whose now saved me twice from falling on my face like an idiot, well he’s a wolf.

Shit is he… going to be hunting me?

Course not, don’t be ridiculous, his arm comes to gently rest on my side, moving me along as several tipsy bodies sway past, all of them spinning and laughing, having a great time, and then there’s me, being held up by a mysterious stranger — who is wearing another crisp white shirt, thin linen and perfectly tailored shorts, I didn’t even know shorts could be tailored to fit a man so perfectly. Swallowing down the desire and allowing him to move me as he sees fit, to a less busy part of the beach, he lifts his mask and shakes out his hair, his fingers running through the golden-sun-touched locks like he’s really made of marble and oh fucking hell.

“See something you like?” he teases, shit why do I keep getting caught gawking?

“Sorry, I’m being awfully rude.” Maybe I should take my mask off, it’d make my life easier, I’m sure, less tacky this way.

“Don't apologise, need a drink?”

“I…” well I don’t drink, but I might just if it’ll help me survive the night.

“Water? Soda?” he offers. Like he’s reading my mind, and I wonder for the first time if I’m that easy to read, that I’m so impressionable.

“Water, please.”

“No problem, I know where we can get some. Think you can keep up?”

“Sure. Who doesn’t like a challenge.”

“Great. Follow me.”

‘All good?’

Ember asks, she must be close by or she’s keeping a closer eye on me than I thought, I try to spot her in the crowd, but she doesn’t seem to be anywhere near me, and I also have to remind myself to keep up with the mysterious stranger. He walks so confidently on the sand, like its solid ground and I find myself envious of his grace. I still haven’t figured out how this short-range communication thing works, it didn’t exactly specify the how’s and whys in the little snippet we read about the knot for it.

He manages to lead us, rather seamlessly through the crowd. People notice him, make room, and when they realise, I’m following him, some of them stop to look at me, before going back to whatever they’re doing; especially when he turns to make sure, I’m following.

“You have long legs.”

I comment, like it’s the most fucking intelligent thing that can come out of my mouth, when we finally stop, he’s rummaging in the ice bucket of a bar, where there are staff, but they seem to know who he is, they don’t ask him to pay, don’t even bat an eye when they see me.

“Mm, but you kept up. That’s an achievement.”

I don’t know if I should be flattered or not, when I finally unscrew the lid and gulp down what feels like an Everest amount of water, he himself has retrieved a soda bottle, maybe he doesn’t want me to feel pressured into drinking. I’m grateful that he’s being so considerate, but still, none of this gives me a chance to see his hands, to see if he’s what my sister, what everyone in this ludicrous town thinks is true.

Chapter Text

Elaine POV

I cannot help the detestable disgusting sensation of rage and jealousy that occupies my brain, my body as I watch James’s talk to the very problem of the night. The problem that is keeping him from paying attention to me. The problem that if I don’t fix for him, will mean I will never get to be the only girl he pays attention to.

Still, I cannot help but admit that the girl, if we’re going to call her that; not her name — ocean knows I would never stoop to mention or remember a human by their names, is pretty.

But not in the siren lethality and ethereal kind of way, nor in the catwalk, magazine spread, Hollywood movie, interview press kind of way either. She’s beautiful in the simplicity of being a human. Her dress, adoringly perfect, holding her up in fabric and curves, accentuating everything about her; but again, not in any of the stereotypical marginal and frankly quite boring ways that humans imagine themselves to be. Whoever dressed her, who made that dress, knew something that the rest of us, siren, mermaid and human alike; obviously doesn’t or didn’t know about her. Like she’s the reason why pandora opened that damned box, even though I know I’m complicating matters and twisting stories.

At least she’s not touching James, she keeps her distance, her head tilted so their eyes meet. He’s polite too, keeping an eye on every twitch, every breath, every single detail that matters to a siren whose assessing his prey, seeing if they’re worth it.

Perhaps, I will help move it along, remind him that the night is still young; if he finishes his hunt now, he won’t have to remember the girl in the pretty white dress — like she’s some godforsaken destination bride; augh, I’d rather decapitate myself than ever be one of those. So I raise up from where I’ve been sat, instantly severing the connections I’ve made with the human males who sit around me, all of them more or less dazed from me draining them, they’ll recover, and Cyril or Alister or yes, even Lydia will come by, look into their blown pupils and make them forget that they ever saw me, ever saw what I did to them, that they ever came.

“I’m actually a little lost. Trying to find my sister.”

The girl nervously turns to look around, gesturing to the boisterous crowd, most of the humans have moved onto singing off-key a terrible rendition of some 90s classic. James nods, he’s listening but mostly to make sure there’s no sudden linchpin in his plans. He’ll hate me, now, hell maybe even later but one of us has to make the first move.

So, I approach, giving him plenty of times to hurry things along, to finish the job. Our sirens are circling the other, his is as every male siren of perfect breeding reacts. Back off the siren warns, this is my hunt, my chase. Whereas mine, though eagerly possessive of him, doesn’t want to just take this sitting down. Urging his to hurry up, that more people will notice that something’s going on, the longer he waits to move in, to just snap her sorry neck; he doesn’t have to feed off the person he’s going to inevitably kill, not unless he wants to make this a long drawn out and painful process for her.

Just when I think he’s going to take a hint, and do what he needs to, she stumbles, again. Her ignorant and quite frankly offensive human feet lose their grip on the sand, she was smart to either remove her shoes before coming or come completely bare foot; like he said in the cave, she’s a local. A local who's been hiding, sure but a local, nonetheless.

He catches her, his hands on her bare shoulders, both of them having dropped the bottles of whatever they were drinking, and the girl has the audacity to laugh. To laugh in the face of James Beaufort. What a fucking—

“Don’t.”

I feel a warm hand on my hip, and the immediate manipulation of my emotions, turning to see Lydia, dressed in blue, dressed as a peacock, not a peahen. Her hair is neatly braided into a series of intricate knots that would make any weaver envious, she sides steps me, covering my view of the girl who has James’s attention and now acts like a physical barrier.

Lydia Beaufort might be a mermaid — following in their mother’s footsteps, but she’s definitely no Cordelia with her barbed words and seductive persuasion. Lydia is calculated, sharply intelligent, disgustingly observant and not a mermaid who anyone with their full facilities, pisses off.

She nudges us in the opposite direction, covering for her brother. Ensuring he has the space and means to do what he wants, in that maddening sense of Beaufort time; it’s what the rest of us call it, seeing the Beaufort’s doing what they do best, in their own time.

I think we make it thirty or so paces, an appropriate enough distance, when in his clumsy infatuation, Cyril comes jogging towards us. But not in his usual golden retriever kind of way, lord knows we’ve all been watching them spin and dance around each other since before our other instincts woke up and we realised we weren’t human. No, this jog is panicked, like he can’t believe what he’s just witnessed and when he scoops her into a hug and practically begins to shake like a bloody leaf in the gale. I know to immediately be on guard.

Calling to the ocean at this distance is tricky, but not impossible. concentrating on bring the waves to us, it’s a new moon – or the very last night of a new moon. So, in theory a siren’s abilities are at its strongest, because the humans are less likely to notice.

Cyril doesn’t let me finish what I had hoped to do, before Lydia whirls around and bolts in the direction of her brother. This leaves me with him, still shaking and he’s gasping, panicked and wanting to follow but probably having been told to stay put by Lydia.

“What the fuck is wrong with you Vegas?”

“H-hunter. T-two of them. We need to go. Go now. James was right. Ruby bought backup.”

“And you’re panicking because there are hunters? Haven’t you dealt with them before.”

“S-sure, like we all have. B-but.”

“Spit it out."

“I… you…” he blinks, like he’s not sure who he’s speaking to or what for. “Al’s hurt.”

I can’t help what I do next, putting my hands around Cyril’s throat, to some it looks like I’m just grabbing him there in a sudden but very physically intimate position, but we know that’s not the case, I bare my teeth, and he winces, his body buckling.

“He’s hurt; Wren has him. We didn’t see it. But he…”

“Where the fuck is my brother, take me to him. Idiot.”

So, Cyril does, and I have to put aside all my other priorities; to follow and make sure that my brother is alright.

Ruby POV

‘WE NEED TO GO. NOW. THEY’RE HERE AND THEY’RE REAL.’

Ember’s scream through the short communications causes me to stumble, right into the man’s arms again, this time though he’s holding me up by my shoulders. His calloused hands are rough against the skin of my shoulders, but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t withdraw. Instead, he takes a step closer and our drinks, having fallen onto the sand, are left abandoned.

But I can’t seem to move, in spite of the urgency of my sister’s tone. Hell, I can’t even seem to breathe, the man; I still haven’t asked him for his name, still haven’t properly introduce myself, lifts one of his hands, and gently runs it under the space where my chin, meets my neck and then his fingers find my pulse. It’s such a slow seductive move.

Even though I have no idea what his name is, what he’s even like, I swear if he’s about to kiss me…

Now it’s his turn to stumble, and when I manage to keep our weight up and our bodies collide, he flinches and then he pushes back. Letting go of me, severing whatever was about to happen as he reaches behind him, almost languidly, like he’s going to reveal a flask of some kind, or maybe a gun, or who knows what you can expect from tall blonde men made of marble.

I go to ask if he’s alright, but when I’m forcibly ripped away from him, and my feet remember what their purpose actually is, I have to twist – not only to see whose got me now, but to see him.

His hands the ones that he had on my shoulders, the ones that he now has palm up, reveal welts and…

Blood.

James POV

I feel the pain of purified electrum strike deep into my lower back, my body’s visceral reaction to being attacked at the precise moment I was going to strike tells me all I need to know.

Either Ruby knew and this was her plan, to get me to a point where I knew I would be vulnerable. Or she didn’t know, and this is the work of someone else, removing the blade with a twist and wanting to double over from the shock of someone having the gall to stab me in the back, I can feel my teeth sharpen, my pupils dilating and my body start to shift into one prepared to kill and to defend.

“KNIFE! RUN!!”

Screams someone, possibly a mermaid whose noticed what’s happened and has anticipated the problem, decided it’s better to spook the collective group of drunk humans then to reveal our nature. I’m thankful for them, but that also means I’m running out of time and Ruby…

She was standing with me, just a moment ago, I was ready to kill her. But in the screaming and the pain and the scent of my own blood filtering into the air, she’s vanished, her brown eyes disappearing into the crowd, her white dress — probably going to be ruined from the crush of human, mermaid and siren feet alike. Disappears, as though she was never at the party, and as though I was never the monster she’s been told to fear.

Ruby POV

My lungs, my legs, every single part of me is practically burning when Ember, Lin and I stumble and crash into the living room of the cottage, with Lin turning around just in the few seconds before falling into me to slam and lock the door. All of us laying in a heap as my heart and my head pound with a combination of fear, adrenaline and understanding — no, a realisation.

“And just exactly where have the three of you been?”

In the absolute sheer panic of being dragged away from the party, from seeing what I saw, from running back home like the hounds of hell have come to collect me, my sister, my best friend. None of thought to remember to be quiet, to be stealthy, to return unnoticed.

But it doesn’t matter now, dad sits, in his chair with a fucking harpoon gun in his lap, not the kind you see in those old-maritime museums, no this one, is modern and lethal and the barbed hook of the speared stick shows that it’ll kill whatever it hits in one single blow.

“Dad.” Ember gasps, getting up, regaining her posturing, helping Lin and I up. “We…”

“You went to the bonfire, you saw them.” Our father deduces immediately.

Chapter Text

Ruby POV

I remember distinctly the last time I saw my mother.

I was on the cusp of turning seven, and she was tying my shoelaces and murmuring under her breath, some string of words that I couldn’t understand. She’d just done the same thing for Ember, and when she was done, she knelt back and looked at us.

“My sun and my moon, my beautiful girls.”

“Mama?”

“Not now honey, mama needs to speak, and mama needs you to listen. Can you two do that for me?”

“Course mama!” we chimed in union.

“Brilliant, my smart girls.”

She stood, but didn’t straighten up, not immediately. In her hand was a grey coat, thick and heavy and the sort that mama never wore, she never let us touch it either. Instead, she revealed a parcel wrapped in pink parchment paper, two of them identical in all ways save our scrawled names on the tickets.

“These are for you, darlings. Don’t open it now, wait till tonight. Make sure to hang them up right over your doors, Ok?”

Lord the anticipation of then, the jittery feeling of knowing we’d done something good to be given a special treat like this. Of course we held the packages tight to our chests. Mama’s next words stung.

“Mama has to go away, for a little while.”

“Why?” I couldn’t help but blurt, where was she going?

“Because mama has work to do and mama needs to be sure that her two darlings will stay safe.”

“C-can we come with you?” Ember had asked immediately.

“No, not for this, but I’ll come home soon. Now make sure to help papa out, he’s going to miss me more than either of you could combined. Be safe, practice what I have taught you, don’t forget it. When it’s safe, mama will return, and we’ll be alright.”

That was nearly twelve years ago, mother never returned. But her words hung in the air and the gifts she left us remained resolutely as she ordered, hung up high over the edges of our rooms, above the doors.

Chimes that never actually chimed. Both designed, for her sun and her moon.

“All of you sit.”

My father gestures to the worn couch that he spent far too many nights sleeping on, waiting by the front door for mother to return. Even though we’re all a little sore from having been on top of each other just mere moments ago, we take a seat, removing our masks — I’m glad none of them were damaged in the rush to get home. Dad lowers the harpoon gun, placing it by the side of the door, his wheels wincing at the sudden shift, he runs his hands through his hair, short and cropped as it is, and then proceeds to rub his temples. Like he cannot believe he’s here, like he cannot believe he’s witnessed his children being absolutely stupid. But he doesn’t yell when he speaks, doesn’t point fingers, merely sighs, resigned and speaks in a tone that I haven’t, that Ember and I haven’t heard since our mother left.

Once, not so long ago in the grand schemes of the total human experience, there was a woman, and a man who fell in love in spite of the world between them.

 

She was no human, but rather a creature from the depths, the sea, the place forbidden for men to go. Not from fear, or from the lack of knowledge, but because back then the wards of human intelligence, told them it was safer to remain on the land, to ignore the calls of the ocean, the wind, the sky and the moon.

 

These rules did not apply to the woman, a creature so unique, so beautiful and rare. Coming from a people who had no men, who had no knowledge of the dangerous inclinations’ humans tend to have.

 

But this creature, she was sick of the ocean, sick of the shifting tides and the never-ending cold survival that rioted in her veins and told her to keep one eye open. She dared to venture, stripping away the wildness of her people, dressing simply, a grey coat in hand.

 

She ventured into the seaside town and fell in love with the humans she met, though she could barely understand and speak their tongue, they let her in, opened their arms and allowed this peculiar stranger to make a space in their lives.

 

For a time, she was happy, this woman, loving every bit of the life she was making, never did she think she would have to return to her home, to the ocean. She felt whole, contented, and of course she fell in love.

 

But love, like most things, is not a prevention or a shield or anything solid like stone or mortar. Not when people start to begin to darken, when fear and agony and all the ugliness of life come pounding on the doorstep and you’ve got no choice but to face it.

 

Though she had never harmed any humans, though she worked hard to integrate herself and to make crafts, of knots charmed with secrets to keep the people and the town she loved safe. To keep them from illness, and from fear and all the troublesome worries of mortals. That hadn’t stopped her own people, who mistakenly thought she’d been taken, from harming the people this woman loved.

 

One night, a storm struck the coast, and it was the kind that promised to destroy the idyllic place she called home now. The people huddled in their cottages, locked their doors, boarded their windows and began to pray to the gods of old to keep them safe, they pleaded and cried, shouting out and hoping that this storm would come to pass.

 

But the woman knew better. She knew this was a warning, a summons to return home. To take her coat and to say goodbye and to never look back at the people she called her new family.

 

When the storm passed and the damage was assessed, the people thought the worst of it was over, and their lives resumed.

 

But she began to worry, began to see the threats and the splits in the seams she’d so painstakingly weaved, craft by craft, needle to thread, stew to exquisite feasts — the sort usually reserved for the likes of gods and kings. Still, it was too late, she could not return, she still had her coat, and she still had her love, the man she’d chosen, a sailor, one of the only foolhardy men who dared to ignore the conscious collective, who dared to build a raft of scrap wood and rusted iron nails. A man who felt more at home on the waters, than he did on the land.

 

Then her son was born, the first of his kind. Her people had only ever been able to produce girls, it was what she had been told, again and again, no man can come from a union of a woman like she, and a human like him. He had no coat, no ability to transform as she did. But he did have her magic.

 

Another storm blew, this one even more dangerous and this one, well it took lives. In its cruelty, it left the land and the cottage in which the woman, her husband and their son lived untouched. So, people knew who to blame, who to come after for their broken homes, their dead loved ones.

 

This time the humans did not just ignore it, did not just remember that a storm like this can happen. No, they came with burning torches, sticks and other implements of cruelty. She was not home then, nor her son; but the man she loved was.

 

She found him, beaten, broken and their cottage burned. Everything they owned, destroyed save her coat and the books and crafts she’d willed and wished and charmed to keep the fire from harming. It broke her heart, to see the man she loved, so cruelly turned into a shade of himself. But she knew this was it, that if she wanted them to live, wanted them to thrive; for her own baby son to become a man. She would need to leave.

 

As any mother would, she did her best to prepare her love, her child. For a world that would not accept him, she wrote down her knowledge, step by step, page by page, in the dead of the night when the man she loved laid sleeping on the floor, his body too broken to do much but groan and cause him to shake.

 

The next storm came, and her time was up. She carried herself, her husband and their son to the beach, with all the knowledge she had made for them, tied up in thick parchment and string. She held them for as long as she could possibly mustered. Told her husband that her son would have the power to protect them both, that he would grow and have talents like no other man, no other human could fathom. That it was all she could do, to leave him with the words she could on the pages she’d made.

 

When the boy asked his mother, why she had to go. She told him it was for love. For love, for life and of course, for luck, to change the dangerous and angered fates she’d scorned. She told him to study hard, to learn her craft, to practice the magic that was beginning to blossom in his heart.

 

She left as he turned seven, a remarkable age for a loss so deep. Although the boy hated it, hated her, he took what she told him, the lessons she’d whisper to him and no one else. He took it all and he built something with it, made himself the man she’d hope he would become.

 

He went onto to become a great scholar, a bridge between the ocean and the world of man, he fell in love and went onto have children, boys and girls. However, unlike himself, his sons weren’t capable of the magic he contained — rather they were touched by the magic in other ways, ways that made them stronger, bolder, more likely to step in front of a mad man with a flaming gun, the type that could walk away from that unscathed. His daughters, though, they shared his gifts and his talents, and they learned from him the same secrets he’d been told. It was they who began to prepare once more. For a love like their grandparents, it was they who chose to keep the heritage alive, it was they who would become the protectors of mankind, against the cruel mistress of the cold sea and her dark creatures. They became the hunters. So that we would never be the prey.

Chapter Text

Ruby POV

I do not manage a wink of sleep. Too caught up in the story. Too caught up in what it all means. Dad mentioned that he didn’t think there were many other hunters left, or at least not families of them like there used to be.

What was more surprising than having my world partially turned upside down in the knowledge that I am not fully human. Was the fact that of the three of us listening, it was Lin who seemed to be the least surprised; as if she he had heard the story before, and when our father finished, she removed from some hidden away compartment of her outfit, a long thin hook like blade, covered in a bit of something that was faintly bronze.

“What the fuck is that?” I ask her, completely accusatory.

“It’s like the spear on the end of your dad’s harpoon, an electrum knife. Or rather a ‘pick’ my mother gave it to me”

“So, you come from a hunting family too?” Dad asks. Softly, like he doesn’t mean to intrude.

“Yeah, I do. The legend you just shared, we have our own version, less pretty. Less romantic. But same idea. But unlike you, where it’s the females who keep the magic alive, it’s our men who do that.”

“Jesus Christ. Lin, you didn’t think to tell me that?” I hiss, feeling betrayed.

“I couldn’t. We’re sworn to secrecy unless something like this happens and the other party gives knowledge that they know. I’m sorry Rubes, I never wanted to keep it from you.” It’s true, her voice is raw, and she bites back the tears I see forming.

“So, what’s the bronze stuff? On the tip. Cannot imagine that’s paint.” Ember asks next, whilst I’m still reeling.

“Blood, of one of the ones at the party tonight. A hybrid mix, got a bit of everything in him.”

“Everything?”

“Yeah, Siren and Mermaid. None of what our ancestors have but a full blood, nonetheless. No human, it would be a little more like copper.”  

“And you just stabbed someone?”

“Well, I’ll be damned if I see one of them feeding off a man who looks like he’s about to drop dead— like the ones in the reports. I have a duty, and now you do too.”

Getting ready to go to Maxton Hall, to be under the bright dome skylight and the steady crush of an eager crowd of excited students, is less daunting now that I know humans aren’t actually supposedly the only species with two legs to walk the earth. But I do, I force my hair into a braid, wetting the fly aways and ensuring I look absolutely pristine. I force myself to eat my muesli, force down large and overexaggerated gulps of peppermint tea. Force myself to check again for what feels like the hundredth million time that I have all the books, all the tools, everything I need to succeed.

“I have something for you.”

Lin tells me as we’re walking up to the iron-wrought gates, they’re large and ornate and ancient and imposing and whilst every other part of me feels electrified to be standing here, about to take my first proper steps to securing my future, another part; the logical part that is freaking the fuck out, focuses intently on Lin who holds out a set of thin white gold rings.

“What are those?”

“They’re from my family; your family has knots. To communicate, we have rings. If there happens to be one of them, rub the ring with your other hand, it’ll tell me where you are, and I’ll come and get rid of it for you.”

It. Them. The sirens and the mermaids, the enemy. Lin is speaking like she’s about to go and hunt herself a male polar bear. Still, I take the ring, it’s simple, not showy, the kind that looks almost like a commitment ring, I slip it onto my right pinkie, where it’ll be out of the way, I don’t want to have to use it; but refusing it seems like that’ll only cause Lin and I to fight— and I absolutely do not want to fight with my best friend over this.

James POV

It’s Lydia who finds me, paralysed on the sand, bleeding like a fucking human. She bends over; her hands panicked her eyes roaming over for injuries.

“James.” She shakes, her breathing frantic. “James, please say something.”

“Can’t move.” I wince. “It hurts.”

“Jesus and his sainted mother.” we hear Wren.

Wren when not completely distracted by the thoughts in his own head, and when he’s not helping me make a winning move on the lacrosse field, is probably the most experienced of us all when it comes to fighting and avoiding hunters.

He practically picks me up, no issue and when we spot what cut me deep, he growls.

“Fucking beasts. Don’t touch that, Lydia. Help me bring James to the water. We need to get the metal out of him before it starts to actually kill him.”

“S-shouldn’t we take it… for evidence?”

“If you or I, or any of our kind touch that without gloves, we’ll be as flat as your brother is.”

Lydia, knowing she shouldn’t argue with Wren. Just when I think I can breathe through the pain, whatever Wren is on about begins and I suddenly feel like my heart is going to fall out of the wound. I grit my teeth and try not to cry out.

“Hang on Beaufort, not much further. You’re not the only casualty of the night.”

“What? W-who else?”

Unable to transform, and not from lack of trying but because the metal is preventing me from moving, from being able to do what sirens are supposed to do in situations like this.

“Alistair, he was also attacked. By someone else, he’s far worse. They actually had the nerve to stab him directly in the chest.”

“Shit!” I curse.

“He’s being treated, there was a healer… yeah, I know. A fucking healer, nearby. Thank fuck for it. But it was too close.”

Wren drops me in the ocean like I’m a brick and immediately, the water rushes into the wound, and I howl, opening my mouth and swallowing water, my gills emerging so I don’t choke and don’t die.

Lydia POV

Seeing James, laying on his back, in a puddle of his own blood is a sight I’ll never erase. Not ever. Of course, I’m glad to know he’s alright, that he’ll be ok. The cut on his back, it wasn’t as deep as we thought it was, but it’ll scar. Electrum always scars.

Alister, like Wren said, is not so lucky. We meet up with them back in the caves, not the ones we’re used to though; no these are the ones given to the only mermaids amongst us who can heal a hunter’s deadly mark and bring us back to life.

He’s wrapped fully body to toe in white pale seaweed, his chest uncovered and the wound, having landed right over his heart, is blackened, the flesh there, failing to scale over, to heal and to be made new, resilient and strong. He breathes, but barely, and the three healers by his side, who wipe away at the goop, who whisper words of the ancient tongue, to soothe him, to try to get him to rest, to stay still so he doesn’t cause any more damage.

“Will he be alright?” James asks, despite also being in an examination chair.

“Hard to say, it could have severed his aorta, there would have been no saving him then.”

“F-fuck.” Alistair groans, his hands clammy with sweat.

“Be still Master Ellington, we must be delicate and precise with the healing.”

He’s chastised, and I want to slap the healer who just said that. We hear four sets of hurried feet, and before we know it, our parents fill the chamber, Alistair’s parents, rush over to their son, shouting and shaking and raging that their heir has been harmed in such a grievous manner. That he needs to be submerged directly into one of the pools of healing — until one of the healers’ deadpans that any contact with a wound like this will kill Alistair for certain and there’s no amount of moonlight or the ocean’s blessing to bring him back.

Our parents on the other hand, are less panicked, less all over the place. More composed, like they were anticipating this. Father inspects James’ back. Calculating what kind of blade might have been used, by whom, if he recognises the sort of aftermath for this kind of injury. Mother on the other hand, reaches for our father’s hand and then begins to stroke and purr for James. Neither of our parents touches me, reaches to ask me about what I know, about what happened. Of course, they never do. It’s James they worry about, James who is the nominal heir, me? Ha, I’m the spare. Finally, after what feels like a small infinity of waiting, my father looks at me; his eyes sharp and his tone demanding.

“And where were you in all of this?”

It’s a strange question.

“I was at the party, I”

“You were at the party, but you weren’t at James’ side. When he NEEDED you.”

What? Taken aback by the words, and James looking at our father, then our mother and then finally at me. Shakes his head, he knows or at least he’s trying to tell me that arguing is only going to cause more pain, that I should just let out father make the assumptions he’s going to make and be done with it.

“She was with me.”

Cyril’s completely un-welcomed voice bounces off the cave walls and everyone who’s not an Ellington — be it through birth or marriage, turns to look at Cyril, our father’s eyes narrow and he steps away from our mother and James and me and if looks could turn a man to nothing but star dust; well, that look is directly fully at Cyril.

“And who do you think you are? This is private.”

“Me? Lord Beaufort.” Cyril says with every drop on conviction in his normally jittered bones. “I’m Lydia’s mate.”

James POV

Man, if I had to declare who in the world has the worst possible fucking timing for personal announcements during a literal family crisis. It has got to be Cyril.

I’m not sure whose face I want to see first, my sister’s at this adamant declaration, our mother’s whose probably assessing if Cyril is serious, or our father who might just kill the man before he can explain himself — I’ll admit that Cyril probably is doing this to shield Lydia, to protect her when I presently cannot, so I’ll have to give him some points for the absolute big-dick energy he’s presenting himself with.

Our father approaches Cyril, claws and teeth at the ready to make a snack when Lydia lets out a sound that I’ve only ever known a fully terrified mermaid whose about to lose their mate make. The kind of sound that our grandmother made years ago when her mating bond was severed. When our grandfather died and she collapsed right then and there and never was the same person since.

She falls to the floor, and Cyril, despite usually being thick-headed and with even thicker limbs, leaps quite impressively over the six or so feet of our father’s head, takes two steps and is suddenly by her side, covering her as she cries. As the hard solid cement truth of a bond settling, clicking into place. Locking them together. Our mother, completely spell bound stops humming, stops running her hands through my hair and for once, in her absolutely passive position stands between our father, my sister and her newly secured mate.

“We’re ok, we’re fine.” Cyril tries in vain to get Lydia to stop crying.

He holds her, her own head nuzzling into the crook of his neck. Breathing, deep, in and out. Cyril still on the defensive keeps his eyes on our father and on our mother. Who in a show of compassion, places her hand on Cyril’s shoulder. Nods in approval and then bravely goes to direct our father from the room. So, they can talk, so we can breathe and hopefully, in the grand schemes of things, make it till tomorrow morning.

Lin POV

Ruby and I go our separate ways, she to the arts faculty of Maxton Hall, to study literature or history or something as equally as dull as watching a man try to sharpen a knife with a feather. I on the other hand, resolutely walk in the direction of the STEM faculty, where the buildings are little more modern — still classic in that Maxton Hall kind of way. But nevertheless impressive.

It feels good to be out of the dark, to know that Ruby and Ember now know the full truth and that they’ll be on the lookout, that they’ll continue their practice and get stronger, better. Because lord knows we need their bloodline to continue, the Bells have suffered like no other European hunting family have suffered, their prestige and their power amongst us, shattered by the complete and utter decimation of their family lodge, two or so generations ago. Left with only two surviving true members, it’s heartbreaking to know that eventually, when the time comes and the rest of the hunting world realises there are two perfectly strong, capable weavers, crafters who can make the sort of knots that are lost almost to the rest of the community; well, they’ll be a hot commodity.

I’m not saying that Angus Bell is weak, or a coward. But he’s retired, injured permanently by the hands of a scornful siren no one knows the name of. Not even Angus, and he was supposed to be the very best of my parent’s generation. Paired with his wife, they were a lethal team, cutting down the number of attacks, rogue sirens and whimpering mermaids. Helen was legendary in her prowess, her knots so strong that they could literally make a fucking mountain move if she tied enough of them. I personally never met the woman, but hell if I had, I would have literally gone to hell and back to learn what she knew of the unbelievably fragile art of knot tying.

Noone seems out of joint, some of them are hungover, others are pretending not to be hungover. But that’s normal, especially after such an epic party. I twirl a finger in my hair, a whole slew of weapons hidden on my person, just in case. There’s no way in hell the sirens and the mermaids don’t talk, don’t already know that there are hunters coming down on them at Maxton Hall. But I don’t let this distract me, I have a role, a job, and a duty to get stuck into this year’s work, make some friends and perhaps hunt a creature or two.

James POV

I decide when I arrive at Maxton Hall, that it’s best to be discrete about last night’s events, Alistair, made it through the night. Barely. He’ll be out for at least part of the first semester and most of the early season lacrosse matches, but it’s better him healing in a cave under the sea, then in a grave.

Lydia and Cyril, having been wrangled into a conference room with a verifier of bonds, are clingier, or at least that’s what they’re pretending to be. Lydia’s still coming to terms that the bond, as verified by the bonder, was a strong one, that there was a high likelihood that it would cement over the next few months and that any more tension, anymore unnecessary distance would probably spell a very disastrous end for both.

Still as my sister and her man — augh, like I want to refer to him as that, follow me. Both are just as tired as I, but we push through it. Because there’s no other choice, for Lydia and me, we’re Beaufort’s, we show up, even if we really don’t fucking want to.

“I’ll see you two later. Keep an eye out, text me if there’s anything amiss.”

“Alright, see you.” Lydia murmurs, Cyril only nods. Contented to be holding his mate.

“Earth to Vegas. Not here, do it later. But not here, not whilst we’re around so many people.”

Wren, as grounded and as brutally honest as ever, shoves between Cyril and Lydia, causing one to hiss and the other to blush. I’m not sure who the sounds come from, but thankfully Wren doesn’t fucking care.

“We in arts Beaufort this morning.” He comments, holding onto a thin slip of paper, with his class timetable on it.

“Right, English Literature.”

“Let’s go, I can’t wait to fucking fall back into bed. You idiots kept me up and now I’m running on fumes, coffee and more fucking fumes.”

We both laugh, Wren leading the way, even though the buildings are in theory supposed to be completely new to us, that’s what we get I guess, living the lives that we do. We’re used to this place — it’s been an institution that’s taught generations of sirens and mermaids alike for lord knows how long. Humans only started being enrolled because the governance board couldn’t explain the funding or the numbers.

Chapter Text

Ruby POV

I didn’t think it would be this easy to make a new friend and so quickly. But as I sit at one of several identical desks, waiting for the professor or tutor or whoever to arrive and begin our advance seminar on Keat, I can’t help but lean even closer to my new desk-adjacent mate: Kieran.

He’s tall, not as tall as the blonde stranger with hair of spun gold, where the blonde stranger had blue eyes the colour and depth of the ocean, Kieran is of a different kind of blonde —darker, his curls that seem to bounce to and from whenever he exhales or inhales too sharply. His eyes are the same sort of hue, like he’s made up of ninety-five percent pure Belgian dark chocolate. Least towards the pupils, and then from there it’s like a field of green apples and sharp fresh growing grass. I think the term I am trying to find is Hazel. Green? I can’t decide, not really. Kieran offers me his number, scribbling it down on the corner of the page in pencil. So, I can erase it later, in case I decide I don’t want to be his friend, he tells me.

When I ask about his background, he's a Rutherford, which means he’s heir to one of the world’s most established research families, the kind that made it rich in the colonial times, the ones who have for the most part been patrons of the arts or as he puts it ‘wherever the money is and there is knowledge to be found.’ He’s one of the hundred maybe or so students who boards at Maxton Hall, tells me it’d be a pain to try to commute here from Madrid every morning otherwise. He’s not at all disappointed or upset when I tell him I’m from the town nearby, that I have a sister and technically speaking she and I were both, scholarship students.

“I can tell you’ll be wickedly smart; can’t wait to see what you do to our professors.” He jests.

“Do you know who we have? It didn’t say on the class roster.”

The doors to the room, the room itself being a vast Edwardian hallway with authentic gothic chandeliers, panes of coloured tasteful mosaic, with shelves stacked to the very top of the ceiling or scattered elsewhere like there’s no room to be found: it makes me think of my bookshop back in town, and I wonder for a moment if Kieran has been there before.

They open and three people seem to step in. Or at least I think so from the chatter, one of them moves past fast, and when I finally stop to take a look, I find myself suddenly elated and surprised in equal measure.

Because guess who’s not just the owner of the bookstore that I treasure. Graham Sutton.

Maybe me calling him by his surname and using an honorific this entire time was worth it, it means I won’t be as hard-pressed to accept it. He sets himself up, busy looking at his class notes, or whatever an English Professor of his calibre does before speaking.

The other group turns out it’s not just him and two others, but rather four.

A girl, being practically clung to like she’s the world’s largest living acorn. They move past, laughing and giggling — so definitely a couple, even if it’s an act. Then there’s the one closest to them in range, man he looks exhausted. Like he’s not even sure he’ll make it this morning; maybe he was at the party and now he’s regretting his life choices. Last but not least…

It's him, the blonde stranger, the one who helped to stop me from falling on my face. The one who was stabbed, by who I’m not sure last night, because it was the last thing I saw on him, of his face… of his hands.

I could have sworn there were welts, but they’ve healed, disappeared. Completely vanished. He spots me and his eyes narrow, like he’s suddenly pissed that I’m showing up in another one of his spaces, Kieran bristles, having noticed the glare.

“What?” I ask under my breath, straightening my posture, holding my pen a little tighter.

“You don’t know?” Kieran says, surprised. I nod “Oh shit, ok. Um, right.”

He clears his throat, reaching for his water bottle and kind of using it as an extended part of his arm, like it’s a pointer.

“That’s James Beaufort, self-proclaimed and technically the declared prince of Maxton Hall.”

And the Prince of the so-called school chooses, to like he was always planning to.

He sits behind me.

James POV

It’s not the tasteful or awkward riffraff of books and assortment academic regalia that catches me off guard, but the scent. Not all the students in their uniforms, nursing their phones like lifelines or pretending to take notes when there are no notes to take.

Burning sage and rosemary. She’s here. The object and current pain in the arse. Ruby.

“Alright, if I can have your attention.”

Graham, looking a little better from when I last saw him, no longer injured but laid-back relaxed. Everyone pipes down, a mermaid’s natural ability to shift the emotions of humans kicking in, everyone is now attentive, focused, they want to hear what he has to say, just as much as he wants to hear them.

“I’m not gonna bullshit, I’m not going to be merciful either. Show of hands whose read the book list.” Most hands go up. “Actually, read it. Not just the SparkNotes.”

All hands but two go down, I don’t bother to posture with Graham, don’t bother to answer his question either. Neither do Lydia and Cyril or Wren whose already almost asleep. But I notice that my sister is sitting straighter, like her body wants to leave the seat and be right by Graham; and funnily enough Cyril doesn’t notice. Or if he does, he doesn’t seem to care. Which is strange, he should be vengeful and full of malice. Not calm, composed, a joker like he usually is.

Ruby and Rutherford. Brilliant.

“Alright, well for the rest of you. Catch up properly. Or you’re going to fail out of this class miserably. In fact, if you’re not going to commit now, get out and walk next door, you might find business management basics better.”

Some of them take Graham seriously, collecting their things and walking out. Hell, I even think Wren is about to leave but he’s now on edge, his hands tented and his eyes on Ruby. So, he’s spotted her too, which means there’s now me and him trying to calculate how to get her alone.

So, Graham begins his lecture, covering assignments, talking about expectations, the kind of work he expects us to put in, the sorts of things he absolutely will fail us for. Talks about the beginnings of whatever is next on the class list. Doesn’t bother to let us introduce ourselves to each other, says that the group work will do that just fine.

“First homework assignment.”

He lifts a large cardboard box onto his desk, there are tilts of heads, looks of concern, apprehension, curiosity. Slowly he takes out books with no discernible covers. All of them are the same thickness, and so presumably, they’re the same book.

“Now I know what this looks like. But trust me, you’re wrong. Here is your first reading group assignment, I’ve removed all possible identifiable features of the text, and I’ve scrambled them, there are pages from one book in another and vice versa, your job is to analyse the language, identify the author with evidence and put the books back together. Don’t care how you do it, but I expect it done.”

Some people — the ones who stayed thinking this would be a cakewalk, lift out of their seats in surrender and make for the door like Graham Sutton is a zombie about to come and devour them. He sighs, the door slams shut and then he laughs.

“Man, that never fails to get rid of the last of them.”

“Last of them?” Lydia asks.

“Yes, every year, since I started teaching this subject. I’ve done something like that. The task isn’t actually that, if you read your class syllabus notes, then you’d know this is the beginning of our unit on Franz Kafka.”

Ruby stays, she holds her head high. Her notes, which I can just see from over her shoulder are organised, the words on the pages like bullet marks hitting centre target each and every time. There are annotated tabs, highlights, markers for days. All of it a sign of her academic discipline.

I decide to look under her desk, her bag is worn, but sturdy, more like a briefcase for law students than one for English majors. How interesting. She doesn’t move at all, her breathing is steady and when she raises her hand to speak, and she does quite often, her points are merciless and brutal, she takes no hostages or victims. Other students are left flustered and angry when she cuts down their argument, shows their flaws and she doesn’t come off as arrogant either; just knowledgeable or well read — if we’re being kind.

So, I guess we all learn quickly, that if we’re going to remain in this class, then it’s Ruby that we’ve got to impress and not Sutton after all.

Chapter Text

Lydia POV

I should not be in this classroom. Nor should Cyril.

I should be five doors down in psychology and Cyril belongs in that business basics class next door. But there was something about this room, that I had to come back to, something that made me slide into the door knowing I was in the wrong room.

It’s a good thing that in the first week at Maxton Hall, students are allowed to attend whichever subjects they like at whatever time in the week and know they won’t miss anything important, this week is about introductions and figuring out what our course structure looks like for the rest of the year; no point paying a small fortune to come to a school and be taught the same thing as the next generation British aristocrat.

But something told me, that I had to be in this room, had to watch as James chose to strategically sit behind the girl who’ll not survive the day.

James is watching every part of her, even if he can’t see her face, his eyes roam over her, calculating where best to strike, he’s still particularly furious that she’s gotten away twice now — but this is the end of the road for the girl whose got knots hidden on her body, and with every aggressive argument she puts up, towards professor Sutton and anyone who has a shed of intelligence in the room, James temperament seems to shift, and I swear on the moon itself, I see his nostrils flare, his grip on the pen tighten and his teeth sharpen in a manner that isn’t showing siren aggression, but lust, sweet lord. Please don’t let my brother get his priorities confused.

Eventually, towards the end of the class, the girl — Ruby, turns to look over her shoulder and props herself on the chair, supporting herself as she stares down my brother like he’s the prey and she’s the one hunting him. Shit, maybe she’s a hunter and we need to eviscerate her now.

She offers him her hand, it’s smaller, her skin is tanned and there’s nothing remotely interesting about her appearance, her uniform is new but sweetly tailored, her sleeves have been pulled up and bunch almost romantically at her elbows as she eyes James up and down and waits for him to accept her proffered hand.

What’s the point? You’re going to be dead soon. James, plays along, placing his pen down and watching her, analysing her, figuring out what makes her tick, how to get alone in a corner so he can snap her neck.

“Ruby Bell.” She breaths.

Bell.

Where have I heard that surname before?

Of all the people to react most viscerally to it, it’s the one she’s made friends with earlier, the one whose probably more clued in about sirens and mermaids and hunters more than anyone. It’s Kieran fucking Rutherford.

“B-bell, you didn’t say your surname was Bell.” Kieran comments, sounding panicked.

“You didn’t ask.”

“James Beaufort.”

“Nice to finally have name to a face, thank you.”

“I did say there wasn’t a need to thank me, not now. Not ever.”

“Well, it’d be awful rude not to.”

James POV

She has the audacity to turn to face me and offer me her hand. Which I take, and thank the oceans, there’s no sense of hunter danger on her. No sudden jolt of violence, not her immediately going in for the kill, rather as we shake hands, and then she lets go, turning back to where she was sitting quite ramrod straight, and when she does, I get a whiff of her scent and something in me, the siren, is confused and then interested for another reason altogether at the girl who sits in front of me, who speaks like she owns the space and who if she were only not dressed like a hunter, would have survived the day, survived the year and made it out as the potential dux of the cohort.

Wren elbows me, as if he’s trying to ask just what kind of game I’m trying to play, why I didn’t just ignore Ruby’s proffered hand, but as the first soft melodic chime of the class bell begins to ring and Sutton reminds us not to take the books he’s handed out if we don’t think we’ll return to his subject next week. Her bag opens, and she has it all preorganised and predetermined, and funnily enough, she has an identical copy to the one that Sutton had given us, but her copy of a compendium of all of Kafka’s known works is worn and there are tabs sticking out in every direction, all of them coloured and demarked with a sigils of some kind. She sweeps up and onto her feet confidently, everything returned to their places in her bag before she approaches Sutton and they begin talking about assignments and other academic tangents.

“Earth to James.” Wren murmurs. “What’s the plan.”

“Get everyone, even Sutton out of here. I’ll finish her here.” I state plainly.

“G-get r-r-id of her?” Augh, Rutherford heard me.

Lydia rescues me before Rutherford can raise the alarm and that Ruby should run, she grabs him by the chin his eyes widening and her own softening, her spine bending just so, her lips pout and her eyes glimmer with the wicked kind of trouble that only Lydia Beaufort can pull.

“Come with me, I want to show you something.”

Like a man drawn to water after a thirty mile run from the devil, Rutherford picks up his water bottle and his things and follows Lydia — Cyril doesn’t even have to ask what he has to do, he collects their belongings and follows her right to the door, Wren on the other hand works on getting Sutton out of the room, and that’s done easily enough when Wren deliberately cuts himself on the edge of a sharp edge that didn’t exist moments before.

“Shit!” Wren curses “Fuck, help!”

Sutton immediately rushes to Wren’ side as he — Wren, pretends to try to staunch his blood by applying it to a piece of paper, much to Sutton’s horror.

“I’m sorry Ruby, we’ll have to keep speaking later. I need to help Fitzgerald to the nurse.”

“O-of course, see you next lesson.”

“Yes, thank you. Have a great rest of the week Ruby.”

I strike as soon as the room is emptied, save Ruby and me. I allow her a moment to breathe, to realise what’s about to happen, she looks at me, wondering how the room has emptied so quickly. In fact, she takes a step back towards the back wall almost uncertainly.

“We never got to finish what we started last night.” I say, trying to block out her scent.

“Right, you were stabbed… and your hands…” she trails.

“Mm, finally cat got your tongue Bell.”

“No, are you finished? I have somewhere to be.”

She takes one step forward, remembering who she is, composed and ready. I block her movement, shoving her back with my shoulder, the knots don’t work so long as I don’t touch them with bare skin, and Ruby ends up falling onto a desk, the table scrapes and she winces, like she’s horrified to be in this situation, which good. She should be.

I rest my hands on either side of her bared thighs, she’s chosen to go the knee-high sock route, her shoes are brand new, squeaky clean and now that I’m fully in her space and can appreciate her scent, for what it is, I try to decipher what her potential energy profile is.

Humans, besides their scent, being unique and all, well for us sirens it’s like a taste profile, we can tell what kind of energy and what that energy will feel like under our skin. It’s better to smell and determine then to force yourself to feed on something unpleasant. In my case, I prefer the herbal, bitterness of botanicals, which means Ruby, in spite of her status as a hunter’s daughter, is right up my alley. I lift one hand, and to make sure she doesn’t move, trap her with my thighs, she tries to pull away, to move away. I laugh under my breath.

“Don’t be afraid, I won’t hurt you.”

“Y-yes you will.” Her eyes narrowing “and I don’t care for it.”

“Where did the confidence go?” I mock.

“Fuck off.” she seethes.

“No, I don’t think so.” My hand on her cheek, her skin is soft, supple. Full of life.

Chapter Text

Lin POV

I nearly drop the tray of beakers in my arms when I feel the telltale burn of the ring flare to life, placing the tray down, no one else had noticed my sudden shift in demeanour.

“Thanks for grabbing that, here’s a note, in case you’re late to your next class.”

I thanked the professor, no time to recall names when my best friend is basically sending out a silent scream for help in a very packed school full of people who might or might not be what my family and families like mine have dedicated thousands of years to hunting.

I think I’m about three staircases away when I crash into an ally that I’d never thought to find here.

“Sweet Jesus! Wang is that you?”

Pushing back and lifting my head, Keshav Patel stands, books in hand and looking very confused.

“No time to talk, follow me.”

Just like how there are European hunting families, there are of course, Asian hunting families. We all have more or less the same original story, one of our ancestors — a non-human who fell in love with a human and beat the genetic odds to have a child of a gender that the fates, or the rules or whatever had long dictated as impossible. Of course, there have been instances where complete humans have come onto the scene and fallen in love with one of us; and have had children who do not carry on the genetic disposition for a hunter whatsoever. These are whom we call the mottled.

These individuals come into the world, with no inhuman strength or magic to speak of, but rather a mind of complete and utter brilliance, they’re the only ones capable of acting as living diplomats between the three groups: hunters, non-hunters (or normal humans) and the non-human species.

In the case of Keshav, his family or at least someone in his family, he’s never specified with me, was the diplomat that more or less brokered the ever-lasting peace between the river Mer of the Ganges and the people of the surface. Though supposedly the river Mer have long been declared either extant or extinct; all that human pollution and waste finally killed them off; no hunters required. Granted, the only time hunters have to get involved is, like here in the case of people being drained and left naked all over the place.

“Where the hell are we going?”

He chases after me as I descend the final staircase and my ring, still burning, practically screams at the proximity of where Ruby could be. Keshav turns to look over his shoulder, seeing if the scene is clear as I expose one of the electrum scalpels I tucked into my upper right pocket.

“There’s one here, and they’re after Ruby.”

“Ruby?”

“I’ll tell you later, you’re about to meet her. Keep an eye out for me, I have something or someone to slay.”

“As if this is completely fucking normal!” Keshav hisses.

“It is for me, wish it weren’t. But it is.”

Keshav’s eyes round in an almost comedic cartoonish way, and he grabs my wrist, not touching the scalpel and with his free arm, drops the books he was holding and almost tries to shake me.

“You can’t go, wherever it is in the school you’re about to go and slay someone, that’s not how this works. Not here, not when 95% of the school happens to be non-human. That’s asking to die, let me come with you.” He let’s go and begins retrieving his dropped books. “I’ll talk whatever is happening back off the roof and then you can grab whoever this ruby is and get the hell out of town.”

“We’ve no time for that! She could be dead!”

Ruby POV

“I’ll strike a deal with you. Bell.”

Beaufort is practically vibrating, purring. Are humans capable of purring? I thought that was an exclusive thing for felines, his thumb swipes over my chin, my cheeks, my nose, before the hand returns to the pulse at my throat. Where it had been, last night, before all of this perpetually never-ending nightmare started.

“See I am a man who does not like to bring the ugliness of outside into the school.”

“Make your point,” Where the hell is Lin? I thought the ring was supposed to tell her I need her help.

“I am, give me a moment.” He throws his head back and laughs. “Hunters, so fucking impatient.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Last night, before you disappeared and after I was stabbed very unceremoniously by someone, another person. Someone I love, was hurt, in a far worse manner.”

“And you think I care?”

“Oh, I think you will when you hear what deal I have for you.”

He releases me, allows me some breathing space and I do breathe, not in through my nose though, I don’t need any more of that damned delicious scent making me forget the very real danger I’m in.

“If you tell me who hurt the person I care about, I’ll spare you. I’ll let you go, you can finish whatever business you seem to have here at Maxton Hall, then you can leave, and you’ll never have to worry your pretty little head ever again.”

“My business.” I say with a coldness that I didn’t think I was capable of. “Is to study and to go to Oxford. I want nothing to do with you; I have no idea what you’re on about.” I throw my hands up and nearly slap him in the process. “So leave me alone.”

The door to the classroom gets thrown open before either of us has any time to react and I swear I see a flash of something shiny and metallic fly through the air and embed itself deep into James’ shoulder, and then another, and I hear someone — not me, exhale.

“Ruby, get your stuff.”

Lin tells me, like she’s not just thrown deadly weaponry directly at James. Who for someone who’s not human, seems to take into stride that it’s common for weapons to be embedded in his system. Unlike the previous, he seems to not be bleeding. And I realise that Lin has thrown the weapons, so they’ve lodged into his shirt fabric and have trapped him against whatever surface he’s standing against. As I scramble to grab my bag and rush to my best friend, I see that she’s not alone.

There’s a tall male, almost but not quite as tall as James, with a stack of books in his arms and looking very bit as surprised to see me as I am to see him, but when Lin wraps her arm around my waist and tugs me from the room very forcefully, the male doesn’t follow. He just places or props his books down and then shuts the classroom door.

Lin doesn’t stop either of us from moving until the very joints in my hips ache — which if we’re being honest, the pain is one, that would usually be associated with being seventy and having rheumatoid arthritis for two decades.

“Who was that?” we both say at the same time when Lin finally decides we’re safe enough and presumably three quarters of the way across the entire mass of Maxton Hall. Away from James, away from the action of the morning.

I choose to readjust my bag strap and check that I actually did grab everything as Lin seems to assess her and then me for any signs of physical injuries — which seems a bit rich seeing as she’s a skilled knife thrower without any qualms about damaging public property.

“You, first.”

“An old friend, Keshav.”

“By ‘Old Friend’” I air quote “You mean he’s in on whatever the world is coming to.”

“A little, yes, he’s part of the community. But not like us. Not like them. Something more fringe, useful nonetheless.”

“How the hell do you know anyone from here? I thought we were both strangers coming here?”

“I’ll explain once you tell me, who the blonde was. Though I suspect I already know.”

“His name is James Beaufort. I think he’s… something that’s not human.”

Ember POV

I don’t usually receive any sorts of text messages when I am inside the studio that I call my second home away from home. The connection and the signal from the closest phone tower are too mottled here and I suspect that the building’s eighty-five old owner is paranoid, because he won’t install signal extenders or WI-FI. In fact, the whole three storied building is wired up with old timey rotatory phones circa Nazi-Germany Occupied France. They don’t ring either and picking them up gets you either a long pregnant pause of nothing or a very tinny brass bell ringing with enough static to make any radio station buckle down from reports of audio-abuse.

So, it surprises me when this messages lands on my phone, and it’s from Lin.

You need to speak to Ruby about the Beaufort family. The nominal heir is the one who has been stalking her.

Where do I even begin?

The Beaufort family, a matriarchal empire that has been passed down generationally from oldest daughter to the next, with very few broken instances where there hasn’t been a daughter to pass the family wealth and power on, in which case then it’s the prerogative of the male to have a daughter or daughters as quickly as possible to continue the lineage.

By percentage, the family is decidedly pure in their genetic makeup. All of the females who have led the family have more or less been pure mermaid. Yes, there’s a bit of siren mixed in, but it’s always been pushed out by the dominance of having so many successive mermaids at the helm, curating a strong bloodline with few lefts in the world to challenge it.

In this instance, the family is at a crossroads, because this new generation brings up a question that the Beaufort’s have never had to face before, a set of twins. James and Lydia. Does the family line stay with Lydia in spite of modern human society, a society that dictates that when there’s a male child involved, everything should fall to him? Quite frankly it appears that the current head and her husband, the parents of the twins, are also at claw and teeth width to tearing each other down and apart.

Cordelia, the nominal head by right — she was not the eldest daughter, but the daughter who had the next successive heiress to the line. Will likely have it declared that upon her death, be it natural or otherwise, that the twins will either be given an equal split and so the family remains united and eventually through the rule of blood, it’ll pass onto whichever twin parents the next girl first. Or, if the rumours are to be believed, the fate of the family will be truss upon James because Mortimer Beaufort said so. Lydia would be left as just a symbolic shame, and the cycle the perfect line would be forever destroyed — the line becoming patriarchal in one fell swoop.

For all the work my own parents and other hunters have done to protect humans alike and ourselves from being killed, I find it almost like the universe is testing my sister, as she finds herself suddenly the quandary of the hunt. The second to last member of a once prestigious line of hunters.

So, I pack my things away, making sure all my tools, the spools of fabric, the priceless beads and razor-sharp needles are put away. I make sure that the studio is left organised and pretty, the in-progress mannequins are tucked away and so no one can argue with me about the state of the chaos I am trying to keep under wraps personally.

I return to the cottage close but not too close to the sea, where our father waits every day for our mother to come back. Where Ruby has been more or less sheltered and hidden as much as a girl whose part of a family full of dangerous secrets can be. But all of the shelter and the promises of secrecy mean nothing when there’s a Beaufort siren lurking at the door. A very dangerously gorgeous one at that.

It was always going to be a risk, allowing Ruby to attend Maxton Hall.

I did, but I’m also two years older and had the pleasure of never having to come within a building or sport field length near either Beaufort twin, they never interacted with me, and I never bothered to go looking for trouble.

Alas, my sister, is not so lucky. She’s the same age as the twins, younger by a few months. Of course, when she accepted the full scholarship; the same scholarship that I had received to finish my last two formal years of secondary education. She’d been starstruck and I had told her it was going to be alright, that if she followed my example; that there would be no trouble and that her brilliant mind would speak for itself. Ruby Bell, the second Bell daughter to successfully graduate from Maxton Hall and straight into the academic halls of Oxford University; exactly where Ruby belongs.

I hadn’t factored in the potential trouble that was brewing, I hadn’t thought to think that our family history and then of course the Beaufort family would ever come to pass again. Maxton Hall used to only teach, glorify and push for the needs of future siren and mermaids alike, but since admitting humans like they did with me — or perhaps it was the board’s thought that if hunters, mottled, siren and mermaid all were under the one roof, we’d all come to be friends. Lord. How fucking stupid can the authorities be? It’s beside the point, because now we’re here, two years later and in a deep amount of shit.

This has to do with Ruby, and Ruby’s life and James Beaufort and his role in the story.

When she’d told me about being saved from public but silent humiliation, I’d thought it would be the end, that the person who saved her was a one-off occasion. Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case because in hindsight; and looking over it like a seasoned hunter would. The situation reads as follows:

My sister unknowingly opened the flood gates and plastered herself as prey item number one for a future head of a bloodline with everything to lose if he lets her get away with her life. Only question now is who will drop dead first.

Chapter Text

Lydia POV

To give the girl, Ruby, where credit is due.

She’s whip smart but for the daughter of a legendary hunter, a total coward.

And I suppose the friend who dragged her out of harm’s way must also, therefore be a hunter and knowing that there’s no instinctive pain of the loss of my brother and I’s twin bond, means that James has failed again.

James and the words failed again, don’t seem to make sense in my rattled skull.

Because James is never supposed to fail, my older brother doesn’t fail.

Yet he has, twice it seems where Ruby is concerned and I am starting to worry that there might be more to the story.

We get the answer for his inaction when he slides into his spot at our table during lunch, his fists clenched and his shirt replaced, a new one from the one he was wearing, it’s identical of course; no need to arouse unwanted suspicion, but still it means something else happened in the time I led Kieran Rutherford away and he was supposed to kill her and her escaping with her friend.

Speaking of which, Ruby and her friend sit at the very outskirts of the long dining area of Maxton Hall, Ruby eating a premade sandwich from a plastic tub, and her friend eating a bowl of something from the school’s kitchen. James doesn’t look at either and instead, my brother keeps his eyes squarely on an unseeing obstacle, eyes glossed over and I could swear he was vibrating with suppressed aggression.

So, it’s no surprise when he nearly snaps Elaine Ellington’s neck in two when she tries to get his attention by wrapping her hands around him, she lets out a squeak-squeal like she’s not sure what to make of the terrifying visage in front of her. Serves her right, she needs to stop messing with James. He doesn’t even apologise to the younger sister of his best mate; he just scoffs and leaps from his seat and so takes the storm with him.

“What the hell” Elaine rubs at her throat.

“Hopefully a lesson has been learnt.” I sneer.

“Huh? He almost killed me!” Elaine hisses.

“Not like anyone saw.”

Wren looks up from whatever he’s reading. He’s right, it happened so quickly, James’s arrival, his outburst and then subsequent storming out. I should follow; I should demand an explanation; but even I know the consequences of following after an unstable Siren like James.

If Alistair were here, he’d no doubt have a sarcastic quip to make, before heading in the same direction, he’s always been the only one who can withstand the full force blunt anger of James Beaufort, it’s uncanny. How to boys who’ve grown up alongside each other can be closer than even blood siblings, though not as close as the kinship I feel as James’ twin.

“Training next?” I say to Cyril, who has been feeding me morsels of food.

“Yeah, though not sure how it’s gonna go with Al not here and James trying not to murder someone.”

“It was all set up for him to succeed, so what happened that we don’t know?”

“We need to get to the bottom of this, or perhaps. Do the job for him.”

I sigh, rubbing either side of my temple, trying to figure out and read between the lines of his ordeal is getting incredibly tiresome and I loathe to have to deal with James’ drama, I have enough on my plate. Elaine, seemingly ever nosy and one to obviously put herself in a position to gain the favour of my brother pipes up.

“Is this about her.” She nods in the direction of Ruby. “If we need to get rid of her, let me do it.”

Ruby POV

After running halfway across the campus, and after having a very stern and very uncomfortable chat with Lin, I’m actually grateful to make it to lunch, with little to no further interaction with James or any of his posse.

But in spite of the small break in tension and feeling still very much like a fish out of water — ironic, given the circumstances. Perhaps whatever the universe has planned isn’t quite over yet, because I find myself at the edge of the Lacrosse field with the rest of the Oxford Preparatory course and the advising head: Ms Pippa Whinfield.

“As you’ll all be aware, beyond scholarly admittance, there is of course, the chance to enter the hallowed halls of Oxford through more physical means. Take for instance, the Athletic scholarship.”

She stands, clipboard tucked to her chest as she turns and we witness the start of Maxton Hall’s so-called infamous Lacrosse team, a series of identically dressed males, all of them holding sticks, some of them with their helmets on, others not so much. None of them really catch my attention as they start their drills and an older middle-aged man, seems to be shouting something about form and something about an absent person.

“As you will all need to be seeking recommendation from one staff member from Maxton Hall, I would suggest skipping out on Coach Freeman. He has no interest in giving expressions for anyone other than his team.”

“That’s awful biased.” Kieran comments next to me.

“Oh well, there are plenty of other staff members.” I observe.

“I will also be exempt, as it’s considered… a violation of academic integrity.” Ms Whinfield sighs “At least this year, next year, you’ll be able to ask me. It’s policy at Maxton Hall for staff to take turns alternating.”

I scribble down a note, so I can keep her in mind for next year if I can’t secure one this year.

We’re clear of the Lacrosse field and headed in the direction of the library when a shorter blonde female in the same expensive perfectly tailored and customised Maxton Hall uniform approaches, dodging past bodies and waving to get my attention.

“Hi?”

“Hey, Ruby, right? I need you to come with me. Professor Sutton is looking for you.”

“Oh, sure!”

I try to look for Ms Whinfield, to let her know that I’ve got to go. When our eyes meet, she nods and gestures for me to follow the unnamed blonde, who seems impatient and indifferent. Though I’m a little annoyed that I have to follow and not be here — hopefully Kieran will take notes for me, and I can catch up with Ms Whinfield later.

“Where is Professor Sutton?” I ask as we seem to climb the stairs of a very tall tower.

“In the junior library, I know it’s a climb. It’s ridiculous.”

She, the blonde hasn’t given me her name, and I don’t think I want to know, something tells me that we won’t be crossing paths again.

As we’re just about to finish climbing the spiralling steps, another female, this one a brunette comes by with an assortment of school supplies of unknown purpose, she seems to rest part of the container she’s holding at her hip with her only other free hand trying to stabilise what looks to be a poorly stacked group of glass discs, the sort that belongs in labs.

“Crap, that’s gonna fall.” She bites her lip, and I can’t help but stop and reach out to try and reorganise the stack for her.

“I’ve got it.” I tell her “Give me a minute to try and reorganise.”

The girl that I’m with also stops, and when she offers to take the rest of the objects from the brunette, as I pick up and restack, finding spaces in the pile that might not have been seen otherwise, I feel the warmth of a hand touch my shoulder. I glance up and at the brunette who smiles sweetly.

“You left something up on the railing over the moat, go and get it.”

James POV

Lydia and I are about to get into the awaiting vehicle, Percy waiting at our side with the door handle in his hand when I sense something, or someone in my peripheral vision. Turning to look over my shoulder, Lydia pokes her head out as my eyes settle on what has been unnerving me since Ruby Bell and her unnamed friend rushed off to the other side of campus.

I can just make out Ruby’s silhouette, as she seems to be trapezing up near the very old and off-limits upper railing situated directly above the school’s grand but mostly artificial moat, and with her arms sticking out like a scarecrow and her head lowered, as though she’s looking for something. I can’t help but move towards the water, closer to her.

“James?” Lydia calls to me from the car “Where are you…”

“Do you see that?” I ask to Percy.

He lifts his gaze and his head tilts in my direction before he also spots Ruby. “What is a girl doing up there?”

There’s no one else in the courtyard, or in any of the exterior spaces, everyone is inside, and there are no windows that face this particular part of the campus, nowhere that will spot what Ruby Bell is doing. Percy gently nudges my shoulder as if to say we should go before anything else happens.

“James, we’re going to be late.” Lydia presses.

“Five minutes won’t make much difference if Percy hangs the diplomacy ticket on the windscreen.”

My attention completely on Ruby who tips almost too close to the left for my liking and I have to stop myself from shouting for someone to get her down from the roof, her movements are clumsy and stagnated and I can only guess that someone — likely a mermaid in one of the outer social circles I belong to, has commanded for Ruby to get up there and risk her life. I can see the plan, get her up there, she slips and falls, presumably dies from the impact and we all call it a tragic accident or her taking her life because she realised, she’d never belong here and wanted to just end it selfishly.

It's a good plan, but it’s a plan that’s been uncovered by me and she’s meant to be my hunt.

Just when I think she’ll come back to her senses, that the inherent warning system that hunters have in their blood will kick in, she finally slips and the descent from where she stands, is fast.

She’s no hunter’s daughter, case of mistaken identity, she’s going to die, and it’ll be our fault, we killed someone completely innocent.

“Fuck!”

I shout and I don’t think, I practically bolt to the water’s edge, it’s not ocean water, but it’s still water, and I can force it to do what might otherwise be seemingly impossible. I only have seconds to force my will upon the slowly flowing stream — I’m not sure where the source of water actually goes, after all it’s a moat, but when the water doesn’t move, doesn’t do as I’d hope, I check the progress of Ruby’s fall.

Her descent is silent, her arms reaching up like she’s expecting someone to catch her and pull her back to safety, and when she collides with the surface of the water, I let out a ragged breath of panic, shoes off Percy and Lydia both now by my side.

Ruby doesn’t surface.

Clothes can be replaced, and by now my shout has finally caught the attention of students and staff alike as I dive into the moat water, kicking hard and allowing the water to surround me as I feel parts of me adjust to the sudden environmental shift, the water is dark, and honestly I don’t want to think about what the moat contains, focusing solely on finding Ruby.

The command must have been sinister, and I can imagine it probably asked her to get up on the roof, to slip and fall but not to make a scene, not to scream out for help, and then to drown.

The dirt and the murk of the moat water settles and I see her, at the bottom, the water is not technically deep, nowhere near an Olympic sized amount, kicking towards her and grateful that siren gills are adapted to any and all kinds of liquid, I only briefly examine the webbed surface between my fingers, and kick hard.

Ruby eyes are shut, but I can imagine if they were open, she would be staring lifelessly, her lips pursed and if I had to guess, beyond drowning and suffering from a silent death, the shock of impact must have rendered her unable to move. Fucking fallacies of having a human body.

It doesn’t take much effort on my end to wrap my wrist around one of her arms, and when her weight doesn’t shift, and when I finally secure her to my side and kick up us towards the surface, my nostrils flare, and my tongue can’t help but whip out into the water.

Her blood, she’s bleeding, somehow.

A torrent of agony rips through me, one that has never ever occurred, sirens aren’t meant to feel any sort of discomfort in the pain, not in the water.

Instincts now on high alert and my heart is screaming:

GET HER OUT OF HERE. SHE’S HURT. SHE NEEDS HELP.

Why? Why did I rescue her? I ask when we’re in the back of an ambulance. A plastic oxygen mask on her mouth. A towel wrapped around my shoulders, the paramedic watching her vitals like an eagled eyed hawk, muttering about how crazy this situation is, that I’ll be applauded as a hero for saving her.

I got her to the surface before the water completely entered her lungs, she wouldn’t be breathing now otherwise, but still she lays unconscious, soaked to the bone and with a temporary bandage wrapped to her side, her ribs, the water, something, stabbed into her.

But her shoulders raise and fall, and I feel wholly grateful. Still with the buzz of adrenaline rushing through me, that voice that roared from my heart, won’t settle, and I almost want to throw the paramedic out every time they adjust a knob or try to get Ruby to wake up.

“Do you know her?” the paramedic asks. I shake my head, no not really, she’s just a girl.

“She’s lucky you saved her, what a freak accident.”

Overhead I can hear the sirens, blaring, rushing us to whatever hospital will take her. With the paramedic focused on Ruby, I reach out to where her hand is, it’s pale — presumably from the blood loss and the shock of water, she’s colder to the touch than she should be, but her pulse is there, beating.

HURT. DANGER. WHERE?

Clenching my jaw, the pain in my chest hasn’t subsided.

We must be turning into the street where the hospital is, because as we move over a speed-bump, it jostles Ruby just enough for her eyes to fly open, and although they’re unfocused and tears begin to fall, it’s enough to lock eyes and the voice in my chest, the young boy who never thought he’d be blessed enough to find his home in a person shouts a word I held away from me.

Her eyes flutter shut, and I want to tell her to open them, but I force my lips to remain sealed, now is not the time.

It takes her coming into my life, me mistaking her for an enemy and now, like some even crueller twist of fate, for someone other than me to try to kill her and I realise now.

Ruby Bell is the fated love of my life.

Chapter Text

Lydia POV

No one knows where James goes after he rescued Ruby Bell from certain death. Which I’m not surprised, my brother doesn’t want to be the hero of the hour, he’s presumably disappeared somewhere into the depths of the oceans and is biding his time, waiting for things to cool off.

But I don’t think that really matters when the whole situation has been warped, instead of everyone praising James Beaufort for the rescue of Ruby Bell, instead it seems James lied about who he was and everyone is somehow wholly believing that the person who saved her, was in fact Kieran Rutherford. What’s worse? The idiot won’t refute it.

When Elaine said she’d deal with Ruby Bell, I had half expected her to scare the living and fighting spirit out of Ruby, not attempt murder by having Lucinda come by and compel Ruby to kill herself by falling from the railing above the moat.

Again, I say nothing when asked, I don’t say that it was my brother who saved a girl that we might have mistaken for a hunter’s daughter, and I definitely don’t argue that it was James and not Kieran who saved the girl’s life.

Instead, I keep my head down and try to avoid the niggling sense that I have a bond with my professor, because right now, having one declared mate is enough to keep my mind occupied.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with having more than a single mate as a mermaid, because triads are a thing in our culture, they’re often time a sign that it’s safe to have more children amongst mermaids. I myself, have personally only ever wanted a singular mate, but have never questioned the pull of the ocean or the moon where that is concerned.

The first person to have a problem with James unusual behaviour, is of course our father.

“Where is your brother?”

He demands of me, as I sit, with a pair of very sharp pointed surgical tweezers in hand as I painstakingly remove the scales under my skin that are yet to form, I nearly lose the grip I have on a forming scale that has been misaligned for some time; I’m only grateful that I caught it before it had a chance to properly solidify and become an even bigger problem later.

“Just like you, I have no idea where James has gone.”

“The investors are starting to worry.”

“Why would they worry?” extracted scale atop the rest, tweezers down.

“Because he’s missed at least two meetings.”

So, put me in them in his stead, I’m as equally as talented as my brother. But I don’t mouth off to my father; never will. Mortimer is not a man who’ll listen, even if all the evidence and the facts state that I’m just as capable. He crosses his arms and looks at me disappointedly, as if I’m the one whose disappeared for the foreseeable future and not him — granted, knowing our father’s clear preference for James, if I did suddenly disappear off the face of the planet, father would be more than willing to let it go unreported or unnoticed for the longest possible amount of time.

“He’s not here.” I say with some amount of exasperation. “He’s not at any of the properties and none of our friends have seen him either.”

“Then pray tell, where in the oceans do you think your brother could have gone?”

“Somewhere only a siren could go. There are places that only you and he know about.”

Which stings, but it’s true, just as much as there are only spaces that Mermaids like me are allowed. It’s an equal trade-off and consequence. Father taps his index finger to his lip, the one with his Beaufort signet ring, the one that James will inherit no doubt. Before a sudden gleaming look of smug confirmation covers his face.

“Perhaps, he has found his mate, and he’s planning for the ceremony and wishes to surprise your mother and me. In which case, I will give him another week or so to come back.”

This further sours my mood and renders me speechless as father leaves, because the ceremony that father is alluding to, is the kind of thing that’ll have the entire community speaking. Who could possibly be James’s mate then? Surely not anyone we’d know. I shake my head in annoyance at the mere ridiculous thought that James would hide something so sacred from me.

Granted, Sirens are different in their mating rituals and ceremonies, for Mermaids it’s enough to declare and have a bond verified, but for Sirens, well I just know there’s a lot more procedure — procedure that James has tried to allude to me when he’s been able to speak on the subject.

We can only hope that once the news that Ruby is safe and Kieran is the hero dies down, that James will return and explain himself and his absence.

Ember POV

Ruby spends nearly three weeks in hospital, the entire time, during her recovery and subsequent bout of pneumonia — with the antibiotics being, as it turns out a surprise allergy for Ruby. Someone other than my father and I or Lin seems to hover.

There’s a presence that is… wholly unwelcomed at least to me. A male that I didn’t think would be so wholly annoying as it were, but who Ruby seems to say — or at least everyone else seems to think is the hero of the story. Kieran Rutherford.

As I brush out the knots that seem to form every time someone looks away from Ruby’s hair. My sister and Kieran talk, well Kieran talks, Ruby nods, and looks wholly confused about why he’s there. In fact, whenever I try to ask her if she’s in pain or if she needs space, she seems to shrug her shoulders and looks out the window.

But who am I to interrupt this Kieran fellow and his chatter to my sister, they seem to share a lot of the same classes, and sure there are times when he’s just retelling her or explaining something from their classes that she missed.

As I lower the brush down, the doctor who has been taking care of Ruby this entire time, and coincidentally, a relative of Kieran steps into the room.

“I have some good news.”

Ruby perks up and Kieran shuts up.

“With the pneumonia finally settling, and the antibiotics working properly. I think you can be discharged tomorrow. Course, you’ll need to take it easy, and you’ll have to come in to have the stitches removed and your lungs checked for any more hidden or lingering signs of damage.”

The doctor chats amicably to Ruby who besides being heartedly sick of hospital food and fare, has been working tirelessly — much to the medical staff concerns that she’s pushing herself too far, to catch up on everything she could possibly be behind in for Maxton Hall. The school itself has been kind to Ruby, allowing her to delay choosing which classes to take out of sheer consideration for her near-death experience, though no one can explain just how or why my sister was where she was the first day of class, how this event could have possibly occurred. All of it is just shrouded in mystery.

James POV

I surface the same day Ruby Bell returns home from the hospital, with a far thinner physical frame, the colour and life completely absent in her colouring. Her cheekbones are more defined, and her eyes are dulled.

It’s also coincidentally how I realise that the Bells, if they are hunters or not, it doesn’t matter. Have not been keeping an eye on their wards or have allowed the wards around their home to be weakened over time; and I wonder if it’s because Ruby was the key to keeping them strong.

During her stay in hospital and my immediate return to the ocean, I have more or less been living off of pure instinct and trying to ignore the dreadful tugging sensation I’ve had to return to Ruby, to hold her in my arms and to demand she be given better treatment than she’s had thus far.

But the worst part of it all? It isn’t the screaming of my heart to go to her.

It’s her dreams.

Ruby dreams over and over the events of that afternoon, the confusion and the fear, the sheer terror and sensation of falling, leaves me having to surface to breathe in oxygen like some helpless human more than I’ve had to before. She doesn’t or she can’t recall who did this to her, who told her to go up onto the roof.

Or when she feels something particularly unpleasant, like when she was wracked with coughs and was rasping and retching from the wrong medication being in her system to combat the pneumonia. It renders me hapless on the sea floor, my fists clenched on the surface and the effort it takes not to scream in agony for her.

Other times, when it’s not the event that keeps her spiralling, she descends into memories, and replays her recollection of meeting me, when I stopped her from falling flat on her face, at the bonfire, when I was stabbed; when we met again in the classroom and she held out her hand to me. When I took it, when we argued and when she disappeared into thin air.

Seeing myself through her eyes is jarring, but it pleases the voice that calls from my heart, to know or to think that she has a mostly positive and pleasing impression of me; annoyed sometimes and yes, she thinks I am a dickhead with a serious ego problem, but otherwise it’s not hatred just unsure human emotions. She doesn’t know if I am friend or foe.

I watch her move about her home, slowly, she has to stop every now and then to try to breathe, and she grimaces every single time she’s forced to take another concoction of pills.

It takes her nine more days before she ventures into the front garden of the cottage, a mug of tea and wrapped up in thick blankets, she almost looks like a human whose been mummified whilst they’re still alive.

She takes a seat, lowering herself and wincing.

Go to her, the voice tells me. Soothe her pain, heal her. But I can’t, I don’t know what or how my blood will react to her human circulatory system. She wheezes, trying to get the tea to cool down.

“J-James.” She rasps. There’s no denying she just said my name… can she see me?

It’s heartbreaking, seeing her so small and frail, curled up, and I hate it. I hate that I did this to her, if I hadn’t mistaken her for a hunter — and part of me, the more logical, grounded, strategist screams that she might still be a hunter, just not a very good one. Shaking it away, I did this to my own mate, I’m a fucking failure.

I want to go to her, I do. But I can’t. I have to stay away. Watching is better, she is safer this way.

Inevitably I know we’ll cross paths again, of course we will. We go to the same fucking school, but I can at least make her life easier, I can tell the others that she’s no hunter, even if she shares the surname of a famous one. I can tell the others that she’s to be left alone, she’s not a threat. All of it, I’ll make sure Ruby Bell makes it out of Maxton Hall alive.

Chapter Text

Ruby POV

I’m not sure if I’ll ever feel safe within my own skin ever again.

Especially not here.

The nightmare of falling, and how I got up there and why it occurred, all of it. They — the school and other people just frame it as a freak accident, no one is blaming me, in fact everyone seems to be blaming something or someone else; but I’m just glad that when I step onto campus that no one swamps or asks or looks, they just keep their distance and I’m about to have some very awkward, very fragile semblance of normalcy.

Really, the only change is that Kieran has been by my side this entire time, but my memories of the event tell me that he had nothing to do with it, be it the cause or the aftermath; but everyone seems intent on telling me that my memories must be damaged.

He saved you, they tell me, that he was very heroic about it, that I wouldn’t be alive.

So why do I see the ocean eyes of James Beaufort instead. Why do I remember what it felt like to be dragged from the water, to have him resuscitate me, even if I wasn’t fully conscious. Why was it he, drenched and drowned looking in the back of the ambulance?

They tell me during the fall, I must have been impaled by rock or brick or something as equally as sharp, it struck my spleen — no permanent damage but it will explain the scar that neatly bisects my back once the stitches are removed and all clear is given.

Course, nearly falling and drowning wasn’t enough, then the pneumonia came and tried to do what the other event couldn’t. So much for starting at Maxton Hall positively and keeping my head down, so much for just wanting to get through my final years of compulsory study in peace and quiet; indifference as it were, doesn’t seem to want to be my friend. Not with how all of this is happening.

“Hey” Lin wraps her arms around me; I only saw her two or so days ago “Glad you’re back.” she tells me “Things have settled.”

Yes, they have and I don’t need to be reminded, but I still let her hold onto me for as long as she needs to, before she turns to leave for her own classes and I head to my own.

The biggest difference, now that I’ve returned is that I have a new classmate who I’ve not seen before and who seems to be in the same circle as James, or at least I suspect it, because this new person sits down behind me rather than James in Graham’s class.

But unlike the posh air of some of these heirs and heiresses to their family fortunes, this male, with bed curls and tired eyes, a large cup of coffee and blotches of ink stains on his fingers introduces himself as Alistair Ellington.

“Where have you been?” Kieran seems to ask him, curious.

“Been ill, seems I’m not the only one.” His gaze is warm. “Here’s to surviving the rest of the year, yeah?”

“Yes.” I nod. “Not like anything more can happen.”

“Too true.”

Alistair is witty, and warm and he doesn’t seem to take the nonsense of anyone and in fact when he turns out to be doing every other class I am in, with the exception of choosing to play lacrosse when I’m supposed to be in sociology, he’s a welcomed presence.

“Oi!” He calls out to me from across the courtyard “Bell! I have coffee!!”

He lifts a tray of paper cups and sure enough there’s a cup with my name on it, it’s scrawled and written messily but just barely legible enough for me to take the cup and give him a raised eyebrow.

“You look like you need it, thinking beyond your drinking of peppermint tea, that you might be a mocha person?”

“How’d you guess that?” I laugh, he’s not right, but he’s not wrong either.

“Well, it was either that or chai, I got both.” He taps another lid for another cup “with just a lick of honey, take either.”

“I prefer the chai. Thank you.” Wondering who’ll take the discarded mocha now.

That’s when another one of the boys on the lacrosse team, someone who’s not actually in my English Literature class now that everyone has settled into their proper routines, I think his name is Cyril, reaches for the discarded mocha, takes a sip and then stiffens.

“They wrote the wrong name on my cup.” He rolls his eyes.

“Not like it matters, still a mocha.” Alistair comments.

“Yeah, but next time, they better write something even resembling my name.”

“Oh, fuck off Vegas, not the end of the world.”

“Anyways, you’re the girl from Sutton’s class.”

Cyril offers me his free hand, his hair is slightly curled and damp, presumably from finishing a drill in Lacrosse, according to Alistair, though he plays himself, he’s been benched until his injury is completely gone. Not like I blame him, the sport seems dangerous every single time I do manage to catch a glimpse of it on the television before dad changes the channel.

“Nice to meet you, Cyril Vegas.” He almost mockingly bows.

“Ruby Bell.” I take his hand, giving it a stiff shake, he gives me a smile. Reciprocating with a firmer shake before letting me concentrate on drinking my Chai.

James POV

||Prior to Alistair’s return to Maxton Hall||

“I need you to do me a favour.”

I outright barge into Alistair’s room, my best friend, turns to look at me from where he stands in front of his full length mirror, the stab wound over his heart finally healed up enough there’s a thick covering of protective scales – both his own and borrowed from the likes of his mother and other mermaids who want him to heal faster.

“Nice to see you too.” Alistair rolls his eyes “Where the hell have you been?”

“Away, will you listen to me or not”

“Well, you’re already here, so it must be urgent.”

“It is, somewhat. I just need you to look after someone for me,”

“Is this to do with the girl that seems to be on everyone’s radar?”

When I don’t immediately answer, Alistair picks up a pillow from his freshly made bed and throws it at me, the speed of it leaves me barely able to catch it before it slams into my face, and when I lower it, tossing it back onto the bed, Alistair has moved to be closer to me. His hands in his pockets, waiting for me to explain myself as we assess each other. I’m glad that he survived, that he’s on the road to recovery. But I also know that whilst he's recovering, he won’t be any help on the field and that there’s no way his parents, Lord and Lady Ellington are going to let him step even a hair’s length onto the Lacrosse pitch until the healers give him a golden bill of health.

“Ruby, she’s… we thought she was a hunter’s daughter.”

“And she’s not?” Alistair sighs “case of mistaken identity, classic. So, guessing you want to me to keep an eye on her so no more trouble comes her way.”

“Yes, and I want you to do so whilst also being her friend.”

“Her friend? You’re asking for something huge, James, what aren’t you telling me?”

Well I can’t tell you that the girl I’m asking you to protect is my fated love, I can’t tell you that I am trying to stay away before if I get any closer, I’ll do something even more irrational and dangerous — and with my absence from the picture for as long as it’s taken for her to recover, people are going to ask questions, people like my father who’ll want to demand the damn truth about why I saved her, when he and my mother outright stand on the hill that she’s got to be a hunter.

I can’t tell anyone that she’s my fated love because if I do, then it’ll be bloodshed and even more of a reason for Elaine, yes, your younger sister Alistair who’ll howl for Ruby’s blood.