You know it's what I'm wanting

No one could believe what had just happened- everyone stared in shock at the siren girl standing in front of them, staring at the crowd with a glimmer in her eyes.

“…You can talk?” Dani repeated Gina’s exclamation with a little more control, staring in confusion at the slender figure standing in front of her.

The siren blinked.

“…Of course I can talk?” She tilted her head to the side and looked at everyone like they were idiots. “Why did you think I couldn’t?” Her voice was beautiful. Like the world’s most sensual singers had blended with the charismatic charm of famous pop stars and the most finely-crafted of musical instruments. Every word from her lips was like a masterpiece of auditory perfection, and nobody could stop themselves from being drawn in.

“Uh, because you never said anything before?” Dawn pointed out.

“Yeah, I just kind of assumed that she couldn’t speak English,” Gina nodded. “But she’s even better at it than Rose!”

“Hey!” Rose exclaimed.

“I guess that’s a pretty low bar, though,” Kim added.

“HEY!”

“I mean, I guess it makes sense,” Morgana mumbled, looking down. “I mean, she can sing, so… I guess that works out? Kinda…”

The siren crossed her arms and sniffed. “I can speak English,” she said, exasperated. “For singing.”

“Oh, yeah, I should have probably mentioned that,” Sylvia said, smiling sheepishly. “The sirens are very smart, they can speak our language.”

“Say that before!” Nick groaned. He felt like such an idiot. “We’ve been going around interacting with this girl like she was a scared animal who could hardly respond to us!”

“Well, yeah, because you’re just racist, Daddy,” Sylvia scowled, crossing her arms over her chest and turning up her nose. “Do better.”

“What?! Racist?! I’m not racist!” Nick exclaimed.

“Then why don’t you have a single person of color in your harem?” Sylvia pointed out. “Lot of whites though, Daddy…”

“YOU people were the ones who picked out my harem!” Nick sputtered. “I didn’t- wait, we’re getting off track here!”

“Agreed,” Sylvia nodded. “This isn’t about how you’re racist for not banging minorities, it’s about how you’re racist for thinking that sirens can’t speak English. Lemme guess, you’re going to be talking about how the hotel needs to build a wall, and Atlantis should pay for it, right?”

“SYLVIA!”

“Man, the TikTok generation is so twisted,” Dawn said, shaking her head in exasperation.

“Agreed,” Rose nodded. “It must be hard raising a daughter in these times of teenage rebellion.”

Nick blushed crimson. “You two, stop… enjoying this!”

Dawn and Rose both smirked.

“It, uh… it actually makes sense, though,” Mary said, stepping towards the siren. “I mean… the way she was responding… it always looked like she could hear us, right? She seemed to be watching us carefully and listening to the stuff we were saying… so wouldn’t that imply that she could understand our words, then?”

Mary had been one of the most cautious people about the siren, so she’d been watching her just as carefully as the siren had been watching them.

“Yeah, I guess when you think about it that way, it makes sense,” Kim nodded. “It would be weird if she could understand our language but couldn’t speak it. It’s not like she’s a dog or something.”

“Yeah, see, Daddy? She’s not a dog!” Sylvia stated.

Nick was getting REAL tired of being portrayed as the bad guy here.

Meanwhile, Dani was still trying to reach out to the girl. The siren was still the focus of her attention, and Dani couldn’t help it- a part of her was curious.

“So if you can talk, why didn’t you say anything until now?” She asked, her cheeks flushing. Now that she knew that the siren was closer to an intellectual peer than she’d thought, she found herself suddenly flustered and embarrassed being in her presence when she was naked.

The siren blinked, and then shrugged. “I didn’t have anything I wanted to say,” she said plainly. Then she reached up and rubbed her throat. “And it’s difficult to speak to someone, without using my allure.”

Dani blinked. “Allure?”

“My voice,” the siren explained. “Whenever I sing, or even talk, I can enchant those around me. It’s as simple as breathing to me.”

“So does that mean you can sing on land and underwater?” Gina asked.

The siren stared at her with a confused and slightly-disgusted expression.

“…What?” Gina frowned. “It’s a valid question! She’s a siren, isn’t she? So doesn’t that mean she can breathe on land and underwater?”

The siren shook her head. “We live above the water. We have very powerful lungs that allow us to be beneath the surface for days at a time, though. And our magic allows us to move through the water the way you do the air.”

Dawn had to admire the efficiency of how the siren explained herself. She really was a lot smarter than they’d given her credit for. “I would just love to study your anatomy…” She murmured with a dreamy expression on her face.

When she felt the eyes of everyone on her, she realized she’d said that out loud.

“N-not that way!” She sputtered. “From a purely anatomical perspective, as a doctor! That’s what I meant!”

“Why not just dissect Marley while you’re at it?” Gina snickered. “Or what, don’t want to get slime on your tools?”

“Hey!” Marley scowled.

The siren turned away from the conversation and gave her full focus back to Dani. “My voice is enough to arouse and seduce anyone, thanks to my allure,” she said quietly. “But don’t worry. I’m not using it right now.”

Morgana’s eyes widened. “I-I feel the same way!” She exclaimed. “My voice does the same thing, thanks to my transformation!”

The siren’s face shifted, and for a second, she looked sad. It was hard to tell, due to the soft glow on her face. But then her neutral expression returned.

“Don’t worry,” she murmured again. “I wouldn’t try to seduce you. Any of you. That’s not what I do anymore.”

The “anymore” part was something Dawn noted.

“So, um… if you don’t mind me asking…” Carly approached the siren cautiously. She hadn’t actually said anything to the girl since she’d started talking, too confused about what she would even say, given the circumstances. “Can you… can you tell me… um… what exactly should we do now?”

The siren turned to Carly… and hissed.

Carly’s jaw dropped.

“H-hey!” She exclaimed, scowling. “What was that for!?”

“That was really rude!” Marley exclaimed, coming to her sister’s defense.

“You… you shouldn’t hiss at someone like that…” Dani was trying to defend Carly, but her words didn’t carry the weight that they normally did, like she was pulling her punches. Carly definitely noticed that, and winced.

The siren, on the other hand, just looked confused.

“Huh?”

“Ah, I think I can explain that,” Sylvia said, raising her hand and stepping forward. “Sirens hiss to show affection.”

Everyone took a second to process that.

“Wait, what?” Mary blinked. “That… huh?! Hissing… to show affection?”

“Oh, like Dawn!” Gina cried.

“Hey!” Dawn’s ears flared and she glared at the punk girl, who widened her eyes suggestively and smirked.

Sylvia nodded. “Hisses are one of their only forms of auditory communication that doesn’t use their allure,” she explained. “And it would be weird if one siren tried to seduce another, right my girl? So when a siren is expressing that they want to be friends with someone, they hiss at them.”

She turned to the siren and hissed. The siren hissed back at her.

Sylvia turned back to Carly and shrugged.

“Oh, so… um… you actually like me, then?” Carly asked. She was a little confused.

The siren nodded slowly and hissed again.

“Sorry,” she said. “It has been a while since I interacted with humans... I forgot how they do things.”

“Well, what about me?” Dani asked, pointing herself. “You never hissed at- oh! Wait!”

“Huh? What?” Nick glanced at Dani, concerned. The way she had gasped like that, it sounded like she had just realized something.

“Oh my gosh, I didn’t even think!” Dani shook her head. “Dakota, she… the siren hissed at her, back at the hot spring! I thought that was because they didn’t get along, but… that was you trying to make friends?”

The siren shook her head. “Not make friends,” she replied. “Savior.”

That was a word that no one ever thought would be associated with Dakota.

“Huh? Savior?” Mary frowned. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same Dakota here? Why would Dakota save… well, anyone?”

Everyone turned to Sylvia for answers, but the blonde just held up her hands and shook her head.

“I’m just as surprised as you guys are!” She replied. “What do you mean by that?”

The siren’s expression morphed into a complex array of expressions, and for the first time, she averted her eyes from the others.

Mary frowned. She recognized when someone was hiding something.

“Don’t lie,” she preemptively chastised the siren, who flinched.

“…Not lying,” the siren muttered. “Not… not lying. Just… hiding. Secrets. Don’t wanna share.”

“Well, we won’t make you share,” Dani said sympathetically.

“Huh!? What’s that mean?” Dawn demanded. “We should absolutely make her share! If we’re going to be harboring her from Dakota, who, by the way, Dani was pretty sure was gonna do something bad to her, but now I don’t know if we should believe that, then she should at least tell us what’s going on, don’t you think?”

The siren bit her lip and shook her head even harder. Then she looked pointedly at Dani. Her eyes seemed to water, but given their luminescent glow, it could just be a natural thing about her.

“…Okay,” Dani said finally. “You don’t have to share.”

“Dani, are you sure about that?” Nick asked, worried.

Dani turned back to him, and looked like she was going to cry. He could finally see just how hard this was for her.

“Nick… this is my decision,” she pointed out. “I’m the one who gets to make the final say about whether or not I take her under my protection, right?”

“I-I guess…” Nick stammered.

“Then why are we even having this conversation in the first place?” Kim asked, frowning.

“Also a good point,” Rose nodded. “According to the little mermaid here, she and Dakota are best buds, right? So there’s no need to keep her, right?”

The siren shook her head adamantly. “Don’t want to go back,” she replied with a sharpness to her voice. “Want to stay here, with people again.”

She looked hopefully at Dani.

But that only lasted for a second. Then she turned away from the blue-haired girl completely, and approached Nick. Her eyes had a pleading gleam in them.

“You’re… the master, right?” She asked quietly.

Nick found himself strangely entranced by the watery girl’s voice. It was like she was seducing him without even trying.

“Are… how did you know that?” He stammered, stumbling back a little and hitting the table. “You know about the Harem Hotel?”

She nodded. Her shimmering lips formed such a tight line that it couldn’t even be seen.

“I mean, that would make sense?” Sylvia mumbled, stroking her chin in contemplation. “I guess… since, you know… Dakota did bring them on…”

“Please let me stay here,” she said. “The lagoon… it’s nice. The others like it. It’s better than where we were before…”

“Where you… were before?” Nick asked quietly.

“We were taken here, by her,” the siren said, alluding to Dakota. “Before that… we were on another show. Run by someone else. We were done, left to rot… worthless. A squandered side-project with barely a lake to call home. No one ever came… lonely, so lonely…”

She looked down at the floor, then tilted forward so she could look up into Nick’s eyes. Her arms pinched around her breasts to make them stand up, and even though he tried to look away, he found that he couldn’t.

“Then… she came for us. She gave us a new home… and all the water to play in that we wished. We just had to help her.”

“That’s… I didn’t…” Nick didn’t know what to say.

“Did Dakota really do something like that?” Mary was astonished, and she wasn’t the only one.

“That doesn’t sound like her at all,” Rose said, shaking her head.

“Dakota was always nice to animals, but… wow, I didn’t think… wow…” Gina didn’t know what to say, either.

“So Dakota… is good?” Morgana’s face scrunched up in confusion.

Sylvia’s eyes started to water. She looked like she was about to cry.

“Yeah…” She muttered. “Of course she’d take care of those things.”

“Hey…” Marley reached out to Sylvia and wrapped her arm around her, holding her steady in case Sylvia was going to burst into tears. But the blonde, quite admirably, retained her composure.

“But I don’t want the lagoon anymore,” the siren begged, looking up into Nick’s eyes. “I want to stay here, with you…”

Then, Nick felt something soft and wet brush up against the front of his pants.

“I know all sorts of things,” the siren said, her entrancing voice twisting with seductive promise. “I can pleasure you in ways you can’t imagine. Just let me-”

“N-no!” Nick grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her away, keeping her at arms’ length. “Don’t… you shouldn’t do that!”

The siren’s damp skin had left a wet stain on the front of his pants. He blushed in embarrassment. Given his erection, it looked like he’d just gone through something not insignificant.

The siren’s face twisted with despair. “But…”

“Listen,” Nick said, shaking her. “You don’t have to do something like that to get us to hear you out, okay? I don’t want to take advantage of you like that, and make you think that you have to… to service me just so I’d let you stay!”

The siren was silent for some time.

“Then… will you let me stay?”

Nick blushed. “I-I don’t know,” he admitted.

She didn’t seem to like that answer. “Then if I please you, I should be able to convince you, right?” She struggled against him, trying to touch him again.

Nick pushed her again, and this time knocked her backwards. “Listen to me!” He pleaded. “We… we have to make a decision, but if you’re going to use your allure on me, then there’s no chance! I don’t want to be manipulated, and we can’t have you around if you’re going to be trying to mind control us!”

“Yeah, Morgana’s more than enough for that!” Rose nodded in agreement.

“Then… what should I do?” The siren asked quietly, lowering her head in defeat.

Nick didn’t know how to answer her question.

“Listen,” he said softly. “We’ll… the rest of us, we’ll talk about it, okay? And we’ll think about what to do. You know, about you.”

The siren stared at him for a few quietly for what felt like an eternity.

Then she nodded.

“Okay…” She murmured in a voice just over a whisper. “But… I wasn’t using my allure on you. On any of you. You’re just… very easy to arouse.”

“Not my experience,” Rose pouted.

Dani watched the entire exchange between the two of them, and she felt an ache in her heart.

“Excuse me…” She approached the siren cautiously. The girl turned back to her, and her expression gave Dani pause.

She looked so fragile and vulnerable Dani didn’t know what to do with herself for a moment there. She just stared at her quietly.

“Um…”

“Yes?” The siren asked in that soft, melodious voice.

Dani’s voice cracked. She had a question she wanted to ask, but it hurt too much to ask it. Still, she wanted to. “The things that you were offering Nick… those… those favors, in order to stay here…”

The words wouldn’t come out. She looked into the girl’s eyes and tried to speak, but the words just wouldn’t leave her lips.

The siren kept staring at her.

“When you kissed me before… was that about trying to use me, too?” Dani asked. She felt absolutely awful for asking it… and she felt even worse when she saw the pained expression on the siren’s face. Her blue eyes welled up with tears and she looked away.

Then, her head snapped back up and stared deep into Dani’s eyes. She pushed forward and threw her arms around the blue-haired girl, and pressed their lips against one another.

“…Well, coming from someone with experience, I’d say that’s a lot more passionate than seductive,” Rose said, watching the kiss intently. It was passionate and loving, but surprisingly chaste; there wasn’t anything dirty or sexy about the kiss, even though one of the parties was naked.

Carly watched the two of them make out, and a tear rolled down her cheek. She couldn’t handle it anymore.

Not even taking a moment to notify her sister, she turned and ran for the door.

“C-Carly!” Marley just barely managed to react in time, running as fast as she could to catch up to her twin. The sudden disruption was enough to snap Dani out of it, and she quickly broke the kiss.

“Carly, wait!” She exclaimed, turning for the door. “It’s not what you’re thinking, I didn’t-!”

She moved to run after her friend, but the siren clung tightly to her.

“Don’t go,” the naked girl pleaded, holding her close. “Don’t leave me alone, please.”

Dani couldn’t see the face that the siren was making. But she could hear the desperation in her voice, and it kept her from using her overwhelming strength to tear herself free of the siren’s embrace.

All she could do was stare at the door to the Banquet Hall as it slowly swung closed, and stew in her own self-loathing.

Finally, when it was too late for Dani to follow after Carly, the siren let her go.

“…You didn’t have to do that,” Dani said quietly, turning to her. “I wasn’t going to leave you. I just needed to talk to her. She’s one of my closest friends.”

The siren looked down. “…I know you wouldn’t leave,” she mumbled. “But I… I didn’t want to see you go…”

Nobody else in the room had anything to say on the matter. Not even Nick could step in now. Dani had presented the siren issue as if it had been something that they should all talk about, to come to a consensus, but looking at the situation now, it was clear that wouldn’t work.

This was a Dani issue. And she was the only one who could resolve it.

---

“Carly!” Marley stormed after her sister. “Carly, where are you going?! What’s the matter with you, huh? Talk to me!”

Carly turned a corner and picked up speed, but Marley was insistent. She cut her sister off and grabbed her by the collar of her dress, pulling her around and grabbing a fistful of her ribbon.

“Carly-!”

Marley’s cry died in her throat as she saw the expression on her sister’s face.

Carly’s eyes were filled with tears.

“You don’t get it,” she sniffled, wiping her eyes. “It… it hurts too much! It’s not supposed to hurt this much! It never has before!”

She grabbed Marley’s shoulders, using her sister to hold herself up while she sobbed.

“I just… I just wanted to be there for her… I wanted to support her… I wanted to be her friend, even when I knew how she felt about me… but I never thought… I never thought that… this is just the worst! I hate it!”

Marley didn’t know what to say. She just hugged her sister.

“Carly…”

“It’s not fair…” Carly whimpered. “I know it’s not fair, having these feelings. Getting all petty and jealous. It’s not what I’m about, sis! You know that…”

“Yeah,” Marley nodded, biting her lip. “Yeah, I know.”

Carly was never the jealous type. All throughout their childhood, whenever someone was playing with a toy that she wanted to play with, or reading a book that she wanted to read, she would never try to take it for herself. She would always just ask to share instead. And that went right down to their clothes. Carly had offered to spiff up her sister’s casual wardrobe with all sorts of goodies from her own closet, but Marley had always politely declined.

But she’d finally found something that her sister wouldn’t share: Dani.

“You told her how you feel,” Marley said, her voice sympathetic but adamant. “That’s all you can do at this point. You can’t make her like you back, you know.”

“Yeah… I know…” Carly sniffled, separating from her sister. “And it was dumb of me to think that she’d always feel the way she did about me. But she’s moved on. And honestly… it’s for the best, anyway. I couldn’t be the kind of partner she needs.”

“Huh?” Marley frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

“I told you before, remember?” Carly said, frowning. “My feelings for Dani… they don’t make any sense. I don’t have any sexual desire for her, not even a little bit. Sure, I can appreciate that she’s hot, and I’m sure that if I had sex with her, it would probably be enjoyable, but it’s like… I don’t find her physically attractive that way!”

“Because you’re not attracted to women,” Marley clarified.

“Exactly! That’s right, I’m not!” Carly paced back and forth, trying to put the complicated feelings in her heart into words. “I’ve slept with women before, but just as a ‘why not’ option, not because I was actually interested in fucking them! But when it comes to Dani…”

“When it comes to Dani?” Marley pressed.

“…It’s the same thing,” Carly admitted in resignation. “But it shouldn’t be, right? That’s just wrong! I shouldn’t be thinking about her like that. If I… if these feelings I have… if I really do love her, then shouldn’t I want to be with her sexually? Shouldn’t I find her attractive? That’s how this works, right!?” She wailed.

Marley really didn’t know what to say to that. It was the kind of dilemma that she’d never even considered.

“But… I can’t do it,” Carly muttered, shaking her head. “I can’t desire Dani sexually any more than I can desire Nick romantically! I’m just a big, twisted screw-up who can’t love anybody right!”

“Hey!” Marley snapped, closing the short distance between herself and her sister and pulling Carly into a hug. “That’s not true at all!”

“Sis…”

“You love me just fine,” Marley assured her sister, patting her on the back. “And nobody will EVER doubt that you loved Emmy.”

Carly’s voice broke. “Emmy…”

“You’re just a little different when it comes to your love, and that’s fine,” Marley said. “Nobody can hold that against you. It’s not your fault, who you love and don’t love.”

Carly wished that were true. She really did. But she still felt gross and twisted anyway. Like there was something wrong with her.

“…That’s why this is for the best,” she said, pushing her sister away and looking down. “Because I’m not a good fit for Dani. Dani… she deserves to be with someone who can love her not just romantically, but physically. Someone who’s actually attracted to her body and wants to sleep with her, not… not someone like me.”

Marley frowned.

“And she’s got that now,” Carly continued. “That siren girl… she can love Dani the way she deserves. Romantically, and sexually. So there’s no room for someone like me.”

Marley frowned. She was so close. So close to getting the two of them to be honest with each other and their feelings.

Carly thought it was too late, that Dani had moved on, and that that was a good thing.

Marley wasn’t so convinced that was the case.

“Let me ask you something then, sis,” Marley said, her voice turning serious. She looked Carly dead in the eye.

Carly flinched. Her sister was a lot scarier than she normally was. She had hoped that Marley would comfort her, but right now, her sister just looked irritated.

“Wh-what is it?” Carly stammered, taking a step back.

“Your love, your feelings for Dani… you think it’s better if she’s with someone who can love her the ‘right’ way, isn’t that right?” Marley asked.

Carly sniffled and nodded.

“Well… who’s to say what that is?” Marley pressed.

“…Huh?” Carly wasn’t sure what to make of that statement. “Marley?”

“Isn’t the only one who can say what’s right for Dani, Dani herself?” Marley asked.

“I-I guess so?” Carly replied. “But that’s why she’s going to be with the siren, right? Because-”

“No, no, you’re not getting it.” Marley cut her off before she could get any further. “Let’s say that right now, Dani came running down the hallway, and told you that she loved you. Would you really turn her down if she did that?”

Carly didn’t answer. But her head jerked to the side, her eyes desperately searching for Dani even though she knew that wasn’t going to happen. Because she was just that desperate to believe that maybe, just maybe…

“I… I don’t know,” Carly admitted, hanging her head.

Marley’s eye twitched.

“Okay, who are you, and what have you done with my sister?!” She demanded, grabbing Carly by the collar and pushing her against the wall.

“M-Marley?!” Carly exclaimed, her face twisting with shock. “Let me go! What’s the matter with you!? Hey!”

“What’s the matter with me?” Marley couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What’s the matter with you? You know what’s going on here, right? You’re running away! From Dani, and from your feelings for her! What the hell is that? You’ve always been the kind of girl who runs headfirst into challenging situations! Aren’t you always going around climbing mountains and stuff like that? Didn’t you used to tease me, for never leaving my books and staying cooped up in my room, instead of exploring the world?”

“That… that’s different,” Carly muttered.

“I don’t think so,” Marley said, shaking her head. “What about the courage you had, when you resolved yourself to be a single mom? Or the courage to become an internet cosplayer? Those weren’t easy choices, but you made them anyway! And even when you had doubts, you pushed on through them regardless, because you didn’t want your fear to control you! But that’s what’s happening right now, damn it!”

Carly knew that Marley’s words were the truth. They had to be, because they hurt too much.

“…You’re right,” she admitted, hanging her head. “I’m… I’m running away from my feelings for Dani. But aren’t you doing the same thing?”

“Me?” Marley recoiled like Carly had just thrown sand in her face instead of an accusation. “This isn’t about me.”

“Well, you’re running too!” Carly exclaimed. “You’re running from your feelings for Nick! You like him, sis, and everyone can see it!”

“But… that’s different,” Marley mumbled, averting her eyes. “I’ve already been eliminated from his harem.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t have a relationship with him,” Carly pointed out. “Just look at Holly. She’s not letting elimination get the best of her.”

Carly had a point. Both sisters did.

They looked into each other’s eyes, and shared a sigh.

“I guess we really are alike, huh?” Marley said glumly.

“Yeah,” Carly admitted.

“But the facts are still the facts,” Marley added, turning to Carly. “You’re still hung up on Dani. And there’s a strong chance Dani’s still hung up on you. That’s what I’m trying to say, Carly. The twin sister I knew would have seized the initiative, stood her ground, and tried to make Dani fall for her again, if that was what she wanted. But it’s not, is it? You’re too afraid of what could happen to seriously consider her as a partner.”

Carly shook her head. “It’s… it’s just…”

“I know, I know, I know,” Marley cut her off before she could go into another doom spiral. “It’s because Dani deserves to be with someone who can fully love her. But like I said before, it’s DANI who gets to make that choice. Not you, not the siren, not anybody. Yeah, maybe that siren can give Dani things you can’t. And if Dani decides that’s more important, then you’ll have your answer, and you can move on. But what if she doesn’t?”

Carly blinked. “…Huh?”

Marley couldn’t believe her sister could be this stupid. She slapped her own forehead, then slowly dragged her fingers down her face as she groaned.

“I’m saying that Dani might see that she could have everything she wants from that siren, and still decide that it doesn’t matter. That she wants to be with you, anyway. And wouldn’t that be something? That’s what I mean when I say the choice is up to her. Because in the end, it is.”

Carly couldn’t imagine something like that happening. The idea that Dani would actually pick her, over a woman who could love her properly, that was just…

She gasped, then winced.

“One flaw with your theory, though,” she said, shaking her head. “I never told Dani that part. About how I can only love her romantically, and how I’m not sexually attracted to her.”

Marley frowned. “…That’s true. That would be a problem, huh?”

She slumped her shoulders and sighed.

“…What a mess,” she muttered, shaking her head.

Carly couldn’t agree more.

---

While Marley was trying to get through to her sister, everybody else was trying to figure out what to do with the siren.

“Dakota gave me an ultimatum,” Dani explained. She kept looking towards the entrance of the Banquet Hall, hoping that Carly would come back. But she knew that was a fool’s hope.

“What kind of ultimatum?” Dawn asked suspiciously.

“She said that I had until curfew tonight to decide whether or not to ‘take custody’ of the siren,” Dani explained. “And if not, then she’d send her back to the lagoon.”

The siren’s eyes looked pleading. It was clear she didn’t want that.

“Well, I think the choice is obvious, right?” Nick said, sighing in resignation. He glanced at the siren, who looked curiously at him.

“Really? Is it? Because it seems like a pretty nuanced position to me,” Rose said.

Nick shook his head. “We’re not giving her back to Dakota,” he replied. “It’s as simple as that. So with that in mind… we’re going to keep her here. That’s the decision already made… we just have to work out how it’s going to work.”

“Simp!” Gina said. Then she coughed.

Nick glared at her. “…The cough is supposed to disguise the insult,” he pointed out.

Gina smirked with glee and turned up her middle finger at him.

Nick rolled his eyes and walked over to her. Then he spanked her on the ass.

“Yow!” Gina’s face was aglow with pleasure at that, while a few other girls gasped in surprise.

Mary’s jaw dropped.

“Ooh, seeing Nick get all commanding is so sexy…” Rose said, biting her lip. “It almost makes me want to- waaagh!”

Suddenly, her clothes flashed, and she was stark naked.

“H-hey!” She screamed, crouching down and shielding her breasts from the others’ eyes. She had gone from being dressed like a sexy cowgirl, to being dressed like- well, like a sexy cowgirl, just without the parts that made it obvious she was a cowgirl.

Mary screeched and shielded her eyes.

“…Oop, guess time’s up,” Sylvia said, cracking a grin.

“I-I’ll be right back!” Rose wailed, running for the door. She shielded her chest with one hand and covered her ass with the other.

After that bit of awkwardness, everyone turned to Nick. He was still staring at the door, having watched her flee.

“…Sorry, what were we talking about?” He asked, snapping back to reality.

Mary scowled. She wasn’t exactly thrilled by him ogling Rose like that, but she could understand it a little.

“Is it just me, or has Nick been getting a little more sexually aggressive recently?” Kim noted with a suspicious glance at the siren.

She held up her hands. “It’s not my fault,” she replied calmly. “He’s just very susceptible to my pheromones.”

“I thought you said you weren’t using your powers on me?!” Nick demanded.

The siren shook her head. “It… it’s not that. It’s different, I just… look, I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” She muttered, glancing down.

“No, that doesn’t fly here,” Dawn said, storming over to the siren. “You need to tell us what- oh. OH. Oh…”

The moment she got within five feet of the siren, she stopped. Her tail slapped up, rolling up her back to tickle at her neck, and ears and nostrils flared.

Her eyes were wide, and her pupils turned to pinpricks.

“Dawn, you good?” Gina approached her.

“I-I’m fine!” A very flustered and not-fine Dawn exclaimed, stumbling backwards. “I just, I… what’s going on here?! I was okay a second ago, but now…”

Her loins felt like they were on fire. Even after the amazing sex she’d had last night, she wanted nothing more than for Nick to grab her and push her down, and pose her in whatever way he fancied.

The siren just shook her head again. “I’m not… like the other sirens,” she admitted.

“Is this like that thing poser girls in high school say when they want to hang out with the boys?” Gina cheekily asked. “Going all ‘I’m not like the other girls’?”

“Gina!” Dani snapped.

“What?” Gina held up her hands. “It worked for me! Got in the pants of all sorts of dudes. Of course, I’d dropped out by that point-”

“That’s not what we’re talking about now,” Nick snapped. He turned to the siren. “What do you mean when you said you’re not like the other sirens?”

She bit her lip. “I-I don’t want to tell you,” she mumbled, shaking her head. “It’s personal.”

Nick didn’t want to press. He really didn’t. Fundamentally, he was the kind of guy who respected the wishes of other people, even ones he didn’t know very well. The siren wanted to keep this private, and he wanted to oblige her.

But this wasn’t just about him. It was about everybody. And if the siren knew something that could put them in danger, then he needed to know, so he could keep them save.

Dani took the siren’s hand. “Please, tell me,” she begged. “What is it?”

The siren looked like she was about to cry.

“I-I can’t talk about it right now,” she whimpered. There were actual tears rolling down her cheeks. They glittered in the soft glow of her skin.

“Okay, I think that’s enough,” Mary said, approaching the siren. “We need to give her some space, everybody. And then… the rest of us can decide what to do.”

She glanced warily at the siren. “I’m sorry, but… we have a lot of bad experiences with people making other people horny, so…”

“No, I get it,” the siren muttered. “Listen, I’m gonna just go over here.”

She walked about five feet away from the group.

“I can tell you guys this much, as long as nobody gets any closer to me, then they won’t be affected,” she explained. “There’s a short radius.” She glanced at Nick. “It doesn’t affect everybody, just certain people. In the meantime, to be safe, I can stay this far away and it’ll be fine. …Oh, and the effects will wear off in about thirty minutes or so.”

Nick grumbled and muttered. His dick was hard, and he didn’t like it.

“Ooh! I can handle this one!” Gina purred, sliding her arms around his neck.

“Hey!” Dawn exclaimed. “Why should YOU get to… get to…”

Her voice trailed off as she realized what she was about to insinuate.

Just because she’d gotten a dose of those pheromones, that didn’t mean she had to throw aside her dignity like she wanted to throw aside her skirt and lean back and-

She fanned herself to try and calm down. It wasn’t working well, though.

Sensing victory, Gina waved goodbye to the others, and practically dragged Nick towards the bathrooms. Or maybe Nick dragged her to the bathrooms.

It was more of a mutual dragging, to be honest.

“This is just getting stranger and stranger,” Mary mumbled, cheeks flushed with embarrassment. She felt guilty; SHE should have been the one to volunteer to tend to Nick’s needs! He was her husband, after all! But she’d let Gina grab the lead on her!

“Um…” Morgana had been mostly forgotten, alongside Sylvia. She didn’t want to contribute to all the feelings of desire floating around in the air, but she had a pressing question. “Shouldn’t we still be talking about, um… how we can work with her, and whether we should let her in?”

“I couldn’t agree more, my girl,” Sylvia said, patting the goth on the shoulder. “Let’s discuss options, shall we?”

Everyone was grateful to have something to take their mind off the problem. Especially Dani, who wasn’t sure whether or not the siren here would actually win over the others. She hoped she would, but right now…

Right now, things were a little difficult, to say the least.