Page 1 of Hymn of Breath and Bone

Chapter 1

“No mate of minewill be unable to defend herself,” Caspian said, shouting the word ‘mate’ rather more loudly than necessary as he pushed the dagger into my hand.

I had only been in the Siren Cliffs for a few days, most of them spent unconscious as I recovered from evicting Morar’s spirit from Rannoch’s lake. I already missed the grumpy kelpie, but I was preoccupied with several other, morepressing issues.

Like the fact that I was betraying my people and parents by staying with Caspian.

Like the fact that he was my mate.

“So you’re going to teach me?” I asked, trying to sound skeptical rather than rife with excitement and nerves.

“Of course,” he said with a grin.

I had begged both my father and my former betrothed to teach me self-defense, and both had refused on the principle that it wasn’t necessary or proper.

And here was Caspian, Siren King and mortal enemy to my people, handing me a dagger.

If I wasn’t in love with him already, this would have pushed me over the edge.

The realization that we were mates was still new. It had only been this morning—although it seemed like days ago now—when Caspian presented me to his people. We planned to fake a mating bond until I decided if I would stay. But the moment he presented me as his mate, something clicked into place.

From there we’d gone to a meeting with his advisors that went disastrously, to a meal in one of the common dining areas, to training, and I hadn’t had a chance to figure out exactly how I was going to tell him.

But seas below, I had to tell him. Before he kept his promise to thoroughly bed me, Ihadto tell him. I didn’t know what importance the sirens placed on the act, but I knew it was something. Caspian had said as much when he refused to give me everything on our little deserted island.

I was aching for him. And based on how he was looking at me, and the feeling that our hearts beat in tandem, I thought he might be aching for me too.

“Unless you’d prefer Astraios?” Caspian added with a raised eyebrow.

Caspian’s handsome third-in-command blew me a kiss, earning a smack on the back of the head from Zephyr, Caspian’s first mate.

Both had come ostensibly to watch us spar, but I knew they had actually been tasked with guarding me. Caspian wasn’t sure yet that none of the sirens would try to murder me to send a message to my father, and I couldn’t really blame them if they tried.

Especially considering how the meeting with his advisors had gone.

“Will Astraios dootherthings you won’t?” I teased, looking up at him and closing the distance between us a bit more as I tried to push the memory of that meeting from my mind. His scent washed over me, wind and sea and mint, and I could feel the heat of his bare chest radiating against my skin. “Keep promises, for example?”

Caspian’s eyes flashed with heat, and he bit his lower lip. Seas, I wanted to be that lip.

“I told you that I’d be keeping my promises to you, Urchin,” he said, his voice a sensual growl. “But by all means, invite him along. The more the merrier.”

“Seas,” I breathed, taking a step back and shaking my head. “You are a scoundrel.”

“Pirate, remember?” he said, grinning wickedly. “Now keep your dagger arm up.”

“If I’m well enough to spar, am I not well enough for thoseotherthings?”I asked, raising the dagger and giving him a pointed look.

“The things I have in mind will require you to improve your stamina,” he replied, his lips twitching with suggestive amusement. “Hold the dagger like this.” He corrected my grip, his touch a brand on my skin.

“I feel like such activities would helpbuildmy stamina,” I argued, angling the blade like he showed me.

“Are they talking about what I think they’re talking about?” Astraios asked loudly. “Because this doesn’t sound like self-defense. It sounds like forep—”

“You watch your tongue,” Caspian said, pointing his blade at his best friend. “Or I’ll teach Marina how to cut it out.”

“She would never,” Astraios drawled confidently, waggling his eyebrows at me. “She loves my tongue.”

Zephyr hit the irreverent male as Caspian took a step toward Astraios, his fists clenched.