Their Siren

Chapter Eleven

Alexander

I knew something was off the moment I walked into the kitchen, the early morning illuminated my brother, he looked drawn and pale. Massaging his temples with his fingertips. He didn’t look up when I approached, just slid his tablet over the polished marble at me and took a gulp of his coffee.

“What?” I started asking but he shook his head wearily. What the hell was going on that had him up and stressed so early in the morning? I had slept like a baby, the evening spent with Hannah had done wonders, once I had got the pent-up frustration that seeing her soaking wet from the ocean spray had been beaten out of my system. I grinned at the memory, but the grin was short lived as I took in the large picture at the top of the news story.

I frowned. s**t. Pulling the sleek tablet towards me I gave it a closer look.

There we were, the three of us.

It had obviously been taken last night, Hannah was stood in the waves, her hair and clothes soaked and almost see through. She had been captured half splashing my brother, his eyes firmly on her firm breasts even in the grainy picture. My arms securely around her waist. I remembered the moment well, what I didn’t remember was any sound or scent that anyone else was present.

“Well s**t” I scrolled down.

And there another smaller photo, at the party. A picture where we had both been touching her. The title: MYSTERY RED HEAD DATING BOTH TWINS?

“s**t” I slapped my hand down hard on the counter, making the bowl of fruit bounce with the force of my blow.

“There’s others” Julian’s voice was emotionless as he poured two fresh cups of coffee.

“What are we going to do?” I couldn’t help the panic in my voice. It was the same panic that was mirrored in his tired eyes.

“I have no idea, but I think we should get ready for the councils intervention” His voice was dead.

The council getting involved this early in our bid to win over our mate was the last thing we needed.

I rubbed my temples, fingers knotting in my unruly hair. “Maybe…”

He cut me off. “The story is everywhere, its viral. The council will hear about it if they haven’t already. We may as well get ready for them”

Except there was no way of getting ready for them.

They would never let us keep her. An empty pit opened in my stomach. “I won’t give her up without a fight”

I watched as he nodded, a gleam in his eye that I had seen many times growing up. Julian was ready for a fight. I guess we both were. The question was how? How were we going to fight the people who had governed the shifter races for millennia?

“We need to tell Hannah the truth about us”

I agreed but only partly. Telling her this early on in our relationship was risky. Sure, she knew something was different about us, she wasn’t stupid but to tell her everything? I wasn’t sure she could handle it. She may run screaming and then we would have no choice but to hand her over.

“I’m not sure we are quite there yet” and I wasn’t. I wouldn’t risk losing her by rushing.

“What other choice do we have?” Julian slammed his cup down. There was the brother I knew and loved. Hard headed and prone to bursts of anger. “If we mate her before the council can interfere then it’s a done deal” I could see the doubt on his face even as he spoke. “she could learn to love us I know she could”

Yeah, she could learn to love us, there wasn’t really any question about that. The attraction worked both ways and relationships had worked out with a lot less, but could I do that to her. Could I mate her without her knowing what she was getting into? Tie her to us for all eternity without asking her what she wanted?

The siren in me was screaming yes, the man was shaking his head. A firm No.

No, we couldn’t do that to her.

We couldn’t do that to ourselves. Losing a mate would be hard enough, losing one that we had claimed and that hated us? That would be worse.

“No, we do this right or we give her up. Our schedules are pretty full this week which should keep the council off our backs... for a few days at least” I lowered my head deep in thought. “We take her with us, its great publicity for us right now and a chance for us to spend some more time with her. We SHOW her that we are serious about this and when the time comes, we tell her straight what and who we are”

“And you think a few days is going to be enough?”

I shrugged again, a heaviness to my shoulders. Like I was lifting an enormous weight. “That’s all we have”

“And if the council still don’t agree?”

I raised my brown eyes to his identical ones. “Then the council can screw themselves”

Julian raised his coffee mug in salute. “I’m with you there brother” Then his face darkened. I watched it become closed,

“You do realize we know almost nothing about Hannah right, when you were gone, she kept speaking about commitments back home”

Commitments? I felt my lips draw into a thin line. “Commitments as in a man?”

“She said no but wouldn’t elaborate. Family commitments she said ones that would take her away from us when the summer was over”

“And you only thought to tell me this now?” I couldn’t help the rage in my voice.

“You were gone” He waved me away. “but we do need to remember that these ‘news stories’” He lifted his fingers to make speech marks in a mocking way. “Will be visible to her friends and family as well. They will affect her personally”

“Then how do we minimize the damage? how do we tell her?”

“Tell me what?” Hannah stood in the doorway, looking delightfully disheveled. Her red hair sticking out in all directions. She must of saw the look of pure panic in our eyes as her own went extra wide. “What’s happened? What do you need to tell me”

Leaving my seat, I kissed her full on the lips. A kiss she returned before allowing me to bring her into the room. My arm fully around her shoulders as I led her to the seat I had just left. Julian slid a steaming cup of coffee over to her before reaching over and brushing his lips over her half-parted lips. She giggled, giving us both a quizzical look as she reached for the steaming mug.

“Ok now you have buttered me up, what’s happened?” She blew on the boiling liquid before placing the cups to her lips. “What do you need to tell me”

“I don’t want you to freak ok, promise me you won’t freak” Julian had his hand over hers.

“We will sort it Hannah honestly” I pushed the tablet towards her. Watching as her eyes darted between it and us. An uneasy look on her face “Trust us”

Then her eyes lowered, and I watched the happiness slide out of her. A slight trembling began in her shoulders. I rubbed my hands over them. “Just breathe, its nothing we can’t work out”

“Nothing we can’t work out?” Her eyes blazed. “Nothing we can’t work out?” Her voice was getting shriller and shriller by the second. “Did you know? Did you know that there were photographers there?”

I opened my mouth to speak but she waved me off. Her red hair flying. “I am naked, may as well be naked anyway. How many people have seen this?”

Julian squeezed her hand. “I don’t want you to panic”

“Don’t want me to panic, my n*****s are on the god damn internet and you tell me not to panic” she threw wide scared eyes my way.

“Your n*****s have been covered.” I tried; I knew it was a lame thing to say but I had to try something.

“Hannah last night was totally harmless” Julian was patting her hand, but he saw the look she threw me. His eyes narrowed. “What did you do Alex?”

I grinned at the pair of them, I couldn’t help it. The memory of the feel of Hannah’s backside under my palm. “Hey, if they had gotten a picture of me smacking her ass that would have been on the front page”

Julian threw me a look that could kill. “You did what?” He held up a hand, a look of disgust on his face. The total opposite to the look of gleeful mischief that was on mine. “I don’t even want to know” Though his eyes said that we would be discussing this further. “As long as that’s all you did” His meaning was clear. My brother didn’t trust me around Hannah, not one tiny bit. It would have hurt if it hadn’t been warranted. I couldn’t be trusted around her. Even now, when she was franking out all I could think of was bending her over the counter in front her and letting my hands snake up those tiny bed shorts.

I shifted guiltily.

“Alexander is right, if they had caught anything like that it would be all anyone would be talking about” Julian gave her a winning smile. The one he reserved for annoying journalists and fawning fans. And now freaked out human mates. “We can spin this as a candid friends moment, a photo taken out of context. You don’t have to worry our publicist is already working on it and we will go on record if need be” He looked doubtful on that. Julian blatantly didn’t want to go on record saying she was just a friend.

Her phone starting ringing in her pocket. It was barely seven in the morning. Who would be ringing her at this time of the day?

“How many people have seen this?” She asked as she fished the phone out, looking at it like a deer trapped in headlights. “How many?” she demanded.

“It’s viral”

“s**t” She scooted off the chair, throwing us both unreadable look as she stalked from the room. Her phone already to her ear.

“Hi Dad”

Hannah

“Hi Dad” I made my voice unusually welcoming because I knew what was coming. Oh boy I knew!

“Hannah” His voice was the iciest I had ever heard it. It chilled be down to my toes. Toes I promptly curled up under me. “I think you have some explaining to do... I’ve just seen todays...”

“Dad I can explain?”

Yeah like he would let me do that.

“Don’t interrupt me Hannah, what the hell are you doing? Do you know how this looks on the family?”

“It’s totally innocent, a photograph taken at the wrong moment, taken totally out of context you know what the tabloids are like” I tried the same reasoning I had heard only minutes before. Holding my breath.

“Innocent?” His voice bellowed so loudly I had to hold the phone away from my ear. “Innocent? They had their hands all over you in the other pictures, and the one where you are...” He trailed off and I could hear him breathing heavily down the phone.

If the old man didn’t calm down, he was going to have a heart attack.

“Everything is on display Hannah…EVERYTHING”

“Dad …” I tried again but there was no stopping him now. I settled back against my head board.

“Acting like a w***e because they are famous. Did we bring you up like that? Did we?”

“Wait one-minute Dad, I was not, or do not ever act like a w***e” There was steel to my voice now. How dare he accuse me like that?

“Your mother is beside herself”

I grinned; my mother loved all the celebrity gossip she would be beside herself but not in the same way my dad was.

“You told me they weren’t even home, and then a week later your splashed all over the newspapers with their hands on your butt like you’ve been dating for years”

I rolled my eyes. It’s a good job they hadn’t snapped any shots of anything else that had happened. That would really make my dad lose his mind.

“They came home early; I’m just filling in…”

“You are coming home”

“The hell I am” I couldn’t help shouting back. Who the hell did he think he was? I was a grown woman. “I have a contract and I plan to keep it”

“A contract to do what Hannah, be the play thing of two…” He mumbled off. “Hannah I’m asking as your father. I don’t like you being there. It isn’t safe for a young woman like yourself... you don’t understand”

I interrupted him then. “No Dad you don’t understand. They are perfect gentleman” mostly I added silently. When they weren’t spanking me or making me writhe in ecstasy. “And I’m not coming home until my contract runs out” I hit the call end button without saying good bye, throwing the phone onto the bed. I let out a sigh that mad my whole-body shudder.