Blood of Sirens: Book 13 of The Witch Fairy Series by Bonnie Lamer Page A

whips it across the room toward the fireplace with a fierce growl.
    “Um, I don’t think so,” I exclaim.  No way is the thing going to burn without me reading it first.
    “Xandra, don’t,” Kallen warns.  I can’t tell if he doesn’t want me to touch it for fear I’ll get burned or if he doesn’t want me to read it.  I suspect it’s more the latter.
    “You know me better than that,” I tell him.  I carefully pick the scroll out of the fireplace.  My fingertips get a little singed.  I’m not sure if that’s due to the fire or the scroll, but a little burning flesh is not going to keep me from reading the stupid thing.
    Kallen is by my side now and he stoops to pick up the scroll.  “You will not like it,” he says quietly.
    “Yeah, I gathered that when you threw it at the fire,” I snark.  “What does it say, Kallen?”
    “My love…” he begins.
    I cut him off.  “Tell me what it says.”
    With the sigh of the century heaved from his chest, Kallen carries the scroll to a side table and unrolls it.  My first surprise is the color of the writing.  Do the Sirens make ink out of seaweed?  It’s the right color green for it.  I begin reading and am annoyed that like their song, it rhymes.  Only poems and spells should rhyme.  Death threats, kidnapping threats and declarations of war should not rhyme.  There’s nothing worse than a cutesy declaration of war.  It reads:
    Tales of your beauty reach far and wide,
    A glorious King you shall be by our side.
    Endless nights of pleasure await,
    Destiny has already sealed your fate.
    Deny us not or pay the price,
    You alone can be the Fairy sacrifice,
    To satisfy the wrongs of the past.
    Know this offer will be our last.
    Two moons you may take to decide
    No longer shall we abide.
    Until you come, we shall sing,
    Each night our voices will clearly ring,
    Each Fairy death will rest upon your head,
    Until the Queen has you in her bed.
    Leave behind your life of old
    With its wife to bear and King to scold.
    Come to us freely is all we ask,
    Then in endless summer you shall bask.
    Live forever with the Queen on both land and sea,
    Hear her beckon ‘Come to me, my Darling, come to me’.
     
    Okay, I’ve been mad before.  Really, really mad.  But nothing compares to the raging going on inside my brain at the moment.  “Wife to bear?  The Queen’s bed?  I’m going to kill them,” I inform everyone present.  “I am going to track them down and I am going to wring each and every gilled neck I can find.”
    “Why would they demand to have you?” Kai wants to know.  There is a clear thread of something in his voice.  Is he jealous?  Does he think he should have been the one the Sirens demanded?  I guess it would make more sense.  At least he can breathe underwater without a spell.
    “Because demanding Kallen is the sweetest revenge Irena could come up with,” Tana says quietly.  We all turn to her and with eyes brimming with tears, she continues, “He has been like a son to Dagda and me.  Tearing him from us would be as devastating as taking a child born to us.  She wants Dagda to suffer for choosing me.  Kallen is also the husband of the most powerful female alive.  They seek to make Xandra suffer in hopes it will weaken her.” 
    Exactly what we figured at Isla’s this morning.  The Sirens are here to hurt Dagda and me both.  Yet another readymade enemy of mine.  I sure wish people would work their way up to despising me instead of jumping in head first.  “I hate to dwell on this, but seriously, will there ever be supernatural beings who just want to get to know me and be my friend?”  Yes, I’m whining but who wouldn’t when it seems the entire universe wants me to be miserable.
    “The Sirens are known for keeping their word,” Kai says.  “This sacrifice could be the answer we seek.”
    My mouth drops open.  If I wasn’t completely slack jawed now, I would speak all the obscenities and threats going through