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Then he straightens up and looks at the both of us. “Don’t worry. I have a plan.” He starts walking to the door.

“Hey!” I cry out, trying to reach for him. He stops and I gesture to the chain. “Take it out of my mouth!” But of course my words are garbled together and I sound just as I did when I didn’t have a tongue.

Ramsay studies my face for a moment and I know he understood what I said. Then he simply says, “No,” and walks away.

“Bastard!” I yell after him. “You duplicitous, arrogant cock-for-brains bastard!”

He lets out a laugh and glances at me over his shoulder. “I understood that one too. You’re not wrong. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a captain I need to dispose of.”

He leaves the room and I scramble to my feet, doing a hopping run toward the door wanting to escape but he closes the door in my face and locks it.

I let out a scream of frustration and bash my shoulder against the door, but it doesn’t budge. We have no choice but to see what fate awaits us.

PARTTHREE

The Crossing

CHAPTER24

Maren

I rememberthe day I discovered Aerik’s true nature. Not just suspected that he was capable of cruelty, but actually felt it firsthand. We hadn’t been married yet, but he’d proposed a couple weeks earlier on the long voyage to Denmark. I had said yes and it was the first word I’d been able to speak clearly.

Aerik was surprised. Not that I agreed to marry him but that I was able to speak at all. I remember thinking that his joy didn’t seem genuine, that his smile didn’t reach his eyes. At the time I thought maybe he didn’t actually want me to say yes, but it turns out it was a little more complicated than that: He never wanted me to speak at all.

As we got closer to port, having just gone through the English Channel, I remember I told a joke. We were sitting at dinner with a couple of naval officer friends of Aerik’s that stepped aboard from the south of England. They were coming with us for the final leg home.

Until that moment I had said only a few demure words to these men, since I didn’t feel all that comfortable speaking yet. But one thing I had been good at was listening and reading people and I remembered a joke that Hodges had told Daphne. It was a joke about naval men and all the ports and women they visited.

I recall it had felt very off-color at the time, certainly a joke that men would tell each other, and so for whatever reason, I felt emboldened to repeat it. I thought perhaps these men might find me funny or interesting. I had never been considered funny or interesting before, and while Aerik definitely doted on me more those first few months on the coast of New Spain when I was a strange little creature, he seemed to lose interest in me. I had hoped if others found me interesting that he would too again.

So at dinner I opened my mouth and I told the joke.

The naval men found it hilarious. They were shocked at what came out of my mouth but they laughed nonetheless. Despite their military background they had an ease about them that I felt comfortable with and I thought it was a great success.

But later that night, back in our cabin, Aerik yelled at me until he was red in the face and practically foaming at the mouth. He told me that I made him look bad. That they’d think he had an uncouth wanton woman that would never be fit for the throne. It didn’t matter that Aerik was the third in line for it and would likely never be king and never wanted to be king—he felt I humiliated him in front of his friends.

When I tried to argue and tell him that they liked it because they laughed, he told me that theyhadto laugh because of who he was, that I wasn’t funny at all, then he struck me across the face so hard that I went flying off the bed, seeing spots. It was the first violence I’d felt since my tongue had been cut out, and I never thought I would feel it at his hand.

It’s easy to look back and say I didn’t see the warning signs. But I did. I was a little too young to really knew what they meant, for I had no idea of the relationships between a man and a woman except for my own parents, who were very loving and kind to each other (most of the time). But I still knew what danger was and I knew when something wasn’t right.

I saw the signs and I stayed anyway because some part of me truly believed that I would be exempt and that love would solve all my problems. I used to be a Syren that hunted men. In my eyes I was the monster. I never imagined that men were monsters of their own, even after my mother disappeared.

As time went on I felt more and more trapped. The more he struck me, insulted me, spat on me, abused me, the more I determined I became to make our love work. I had sacrificed too much to be with him, I couldn’t just leave and have all of that be for nothing. I filled my mind with all sorts of scenarios with why I couldn’t, including that I would be alone and destitute.

The reasons were valid. Being alone doesn’t sound like a death sentence, but it could have easily been. Staying with Aerik at times felt like a death sentence too. In the end I was caught between the devil I knew and the devil I didn’t.

And now, now I feel like I’m caught between two devils and I don’t know either one. There’s Ramsay, who branded me, claimed me as his, promised to protect me from everyone but him. And then there’s my life on my own. The world hasn’t gotten any gentler to women, hasn’t gotten any easier. Even if I decided to make my way back to the royal palace, I wouldn’t be a princess. They wouldn’t be my family. I would be cast out with nothing. The world of monarchy and politics has no room for sentiment. It’s blood or nothing.

Which is why I find myself feeling envious of the Brethren at times. They’re all together, from all walks of life, bound together by blood but not in the same way that it matters to humans. They’ve created their own family and let each other be who they need to be. Ramsay, until he decided to take my place for Nerissa, had been the glue holding them all together.

I sit back down beside Sedge, my hobbled legs too unsteady to stay on for long, and sigh heavily as I lean my head back against the wall.

WhatisRamsay’s plan? It’s just him alone against an entire crew of the undead. I know he’s a supernatural creature, part of this Brethren of the Blood, and can handle himself but I don’t see how he can handle them all, especially if they’re impossible to kill.

And then what happens after that? If Ramsay succeeds and he comes for us? I’m still bound and gagged. I’ll be at his mercy.

I hate the way that deep, deep inside me I get a nervous thrill at the thought. The truth is, I’ll worry more if hedoesn’tsucceed.