The Siren Song - Book 2 of the Legends of Henge Series

Chapter 29

Hero Charmont

The moment Silverport closed, I felt someone's hand come down on my head. Swishing my hair and rubbing their knuckles into my scalp, I heard deep laughter. "You're still as short as I remember, shrimp," my older brother, Hale Charmont, cackled into my ear.

"I don't know," said a girl's voice. "He looks like he might be a bit taller if you'd let his head up." I pushed Hale's hand away and glared at Haya, my older sister.

"Haha, very funny," I scowled. "I'm not that small."

"Are you finally taller than Luna?" Hale asked teasingly. In our first year, Luna had been a whole two inches taller than me. Two and a half if you ask her. Now, as long as I stood up straight and she didn't wear heels (though that I'd never seen) we were the same height.

"Define taller," I hedged. Haya laughed good-naturedly. My siblings and I all shared similar features. Blue eyes and brown hair, our mother's nose and our father's ears. "Where's Hyde, by the way?"

Hyde was our last brother. He was still older than me, the youngest, but younger that Haya and Hale. "Oh he's on the couch sleeping. We didn't want to wake him up yet," Haya admitted.

Haya was an interesting case. She was one of the prettiest girls around and being the daughter of a Chief, even if she wasn't the eldest, it should have gotten her sought after. But after the first few guys who came after her, word quickly spread of her disagreeable personality.

People didn't like a stubborn girl, no matter how pretty she was. They didn't like strong opinions in a girl, even if she was from a powerful family. It didn't seem to matter in the long run. Not a year later, she came home with a girlfriend, Callen.

"Typical," Hale scoffed. I frowned. Hale always felt the need to push Hyde to do things. Some kind of older brother protective thing. I wasn't sure there was really a point. All it did was make Hyde resentful of him.

We started the upward climb to our house at the top of a very large rocky hill. Luna's house was farther down in the valley, down by the school and town. Josh and Jonah lived on the edge with the larger residencies. Nesia and Quinn were a couple of hours away in Pennsylvania and Samar and Anvi were across the state in New York City.

Cander was the one across the country in New Mexico.

"Hero!" I smiled at my mother waving her arms up and down like a madwoman.

"Are we completely sure she won't turn into a chicken?" Haya whispered to me.

"She sure looks like one," Hale agreed. Naoto Charmont was the craziest Cheiftess in the state of New York. Not that there were any other Chief Families living in New York, but if there were, she'd be crazier than them.

Most Chieves lived as far away from Vale as they could because they hated being reminded that the Kitsune had complete control over them. Though I liked to believe my family wasn't like the others. It was nice to have someone like Lance around, if for nothing else, at least to compare myself to.

After seeing the whole fiasco with Nesia and Quinn's dad, I really had to agree we needed some governmental change. It'll be easy for Crevan to recruit people at this rate. However, I didn't believe that all the Kitsune were power hungry control freaks.

"Hey snap out of it, shrimp," Haya nudged me. I realized we were nearly to my mother now.

"How was the semester?" she gushed, crushing me in a big hug.

"Great," I coughed, forcing air back into my lungs. "When's dinner?"

My mom smacked my head playfully. "As soon as your father gets home to make it, that's when." We all followed her inside the house where I was unfortunately met with the sight of my other brother, Hyde, asleep on the couch in his undergarments. "Get up, you lazy good-for-nothing. Your brother's home and it's five in the afternoon."