Page 41

“You should be careful around here,” he says, hidden meaning lacing his words. “At night. Us soldiers are few and far between. You’re lucky I patrol here as often as I do.”

“I don’t fear anything except God’s judgment,” I say with reverence.

The soldier frowns and then gives me a sour smile. “Of course not. Well, just so you know. We don’t want what happened to those fishermen to happen to you.”

He then turns on his heel and walks away, disappearing past my cottage and into the darkness.

I don’t want that to happen to me either.

Chapter Twelve

LARIMAR

Ihave a secret.

A secret I’ve been keeping from Priest.

A secret I plan to use at just the right time.

I first noticed it when he was strangling me.

When I felt my body going limp and the world going gray, I thought I was going to die. It did something in the very center of me, like a key fit into a lock and unleashed something that might save my life.

Something that would help me fight back.

I felt my teeth come in.

My jaw felt like it was cracking open, and I could feel the sharp teeth growing over my human ones in rows, like a shark’s mouth.

I was prepared to bite his goddamned hand in half again.

But then, he let go. I don’t think he noticed the change in me, and my teeth quickly retreated once the danger passed.

They weren’t needed when he took his cock out and fucked between my breasts like a madman, like an unfettered animal, and came all over my face. I’m still finding it dried in my hair.

Now, however, now that he’s tied me up and left me to my own devices, they might be needed. My hands are behind my back, and I wonder if they, too, might transform at some point, if there is something that will make them into my old claws. Is it anger? Is it self-preservation? Hunger?

I’m sure I’ll find out either way.

So now that I have this secret, I must figure out how to use it.

And when.

“Will you show me how to pray?” I ask, willing my voice to sound innocent, but not too much, so as not to arouse suspicion.

Priest looks at me in surprise, lowering his glass of wine.

“You want to know how to pray?”

We’re at his desk, me on the chair, him sitting on the edge of the table. It’s been a few days since our last intimate interaction—our only kiss—and until now, he’s been distant. Not cruel, but not kind either. I suppose I shouldn’t expect much more than that from him. Perhaps I should be grateful, as he said.

Yesterday was mass. Through the walls, I listened to him talk again, preaching things I know he doesn’t believe in—or at least, he doesn’t believe in most of it. The rules, the guilt, the damnation. It seems to be that no matter what those poor people do, they are going to hell one way or another. I’ve been around humans enough to know that no one is that good at heart. Everyone is a sinner and will stay a sinner because that’s the world we live in.

At least Syrens come by it honestly. We accept that we aren’t all light, but we aren’t all shadow. We’re those muddy shades in the middle, trying to do our best to stay alive. Life is too hard as it is to worry about what’s going to happen to us after we leave it.

“I’m curious,” I tell him, gesturing for the glass of wine. “After hearing your sermon yesterday, I wanted to know what it’s like in there. What it’s like to pray.”

He rubs his lips together, and the memory of his mouth makes my own lips tingle.