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And then cries start filling the air, screams of terror and horror as we look around and see more Kraken appearing, all of them coming up out of the deep to the other naval ships, starting to destroy them. Their tentacles bash into the sides, they sweep the decks of their crew, they grab the masts and twist them.

They’re attacking everyone but us.

Then the Kraken that hit Ed Smith’s ship rises from the deep, looming over the naval captain like a yellow-eyed leviathan.

And riding atop the beast’s domed head, with the biggest smile on her face, is Maren.

My Maren.

My Maren, the Syren, is riding the Kraken.

I can scarcely believe my eyes. I have to blink several times to make sure it’s not some sort of dear death hallucination.

“Oho, that’s your woman as a mermaid,” Crazy Eyes says with wonder, appearing beside me with the musket in his hand.

“Yes, that surely is,” I say, beaming at her as she shouts a command to the Kraken, causing it to smash another tentacle onto the ship, sending men flying.

“She’s riding the Kraken.”

I grin at him. “Have you ever seen such a glorious sight?”

He grins back. “No, sir, not in all me years.” He takes off his hat and holds it to his chest, as if paying my Syren his respect.

If I still had my hat, I’d do the same.

Now the rest of the crew have stopped fighting and are watching Maren in awe, murmurs of surprise and adulation rising from theNightwind. The Kraken she’s on top of keeps pummeling Smith’s ship, right down the middle, while the other Kraken are doing the same to their respective ships, some of them already destroyed and being dragged down to their watery graves.

And then there’s Ed Smith. We all suck in our breath as he emerges from hiding behind a barrel, as if that would protect his cowardly soul.

“Get him, Maren,” I seethe under my breath, my fists clenching. “Destroy him for us.”

“Tear him fucking apart!” Thane growls.

“I’m so glad she’s one of our crew,” Drakos says joyfully, shaking his cutlass in the air.

“Aye, that she is,” I say, though I don’t know how it will be possible with her as a full Syren now. But no matter what happens, she will always be part of our crew.

She will always be mine, even if she doesn’t wear my brand anymore.

The Kraken she’s riding now focuses its sights on Smith, its yellow eyes gleaming, and Maren is telling it something that we can’t hear over the sound of the splintering wood and screaming men.

Two giant tentacles shoot out, one of them grabbing Smith by the neck, the other grabbing him by his legs. Smith cries out and the Kraken raises him off the deck and holds him in place.

Smith writhes, and even from this distance we can all see the terror plain on his face. He knows there’s no escape from an awful death, no way out of this.

“Please,” he begs Maren as she stares down at him with icy contempt. God Almighty, does she ever look like a queen. “Please let me go. Let me reason with you, mermaid.”

She doesn’t say anything and he whimpers like the pitiful fool he is while all of us Brethren watch on with bated breath.

Vengeance has never tasted so sweet.

CHAPTER43

Maren

“Syren,”I tell Ed Smith, watching him squirm from my lofty position from up on top of the Kraken’s slippery head. “I’m aSyren. Mermaids are mythical creatures that you men made up, as if there were swarms of females in the seas just waiting to worship you.” I let out a mirthless laugh. “Syrens, on the other hand, we don’t want to worship you. We want toeatyou.”

“Lower me to him,” I tell the Kraken, “I want to get close.”