It was like Reg was watching herself. Watching her body do something that she would never have chosen to do. Something else had taken over her brain. An instinct. A hunger. A need.
Corvin avoided her grasp as Reg advanced on him, trying to get him under her control once more. It was almost comical, the smaller woman chasing the strong, powerful warlock. But she had seen Corvin brought under the power of another woman before. Her mother, Norma Jean, when her siren instinct had taken control.
Reg had been disgusted, glad that she hadn’t inherited that nature from her biological mother. That would have been too much.
But had it been buried there all the time, just waiting for her to mature enough and to go back to the ocean, where she could overcome her prey and take him under the water?
Corvin was several yards away from her, still watching, careful that she couldn’t launch herself at him and get him under her control again.
“Reg!”
“I don’t want to do this!” Reg resisted the pull as much as she could. But the water tugging around her legs fed the hunger and need. “Stay away from the water,” she told Corvin. “I think it’s something in the water.”
“I don’t think it’s going to affect me,” Corvin said in a voice that attempted to be calm and reassuring. “It’s just you. Maybe you should come out of the water.”
“No. No, I need to…” Reg looked up and down the beach, following the water in each direction. Maybe there was someone else. Someone who was close to the water’s edge who would go in with her without asking the reason. Who needed a reason? She was just following her heart.
“Reg, just come toward me. Out of the water. Come this way…”
He beckoned to her, inviting her to come out. His movement wafted his scent closer to her, driving her mad.
“Corvin!”
He took another step away. Reg needed him to step closer, not farther away. She needed to stop him.
She dashed at him, hoping to catch him off guard. She could knock him off balance, maybe even hit him in the head, and then in his confused state, he would be easy to pull back to the water.
But her run toward him took her out of the water, past the packed wet sand, into the loose, dry sand that was harder to walk or run through. Corvin took a couple of steps back, leading her on through the dry sand mixed with gravel that cut her feet.
“Let’s go home, Reg. It’s getting cold. You’re getting tired.”
She was angry with him for walking away. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. She’d had him in the water. She’d been that close.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to the car. We can sit and talk there.”
“No! No, I don’t want…” She couldn’t think of what it was she wanted. Her brain was muddled.
“Come on.” He continued to walk back toward the car. Reg, stumbling and clumsy, tried to match his pace or to catch up so she could take him back to the water.
She was mincing by the time they got back to the car, her feet in exquisite pain. She wanted to go back to the soothing water and smooth, wet sand.
Corvin used his key fob to unlock the car. Its lights flashed. Corvin got in on his side. He didn’t hold Reg’s door for her.
Reg opened the passenger door and slid into her seat, angry and frustrated.
For a few moments, they just sat there, both breathing heavily, pondering what had happened.
“Well. That was unexpected,” Corvin said dryly.
Reg breathed out. “What just happened?”
“I think you know the answer to that.”
“No. I don’t get it. Nothing like that has ever happened before. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“If Norma Jean was part siren, then it makes perfect sense. You’re her daughter.”
Reg shook her head adamantly. “No. There’s something in the water here. Or a spell. It enchanted me.”
Corvin was watching her carefully. “I won’t say that’s impossible, but I think it’s unlikely. No one else was affected. Only you.”
“But if I had any kind of… siren instincts…” Reg rolled her eyes at the idea. “Then they would have shown up before now. Why would I not be affected by them until now?”
“Maybe it was just the right combination of circumstances. After dark, walking on the beach, a… suitable target at hand.”
“I’ve been swimming lots of times. I’ve never had anything happen. It wouldn’t be the first time I took a late-night dip in the ocean. Though, up north, the water was never as warm as it is here.”
“By yourself, or with someone else?”
Reg thought about it. “I’ve been swimming with boys.”
Corvin shrugged. He scratched his beard. “Maybe there is something special about the water here. Or you weren’t old enough for it to have kicked in yet.”
Reg stared through the windshield at the boats, festooned with lights, moving into and out of the marina.
“Or it could be that meeting your mother triggered something. A genetic memory or on-switch.”
“You were kind of out of it at the time. But she told me that this would be my territory. To stay away from her waters.”
“Competition can trigger different behavioral patterns. Some species even change sexes if the opposite sex is in short supply.”
“Well, I hope that isn’t going to happen.”
Corvin allowed a small smile. “I haven’t heard of that happening with humans or sirens.”
“But who knows what else might be in the mix.”
Corvin opened his mouth, then closed it. Reg rubbed her forehead. It was throbbing with pain.
“I’m sorry…” she told Corvin. “If that’s worth anything.”
“Of course. I know this wasn’t something you planned out. I was the one who brought you to the marina. And I do understand something of… instinctual behaviors.”
So there they were. Was Reg a natural predator like Corvin? It was something she could never have imagined. She wasn’t the kind of person who enjoyed hurting others. She’d always been the one to stand up against bullies, even though they were hurting someone else and she was putting herself in the line of fire. She could just never countenance it.
Even watching herself as Reg had, she couldn’t believe that had actually been her. Was she losing her mind? Maybe it was all just a bad dream.
When was she going to wake up and find that everything had gone back to normal?
“I think… maybe I should go to bed.” She covered her face, trying to hold herself together.
Corvin put his hand on her shoulder. “Reg… it will be okay.”
“It will be okay? I’m falling apart. I’m losing my mind. I can’t control my own behavior. That’s not okay! That’s never going to be okay!”
“I know you’re upset. You have every right to be. But this isn’t the end. It’s just… a bump in the road.”
“You could be drowned on the bottom of the ocean! How can you say that?”
“Because… I know how it is to be different. And because I’m not drowned on the bottom of the ocean. You didn’t do that. You might have wanted to do that, but you didn’t.”
“Only because you pulled away.”
“No.” Corvin shook his head. “You could have incapacitated me, but you didn’t.”
“I don’t know how to do that. Whatever it was Norma Jean did to enchant you.”
“Maybe not yet. But you have stopped me before, blocked me using magic, not your physical body. And you could have snapped my neck or choked me out. You chose not to do that.”
“How do you know that?” She’d had her arm over his artery. The one that would feed oxygen to his brain. She’d known on an instinctive level that if she’d cut off that blood flow, he would not have been able to fight her any longer.
“I know,” Corvin said softly. “And I know that you were telling me to get out of the water. That you said you didn’t want to hurt me.”
“But then I… I still would have.”
“This is the first time that you’ve had to fight this instinct, and you were able to do it. Next time it will be easier.”
“Is that how it is for you? It’s easier when you resist?”
He looked away from her. His answer was clear. Reg’s heart felt like it was being squeezed. She tried desperately not to let the hot tears escape her eyes.
“Please take me home.”
Normally he would have teased her, told her he’d be happy to take her home. He would have made it a joke and an invitation and tried to work his way past her defenses.
But he didn’t.
He put his key in the ignition and backed the car out of the parking spot.