The Sheik and the Siren (Elemental Series) by Elizabeth Rose Page A

this side of the dry moat. Dead fish and a swampy stench drifted to them on the breeze. Bones picked clean by carrion were scattered through the field, never having been buried. And the remnants of tattered pennants with what looked like two dolphins crossed over each other fluttered aimlessly in the breeze.
    “What the hell happened here?” he asked.
    She didn’t answer at first, and he knew that past memories were being dragged to the surface. Unhappy memories if he wasn’t mistaken. Then the realization hit him. When she’d handed him the crystal dolphin, he’d seen a man’s face as he’d died within. That must have been her father.
    “Ebba,” he said, using her name and liking the way it felt. “That man I saw dying in the crystal dolphin. That was your father, wasn’t it?”
    “Yes,” she answered, heading over the drawbridge. He followed cautiously. “I haven’t been back here since the day I buried his body just after the battle.”
    “Who attacked you?” he asked, looking around at the inside of the courtyard. It was in just as bad shape as the outside. Shattered arrows and discarded bent or broken swords littered the blood-stained cobbled stones beneath his feet. There was a well that held a bad odor and he figured it either was poisoned by the enemy or perhaps dead bodies were thrown within and forgotten about years ago.
    They made their way to the great hall, pushing asid e vines covering the door in order to enter. Once inside, he saw the dozen maimed men sitting at his overturned boat using it as a trestle table on which they had scraps that looked like apples and nuts from barrels that lined the walls that looked a lot like his missing cargo.
    The men jumped up, and one huge man with an eye patch and a scar across the side of his face ran over and held a sword to Ace’s throat. Ace’s stolen sword, if he wasn’t mistaken.
    “Leave him be ,” Ebba commanded. “He means us no harm.”
    “Nay,” shouted the man with only one arm, holding a dagger and running over to join the first. “He’s here to take back our food and supplies. We’ll never survive without them.”
    “I said – put down the weapons before I get mad.”
    The men looked around cautiously, obviously having seen the damage she could cause with water at her command. Ace waited until they lowered their weapons, then reached forward, retrieving his stolen sword, and holding it to the man’s throat.
    “Don’t anyone move or I’ll kill this bastard!”
    “What are you doing?” she asked. “I just told them you meant us no harm.”
    “I’ve come to claim what is rightfully mine,” he said, “starting with the sword in my hand.”
    “Put down your sword,” she told him. “These men are no threat to you. If you haven’t noticed, they are in no shape to win a fight against a skilled warrior such as yourself.”
    Ace didn’t know if she meant it, or was just trying to please him by calling him a skilled warrior, even if she’d told him on the ship in so many words that he was pathetic. It didn’t matter. He lowered his sword but kept an eye on them.
    “And that’s my dagger as well,” he said looking toward the other man.
    “Give it to him,” she commanded, and the man did so, but reluctantly.
     
    Ebba was in shock but what she saw inside the castle walls. She’d had no idea things had gotten so out of hand. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to return to the castle after seeing her dead father. But now she knew she needed to carry on in his place. This was her castle too, and she needed to continue in the manner that would be considered proper by her father.
    “I’m going to be staying at the castle from now on,” she told the men. “You would answer to me now, as I take the place of my deceased father.”
    “We need someone to be able to protect Castle Varusa,” said one of the men.
    “Aye,” agreed another. “How ‘bout you, knight? You seem eager to stab someone through the heart. If