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I let out a growl, tasting rust, the metal cold, hurting my teeth. He quickly pulls the chain back until my head hits the wood behind me, then wraps the chain around until I’m held in place.

He says something to me in a deep, rough voice that makes tiny bumps appear on my flesh, but I can’t understand what he’s saying.

“Or do you speak Spanish?” he says, staring right into my eyes until I start to feel a little dizzy, though perhaps that’s the loss of blood pouring from my wrists and into silver cups below. Then, he shakes his head. “Of course you can’t understand what I’m saying.”

But I do understand what he’s saying, at least I do now. He’s speaking a human language Jorge managed to teach me during those nights I’d meet him at the shipyard, when I learned everything I could about humans and their world in the chance that it could somehow lead me to my sister.

Not that I can inform the man of this when I’m gagged with a chain, and not that I want to be having conversations with this monster.

He steps back and looks me over, as if he’s admiring what he’s done to me. Like he’s created art out of my pain.

His blue eyes meet mine, the color of the cold ocean pierced by sunlight, and I hope he can read all the animosity in my own gaze. This is not the first time I’ve been held captive, but it is the first time it has been on land. While I can survive out of water for long periods of time, I will eventually dry out and die if I don’t get wet. I don’t think this man knows that, and I’m not sure he’d care.

The man nods thoughtfully, as if understanding this, and then he gestures to my wrists. The blood has slowed down to a trickle, collecting in the silver cups, and he stoops down to pick one up.

He holds out the cup in front of me, my own blood a pool of dark red, like the wine Jorge used to steal from his father.

I growl at him, my teeth gnashing at the chains until they hurt.

He keeps those eyes focused on mine and then slowly lifts the cup to his mouth.

He stares right at me as he takes a sip.

He’s drinking my damn blood.

I stare at him in utter horror. Even Syrens don’t drink blood; we eat the organs of creatures so we can sustain ourselves. Humans aren’t particularly nourishing—they don’t have as much fat as seals do—but they are especially tasty.

But blood-drinking is utterly depraved.

What the hell kind of man is this?

No, not man. Creature.

Monster.

He swallows the blood down, his thick throat bobbing, until he’s drained the whole glass. A trickle runs from the corner of his mouth, dripping onto his bare chest. He’s made of power, muscle, and strength, every inch of him taut and hard, giving me the impression that he could rip me apart with his bare hands if he wanted to. He doesn’t need claws—or his fangs—for that.

He wipes his bloody mouth with the back of his hand and then takes the cup to a table on the other side of the room. With his back to me, he looks through his desk drawers, and I hold my breath, wondering what he’s going to do this time, what other ways he plans on torturing me.

When he turns around, he’s got something in his hands giving off smoke, a sweetly herbaceous scent. It looks like a bundle of dried leaves tied up with twine, the ends smoldering with bright embers.

“This will hurt,” he says, and I brace myself.

He reaches over and removes the spike from my wrist in one fluid motion, the pain making my eyes roll back in my head. Then, he presses the burning bundle to my wound.

I scream against the chain, watching as he holds it against my bleeding flesh, chanting in a language I don’t understand.

And then, the unthinkable happens.

I feel a prickling around the burn, and then the pain starts to fade until it’s barely noticeable.

He takes the herbs away, and I stare in complete awe as the bloody wound at my wrist begins to heal itself, the flesh growing over it as if the injury is being erased before my very eyes.

“I don’t want you to bleed to death,” he says quietly. “I need you alive.”

How fucking noble.

He goes over to the other wrist and does the same. This time, I try to stay composed. I don’t want him to revel in my suffering.