Free Siren's Song by Mary Weber

when they brought me from the queen.”
    â€œAnd? What’d the old hag want? She going to let us go?”
    â€œShe’s undecided.”
    Kenan scoffs. “Of course she is. What’d she get out of you, Highness?”
    â€œA brief history of my life, my father’s life, and every opinion I’ve ever had on the realm of Cashlin. Whatever she saw appeased her that I’ve no designs on taking her kingdom.”
    Kenan nods. “But we’re getting out of here anyway, right?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œAbout that.” I look back and forth between the two men. “I saw their city for a few moments. Eogan, they have no defenses.”
    Footfalls sound beyond the door, coming down the hall. They fall in unison with the raindrops now thundering above our heads. Five, six, seven individuals by my estimation. Eogan is up and standing beside the door in a heartbeat, as is Kenan. I tighten my fist in preparation as Kenan steps back and the door opens. Myles and Isobel enter the room.
    I pause at Myles’s wide, sunken eyes. He looks terrible. There are gasps from Sir Doesn’t Matter and Kenan as they both jump away from Eogan. What the—? Who for a moment is no longer Eogan but Draewulf, baring his teeth and rising to his taller, wolfish height.
    Lady Isobel screeches and my hand goes out, but before I can react, I catch the shiver in the air around him.
    The ripple of atmosphere . . .
    It’s an illusion created by Lord Myles.
    â€œStop!” I lunge for the guard who’s lifting his wristlet and kick my leg out to clip Myles’s knees. He stumbles forward and the vision of Draewulf dissipates.
    â€œIt’s Myles’s ability, not Eogan!” I turn to Eogan who’s standing there, the rippling atmosphere gone, his normal form returned.
    He’s staring at me with a sickened expression.
    Myles curses and wheels around, even as behind him the Luminescents concur, “It was an illusion.” They must’ve seen, just like Princess Rasha, that Myles’s power wouldn’t work on their intuitive minds.
    â€œWhat in hulls is wrong with you?” Lady Isobel snarls, smacking her hand across Myles’s face. “Are you trying to get us all killed?”
    â€œIt wasn’t his fault.” I look at Myles, then back at Lady Isobel. “The poison’s starting in.”
    â€œOh, of all the—”
    An odd moan cuts off Isobel’s cursing, and Eogan stumbles against me. What the—? His face has gone white as a ferret-cat and his eyes are fading fading fading to the color of death.
    â€œEogan!”
    Before Kenan or I can catch him, he slumps to the floor.

CHAPTER 9
    B LOOD IS POOLING.
    It’s on the floor around Eogan’s head and jagged hair and black skin that has gone completely ashen. I drop to the ground and loosen his cloak to seek out his pulse.
    Weak.
    Blasted hulls . With shaky fingers, I yank open his coat and choke back a cry. Blood has seeped down to cover the right half of his tunic. I work to unlace the side with my good hand as a blend of feet converge around us, and four Luminescents are suddenly bending over. “Help me,” I growl.
    Then Kenan’s there too, kneeling to help loosen the tunic. When we pull it away, the young male guard overhead gasps. Bruising covers Eogan’s ribs and extends up and around to where the blood’s coming from—that slice on the back of his neck.
    Oh please, no.
    It’s oozing deep red and glossy, and too fast for safety. I press my hands over the wound, but the amount of fluid slicking out onto the glassy floor makes me ill. How did this happen? He wasn’t bleeding moments ago.
    Kenan places a hand on top of mine on the cut to compress harder.
    â€œWill he be all right?”
    He doesn’t answer.
    I turn to the Luminescents. “What’s happening to him?”
    One of them invades my vision. “Miss, let us take him to