The Siren's Dance Read online

Sergey held statue-still as his skin tightened and his heart hammered against his sternum. This could not be happening. Shit like this didn’t happen.

  The petite woman coughed and spluttered, retching like she had lungfuls of water. The cop in him was chomping at the bit to go to her aid. His inner child trembled like he’d just woken from a nightmare. But he would force reason to prevail. He gripped the seat of his chair with both hands and waited until he had a better grasp on the situation.

  When her heaves stopped, Sergey could see the woman was drenched and almost naked. She had to be--what--a ghost? There was no other explanation. But that was no kind of explanation. Ghosts inhabited children’s books with witches, fairies, and demons, not the real world, and sure as hell not his interrogation room.

  He tried to blink the vision away. No dice.

  Fear formed a ball in his throat, threatening to break free as a scream. He swallowed it and reached for the pistol holstered at his hip. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to put your hands up.”

  “Put that away, Yuchenko,” the ailing Lisko scoffed. “She’s harmless.”

  Dmitri crossed his arms over his chest. “I wouldn’t say harmless. She’s been whispering violent fantasies into Gregor’s ear since we found the little harpy--”

  Sonya silenced him with an elbow to his ribs. “That’s my sister you’re talking about.”

  Sister. She couldn’t mean…?

  Dmitri shuddered. “The things she said. Enough to turn a guy off his lunch.”

  The younger Lisko was a former heavyweight boxer who’d done his uncle’s wet work. Sergey didn’t want to know what would ruin the guy’s appetite. Still, he holstered his gun. There wasn’t a single place she could hide a weapon in that skimpy get-up anyway.

  The ghost stared at her hand, flexed her fingers, then touched her face. Her mouth fell open, astonished. So small and fragile and pretty. Sergey’s fear bled away, and in its wake came fascination. He couldn’t look away from the ghost.

  “Oh, Anya, you’re wearing the pink nightie,” Sonya said.

  Anya looked down at herself for a long, tense moment, then rose to her full height. “So what.” She put her hands on her hips, though the ailing Lisko kept his own wrapped around one of her wrists.

  “Inspector Yuchenko, meet my sister, Anya.”

  Anya and Sonya Truss. The girls murdered in 1968. Impossible.

  The ghost’s wet nightgown was almost entirely see-through, a rosy pink just one shade darker than her skin, which showed her nipples and her belly button almost as clearly as cling-wrap would. If it weren’t for the thick hem of black lace stretched high and taut over her lean, muscular thighs, he’d have seen a lot more. Smooth alabaster flesh, or would there be a shadowy triangle there, as dark as her almost-black hair, slicked back with water? Hell, a puddle was forming at her feet, drops falling from her nightie and splashing into a growing pool.

  His tongue grew thick in his mouth and his cock was starting to feel the same way. Seriously? A hard-on for a hallucination? Down, boy. But there was just something about her. Or a million things, endless captivating details coalescing into a supremely erotic little bundle of ghost.

  She glared at him, her mahogany eyes like glinting blades, her fine brows arched in disapproval. She would make a perfect Odile from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake--the hatefully beautiful twin of the cursed princess Odette.

  And then she spoke.

  “You think this buffoon can help me?” She scowled. “He’s wearing a mustache of something disgustingly green on his lip. Can he even write his name? I bet his mother irons his shirts.”

  Okay. That was a bucket of ice on his blazing libido.

  Gregor chuckled but tried to turn it into a cough. Sergey’s hand went to his mouth to wipe at the juice because some ghost--and everyone knew ghosts weren’t real--had insulted him.

  “Anushka,” Sonya scolded, wrapping her sister up in her coat. “Be nice. We’re lucky he’s willing to assist us. Otherwise, you may never find Demyan.”

  The ghost’s expression changed as quickly as a child who’d realized her spite would not get her what she wanted. “Thank you, Inspector Yuchenko. From the bottom of my heart.” Her voice sounded strange all of a sudden, richly layered with mysterious tones. Beautiful. Hypnotic. He wanted her to say more, wanted to strip off his suit and rub naked against her words, his frozen-over libido thawing instantaneously.

  “You’re welcome,” he ground out.

  “And aren’t you cute?” This time she lowered her voice, nearly whispering. She seemed to float closer to him, testing the leash of Gregor’s grasp. “You’re like an over-grown puppy. These big hands and feet and this baby face.” She pinched his cheek and then pulled a tuft of his hair. “This military cut turned shaggy.”

  His cock had come fully to attention, straining toward her like she was its north. Her words seemed to caress it, warm and wet and with just enough friction to please.

  Somewhere off in the distance, Dmitri cursed. “Shit. We probably should have warned him.”

  “Oh, dear. How could I have forgotten this part?” Sonya squeaked.

  “What part?” Gregor asked.

  “She’s a siren,” Dmitri replied. “She could sex-talk a guy into pretty much anything.”

  But Sergey only had ears for Anya, who was practically purring. “The thing is, Yuchenko, Stas Demyan is a panther, and he will eat a puppy like you for lunch.”

  With her words, the spell broke, her enchantment falling limp like the snip of a taut string. Sergey imagined a panther devouring a puppy until his erection flagged. “Give me a break. He’s older than Gregor, here.”

  “I’m certain he will only be more evil with age,” she said with a bitterness a hell of a lot like his mother’s.

  She was a ghost and a siren, and in her opinion, his father was an evil son of a bitch. This was so not the day Sergey had signed up for when he’d rolled out of bed. Either he was turning as batty as his mother, or the Liskos were pulling one over on him.

  He closed his eyes. “This is a joke, right? Gregor had my wheatgrass laced with LSD, and I’m hallucinating, and the rest of you are laughing your asses off at me. ‘When Yuchenko loses it, he imagines hateful, hot ghosts in tiny wet nightgowns.’”

  “How sweet. The puppy thinks I’m hot.” Anya’s voice dropped to a whisper. “That’s a compliment, right?”

  Sonya chuckled. “Yes.”

  He groaned. “I don’t want a position in your organization, now or ever. I’m a cop, and I’m sticking to the straight and narrow. So you can cut out this hazing crap.”

  Dmitri snickered and turned to Sonya. “I told you he’d take it all pretty well. Yuchenko’s a trooper. He’s made of solid, Ukrainian stuff. Meat and potatoes with his wheatgrass. No fainting at the sight of a ghost. No hysterics when she turned that siren shit on. We can count on him.”

  Chapter 2

  Anya was freezing; her skin puckered into goose bumps. With each breath, she labored against the weight of her ribs and her muscles as the pleasing pull of gravity hugged her to the earth.

  Each sensation was wondrous. But being alive couldn’t last. She had to remain focused on her goal.

  Find Stas. Be free. Hurry.

  And she wasn’t the least bit convinced this puppy, with his kind, brown eyes, could help. During the drive to the station, Gregor had said Yuchenko was a crack detective who could find anyone. Anya had pictured a hard-boiled cop with pockmarked cheeks and a barrel chest who smoked two cigarettes at once, not this disappointing infant--the last sort of man she wanted at her side when she faced Stas. Even under the strain of meeting a ghost, his fresh, handsome face remained unlined and made her feel every one of the seventy or so years since she’d been born.

  He dropped into a chair and unbuttoned his coat so that it fell open at his sides.

  He was big, with bulky muscles filling out the shoulders and arms of his otherwise too large suit. Th
e ill-fitting navy coat looked sloppy in contrast to his tidy, cropped haircut and clean-shaven jaw.

  “He’s no use to me. He doesn’t even think I’m real.” She put one hand on her hip and let the other dangle at her side where Gregor held it.

  “Yes, he does,” Dmitri said. “He just wishes he didn’t. Am I right?”

  The inspector’s gaze swept over her; then he cleared his throat and averted his eyes. “Yeah.”

  Oh, right. The nightgown. Her skin heated with a blush. Sonya had made the sexy low-cut slip for her as an engagement present, and vilas--the ghosts of jilted brides--were clothed in their wedding dresses in death. The nightie was as close as Anya had ever gotten to a white gown, and it left nothing to the imagination, not to mention the tight, pink satin was eternally soaked from her fatal dive into the river.

  “What exactly is she?” he asked.

  “A rusalka.” Gregor dropped into a chair, holding her fast. She stumbled back a few steps before righting herself to glower at the ailing Lisko. Then she saw the pain etched deep into his face and settled for an indignant sniff instead.

  No. She wasn’t one of those maudlin sirens who perched in trees over rivers, trying to seduce fishermen into joining them in death. She was a vila who rode the clouds like they were her chariot and cavorted with a sisterhood of mischievous wind nymphs. At least, she would be if she could get free of her ballet shoe.

  “I am no--”

  “I was one too,” Sonya said.

  Anya pressed her lips together and glared at her sister, who always thought she knew what was best for Anya. So Sonya had been a different kind of ghost. That must be where the whole forgive-Gregor-and-live-again story had come from.

  Queen Jerisavlja herself had told Anya she was a vila. But she had no idea how rusalkas and vilas were different. Sonya had been tethered to a teapot, just like Anya was stuck to her slipper, and would be until she could find Stas. Then again, Sonya had slumbered peacefully inside her teapot while Anya had been wide-awake for half a century, without even sleep to break up the monotony of her solitude, the whole time fearing Stas would die before she found him, and she would never be free.

  “Remind me what a rusalka is?” Yuchenko asked.

  She could correct their misassumption, but maybe it was better to let the error stand. If they believed in their plan of saving Anya’s life and Gregor’s soul, they were more likely to help her. If they knew what Anya really wanted, and what it required, Sonya would surely try to stop her.

  Dmitri waved at Anya as if the answer was self-evident. “She’s a watery revenge ghost with built-in sex appeal, though I have to say, Sonya had more.”

  Yuchenko’s attention flicked back to her, probably on sheer instinct.

  On the same instinct, she glanced down at herself. Her hipbones jutted, as prominent as ever. At the tip of her small breasts, her nipples stabbed through the sheer satin of her nightgown. They ached like they’d been hard for days.

  For Anya’s whole life, people had measured her sharp angles against sweet, pretty, curvy Sonya. Apparently, the unfavorable comparisons would continue in her afterlife. Without exactly planning it, she hissed an eerie siren sound at Dmitri, and he inched backward.

  How gratifying. She brushed the palm of her free hand against her thigh and turned back to Yuchenko.

  His gaze seemed glued to her chest, and the tip of his tongue swept out to lick his bottom lip. The sight of it sent an unfamiliar heat through her, curling low in her belly. She clenched around it, only making the sensations more intense.

  Phew. She exhaled. It was going to take a while to get used to having a body again and the not entirely unpleasant sensation of it being ogled.

  Maybe Inspector Puppy didn’t find her as wanting as her brother-in-law, or maybe it was just an effect of her vila powers. She’d never tried acting like a siren before.

  Sonya turned to the inspector. “Don’t mind Anya. My sister is trapped between worlds until she avenges her killer, and her siren powers are all she has.”

  Anya tried not to let her sister’s dismissal rankle her.

  “Demyan killed her?” Yuchenko asked.

  “No,” Gregor and Dmitri spoke at the same time.

  Anya’s thoughts snagged on the technicalities of the question, but she didn’t chime in. Sonya watched her with a troubled expression, seeing more than Anya wanted her to, as she so often had.

  All at once, her sister embraced her. “I am so glad to see you,” she whispered in Anya’s ear.

  The warmth of her arms was pure bliss. Sonya was alive and a note of pure joy resounded inside Anya, making her want to dance. But she couldn’t let herself get used to such comforts. Besides, they’d hardly been huggers in their actual lives. She nudged her sister away. “It’s good to be seen.”

  The inspector watched the exchange, frowning. “Then who killed her?”

  “Me,” Gregor replied without opening his eyes, his forehead resting in his palm. “That’s why she materialized when I touched her. We were all hoping she would accept my apology so that she could live again, as Sonya does. But she wants Demyan.”

  “Exactly what do you want with him?”

  Gregor raised his lids and gave her a slight shake of the head.

  She hardly needed the warning. This puppy was as square as Sonya. He wouldn’t want any part of what Anya intended.

  “I simply hope to talk and resolve some things from our past.” Her voice trembled and she hated herself for feeling even a drop of fear at the prospect of seeing Stas again.

  “Fine.” He flipped open a notepad, wrote S.D. at the top of the page, and glanced up at her expectantly.

  On second look, his eyes might be gentle, but they weren’t youthful or innocent. She considered him for a moment, disarmed by the unforeseen intensity of his stare. This puppy had seen things. Being a police officer probably guaranteed as much.

  She scanned his pleasant face again, smooth, with that fair-but-golden-kissed skin fate bestowed upon only the luckiest of Ukrainian men. His knowing, hazel-eyed gaze snagged her, electrifying the air and accelerating her out-of-practice heart.

  She’d thought him barely twenty-three at first, but that penetrating stare raised her estimate to twenty-seven or maybe twenty-eight. Still an infant compared to Stas, who’d been fifteen years older than Anya when he’d taught her. And a child compared to her, though she’d been only twenty-one when she’d died.

  “Come on, Yuchenko, put away your little notepad. Do you need to pack an overnight bag, or shall we head straight for Odessa? From the cut of your suit, I see you care nothing for your appearance, so I imagine we can leave straight away.”

  “What?” He blinked those languid eyes. Really, the man was a dolt. If she weren’t an invisible and semi-naked ghost shackled to a muddy slipper, she would find Demyan herself.

  “Odessa. The trail starts at his ballet studio there. Let’s go.”

  “Absolutely not. I’m going alone. Tell me what you know.” He sat straighter, unaware there was still a bit of green juice at the corner of his mouth.

  A mocking laugh escaped her, as resonant as the hiss that had slid from her mouth earlier, but this time cruel. Pink blotches appeared on his high, strong cheekbones. Once upon a time, she might have regretted shaming a man like that, but now, after decades of being alone and invisible, the power was pure pleasure.

  “I’m going.”

  “No.”

  She crossed her arms and looked to the Lisko contingent. Surely they would second her command, but Sonya and Dmitri leaned back against the wall as if they were watching a show, expressions bemused. Perhaps she shouldn’t have antagonized her thuggish brother-in-law so thoroughly on the car ride from the river. And Sonya--she hadn’t changed a day since they’d died. She and her sister had been like oil and water before. Now they were more like heaven and hell.

  No way was she going to let this police putz find Stas without her.

>   She let her anger build--Sonya’s patronizing, Yuchenko’s dismissal, and deeper than both, her outrage at what Stas had done. She drew the emotions up to the surface where they poured off her and filled the room with a violent wind.

  Chapter 3

  Sergey’s notebook blew off the table, and Gregor’s tie caught like a sail and smacked him in the face.

  The ghost laughed with frightening glee.

  Sergey stood up and backed himself against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. He needed a moment to wrap his head around a windstorm in the interrogation room.

  And a sexy, super-mean ghost.

  And a mission to find his father, which surely had more to it than just talking.

  The whole scene felt like he’d stepped into one of his mom’s hallucinations.

  Sonya came to stand in front of Anya, gripping her biceps. “You have to control it.”

  The ghost blinked. “I am.”

  Sonya’s shoulders fell. “Of course you are. I should have known. Anya, if you want to find Stas, you cannot antagonize those who would help you.”

  “Fine.” Her lovely body seemed to vibrate with the force of the wind while her face screwed up in concentration, her brows drawing closer together.

  The plastic chair Sergey had been sitting in blew over.

  Okay. Time to wrap up his little time-out. It wasn’t working anyway. He could still only halfway believe any of this shit was happening.

  “Now, Anya!” Sonya cried.

  “Um…?” the ghost said.

  Sergey squeezed his eyes shut. Not a good syllable coming from a powerful supernatural creature. He tried to keep his voice calm as he said, “She’s lost it. She’s not in control anymore.”

  “Breathe,” Dmitri ordered. “Slow and steady. That always helped your sister.”

  She nodded, forming a little O with her mouth, her cheeks hollowing out and her chest rising. Slowly, the wind calmed.

  “Hell. Does that happen often?” Sergey asked, this time failing to hide the tremor in his hands and voice.