Their Siren (Daughters of Olympus Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Their Siren

  Daughters of Olympus

  Charlie Hart

  Anastasia James

  Contents

  Copyright

  Before

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  After

  Preview of Protecting

  Preview of Chosen

  Also by Charlie Hart

  Also by Anastasia James

  Copyright

  JOIN CHARLIE HART’S

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  AND NEVER MISS A RELEASE!

  And find Charlie on FB!

  https://www.facebook.com/charliehartromance/

  JOIN ANASTASIA JAME’S

  MAILING LIST

  AND NEVER MISS A RELEASE!

  And find Anastasia on FB!

  https://www.facebook.com/anastasiajamesauthor/

  ❤❤❤❤

  Edited by

  Teresa Banschbach

  ICanEdit4U

  Copyright © and 2017 by Frankie Love

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Before

  Love is part beast, part saint, part hope, part hell.

  Love hurts and heals, promising nothing. Taking all.

  Love is not for the easily bruised, for it leaves you with a multitude of scars.

  It’s a fragile, breakable thing, that can’t be mended overnight.

  Or even seven thousand, six hundred, and sixty-five nights.

  For, in the end, love is a jealous ruse.

  They call me the villain in this story.

  But the trick was on me.

  They say I held all the love in the world, yet tossed it aside in vain.

  But I know the truth.

  I’ve waited long enough.

  Now it’s time to take back what should have been ours all along.

  Be ready, daughters of Olympus.

  I’m coming for you.

  Chapter 1

  Harlow

  I can’t stop staring at it. The fact I have it at all is kind of insane considering my aversion to needles. My mom will flip out, but then her face will break into a big grin once she realizes what kind of tattoo I chose.

  A seal surrounded by blue crashing waves.

  It’s pretty much perfection.

  The tattoo covers most of my right thigh—big for my first one, but I didn’t want to half-ass it. Mostly because my resolution for my twenty-first birthday is to stop being scared and to start going all in. With my life, with relationships, with my job. I’ve been living in shallow water and I’m tired of it.

  I want to dive. Deep.

  I look up at the white moon, full and swollen and casting a glow over the dark ocean. My feet sink into the sand at the shoreline, and I know being here, at this moment, is no coincidence. The smell of the saltwater feels like home.

  My mom always told stories about how I was born from the sea... literally. No one knew who my biological parents were; they found me on the beach—this very beach—and her stories eased the worry in my heart of not belonging. My mom always whispered You belong to the ocean, but you’re growing up on dry land.

  As a child, it comforted me... but now I’m all grown up and I just wonder, where do I come from?

  It’s that pit in my belly that’s always empty. That hollow in my heart that never seems to fill.

  My phone buzzes in the back pocket of my cut-offs. Pulling it out, I see that it’s Chloe.

  Smiling, I answer the call. “Should I come? Are you all checked in?” I ask.

  “No,” she groans. “It was false labor. I’m on my way home now. Sorry, I ruined your birthday.”

  “Oh, shut up,” I tease my best friend. Never in a million years would I expect her to apologize. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “You were supposed to have my moral support tonight. Did you cry the whole time?”

  I hear Enzo in the background asking me to send them a photo, and the other guys are shouting as well, asking to see. Chloe has four men who she’s in a committed relationship with, and she’s pretty much my hero when it comes to following her heart and not giving a damn what the rest of the world might think.

  “No,” I tell her. “I was badass.”

  She snorts. “I’m not saying I don’t believe your badassery, but Harlow--,”

  I cut her off. “I was. I’m turning a new leaf, Chloe. This new me is totally hardcore.”

  “Send me a photo. We’re dying to see.”

  I put her on speakerphone and try to get a good photo of my thigh.

  “Are you sad that you aren’t in labor?” I ask as I snap a few pictures.

  “I think the guys are more disappointed than I am. Once Pearl is born everything will change, you know?”

  “I know, sweetie,” I say. “But you are going to be an amazing mom.” Chloe has voiced her nerves a lot recently, and even though she has a rock-solid support system, change is hard. I can’t even imagine being a mother. “Okay, I sent one. Did you get it?”

  “Uh, just a sec. Oh, Harlow!” she screeches. “It’s amazing. The waves look so perfect. And the seal’s eyes are seriously haunting. Your artist did amazing work.”

  “I know. It’s better than I expected.”

  “Now I guess you have to be badass this year with your little spirit animal always with you.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Hey,” she says, her voice full of irritation. “Where are you, Harlow?”

  “Just headed home.”

  “Liar. I see the sand in this photo. Are you okay?”

  “It’s just the beach.”

  “Not just any beach. Harlow, it’s the beach.”

  I sigh, my heart constricting. Chloe is the first friend I’ve ever been so vulnerable with; so honest. Everyone else thinks I’m just the outgoing, fun one. Truth is, overcompensating for what I’m not is my greatest accomplishment.

  Not exactly something to brag about.

  Someone left me here, not knowing who would find me.

  I swallow, not wanting to cry. But the truth of my beginning always makes my eyes well up with salty tears. It makes my belly ache and reminds me how empty I feel inside.

  My parents may have found me... but that means someone else
left me first.

  “You sure you’re okay? I can come right now.”

  “I’m fine,” I say, wiping my eyes. “You just left the freaking hospital. Go home and rest. I’m leaving now too. I just needed to see it, you know?”

  “I know.”

  Desperate to change the subject, I say, “Hey, let’s do dinner tomorrow night, okay? You will die when you see the ring my mom gave me for my birthday. It’s beautiful.” I look at the ring on my finger. It’s a gold band and looks antique. It fits on my middle finger perfectly. My mom said she’d been saving it for me since the day she found me.

  To say it’s an emotional birthday gift is an understatement. I’ve had it a handful of hours, yet it’s already my most prized possession. It was with me, in the basket, when I was found.

  “Can’t wait,” she says. “And you know what, Harlow, you’re beautiful too. Inside and out. From my experience, it doesn’t matter where you came from, it just matters where you go.”

  Her words are perfect, and I want to hold onto them, tightly. But it’s hard to stop believing the story we always tell ourselves. That I’m not enough.

  If I was... why would my birth parents have let me go?

  “Thanks,” I say, knowing I’m getting emotional and not in a place to get that up close and personal over the phone. I don’t know why her words reach so deep inside me, but they do. It’s funny how some people can know you your entire life, but not really know you at all, and then other people fall into your lap and see you exactly as you are.

  Or even, as you could be.

  “You’re a good friend,” I tell her. “And you’ll be an even better mother.”

  “Love you, birthday girl,” she says, and we hang up.

  I consider getting back in my car, but then I look toward the water.

  It calls to me.

  It always has.

  The sky is filled with a trillion stars, the moon heavy overhead and the crash of the waves matching the ebb and flow of my emotions today.

  I look out, and my breath catches.

  A seal bobs his head, swimming so close that I worry about it. But the seal’s eyes meet mine... and I’m not being dramatic when I say this: they pierce my heart. They are big, brown, and soulful.

  I spent my life wondering where I came from and with one look, the seal seems to answer all my questions.

  I belong out there.

  With him.

  It scares me, the way the animal makes me feel. Seen in a way I don’t understand. I swallow, stepping back, not even realizing I’ve walked into the water, up to my knees; so lost in a trance, so utterly mesmerized. But it is hard to move, it’s like the sand is tar and I’m caught in the pit.

  I stumble to my knees, my feet seemingly locked into place. But I know that going into the ocean, alone at night, is nothing but idiotic.

  I need to get away from the water.

  But the seal doesn’t leave. It barks, and as crazy as it sounds, I swear he says to come closer.

  Even though I keep trying to move my feet backward, away from the water that seems to have tethered my ankles into place, I can’t.

  I try to turn my back on the sea, but it’s relentless. The tide rolls in at a pace I’ve never witnessed, and my thigh burns as the saltwater stings my skin. The fresh tattoo is going to be ruined, and I press my palms into the sand trying to push myself away from the sea. But I can’t move. I’m stuck... and worse, my feet are being pulled further into the ocean.

  “Help,” I scream. “Help!” I blink back tears. Now is not the time nor the place to have a meltdown. I grit my teeth, determined to get out of this shoreline gravitational pull I’m somehow caught in.

  The seal barks louder, and though I try to ignore him, my heart seems to ache, as if begging to swim with the wild animal. I may have called him my spirit animal, but that was a ridiculous idea, inspired by a social media site where hipster girls get cute-ass tattoos. There isn’t any real connection between the seal and me and I don’t need to meet it anytime soon.

  What I need is to get away from here.

  Except I can’t.

  It doesn’t matter how hard I resist, the pull is just too great.

  “Someone! Anyone!” My voice is clear, but the bark of the seal is so intense it overwhelms my own cry.

  My legs are pushed out from under me, and I sink my elbows down into the sea, barreling down to steady myself, my tattooed thigh burning, my body fighting to stay put but the shifting sand overtakes me.

  Even if I don’t know where I belong, I do know that when the sea calls, you have no choice but to answer.

  Chapter 2

  Harlow

  My head plunges beneath the dark water and my skin burns. Tightens. I feel it changing ... and not just the tattooed flesh. My legs in their entirety seem to fight.

  Fight me.

  They stop pushing to stay ashore and instead my feet kick—against my will, my legs pump—propelling me away from the shore I know.

  I blink beneath the water, and my chest constricts the same way my legs do.

  My heart begins to beat in a different rhythm. A heartbeat I’ve never heard before.

  But it’s a beat I know.

  I know that sounds insane but so is the fact that I’m no longer on solid ground.

  I want to go deeper. Go farther.

  It’s like I can see something that isn’t there.

  But maybe it is there. Maybe for me, it’s something deep inside, something that’s been there all along.

  My destiny.

  And right now, I swim toward it.

  Chloe’s words echo in my ear... it doesn’t matter where you came from. It just matters where you go.

  Is that what this is? This is me finally going somewhere? Because my heart is saying something I don’t really understand. My heart screams for me to swim.

  I have nothing to lose. Not really.

  What is the point of living if I spend my entire life on the shore, just waiting for something to happen?

  What if this is the something?

  I don’t want to miss it.

  Not that I have a choice. My body has a mind of its own.

  I’ve spent my entire life overcompensating. Being outgoing and overly-friendly, and keeping a smile in place when I really wanted to scream. Really wanted to give the middle finger to everyone who seemed so good at keeping their shit together.

  But deep down, I wanted to tell the entire world that I wasn’t, in fact, just a pink-haired girl with a penchant for iced coffee with a good sidestroke.

  I’m more than that.

  I know it in my bones, apparently.

  Underwater, I open my eyes and look around, my heart pumping fast, and just like every time I’ve been in the water since I was a baby, I breathe easier beneath the shore.

  Of course, I don’t talk about that.

  There’s no reason to. I tried before, of course, to tell my parents that I could hold my breath for an hour. That even though I wore a snorkeling mask when I took tourists out on the boat around Oahu, I don’t actually need goggles and flippers to move below the rippling water. And everywhere I swim there always seemed to be a seal close by. My spirit animal. It was more than a joke. I knew it was true.

  He came for me tonight.

  I blink beneath the water and see him up ahead.

  I follow.

  I blink at the colorful fish swimming past me, pumping my legs, propelling myself deeper into the sea. It makes no sense. But, for the first time ever, as I give in to the ocean, I feel free.

  Maybe it’s the culmination of a life spent going in circles, never really getting anywhere.

  I live in my parents’ basement for goodness sake. I go to community college part-time and for the rest of it, I’m a quintessential beach bum. The friends I meet are only here in Waikiki on a layover before starting the rest of their actual lives.

  That’s what I want. To start living; not just getting through. I keep swimming, thinking
about Chloe and her beautiful, romantic, picture-perfect, life. Her life isn’t passing her by. She’s jumping in with both feet, refusing to be a bystander. And the entire time that happily-ever-after unfolded for Chloe, all I managed to do was get a nose ring and a tattoo.

  Not exactly winning at adulting.

  I roll with the water, stretching out my arms in front of me, and as I do, the clothing I wore out tonight—cut-offs and a tank top—seem to fall away, shredding to nothing as the water propels me forward.

  How is this happening? Memories of my life flash by. Driving the boat and always managing to find the very best spots on the island. If I’m steering the rig, we’ll end up where a pod of dolphins play, or where a pack of turtles graze. My parents call it the Harlow Touch... but I know it’s more than that.

  It’s dark in these depths, nearly pitch black. I’ve never done this before-- swim so deep I wind up lost.

  I look around for the seal, but I can’t see it.

  Air bubbles escape from my open mouth as I breathe.

  I shouldn’t be able to do this.

  Breathe in and out, without sputtering and coughing.

  Without drowning.

  But I’m not drowning. I’m swimming faster and faster, my body gliding through the water. My legs no longer burn, they shimmer. I take a deep breath, my lungs lighting up as if the saltwater hitting my core awakens me for the first time in my life.

  One moment it feels like a miracle to swim this way and the next minute the water turns an unnatural shade of black and I struggle to see where I am pummeling forward at an unnatural speed.