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I must see the storm.

I must see the sky.

Larimar! the voice says again, more urgently, laced with annoyance—a voice that makes my skin crawl.

I stare up at the surface, caught halfway between it and the Syren yelling at me from the fathoms below.

But I must see the sky.

I pump my tail to swim up, but claws reach out and hook into my fins, one of them tearing right through the delicate tissue. I growl and spin around to face my attacker.

Ullan leers up at me, holding my tail so I can’t swim away, his mouth stretching into a macabre grin of jagged edges.

The hate I have for this Syren is palpable, and there’s no doubt he feels the same way. He’s the reason why I have so many scars among my fins and tail. He’s what makes me regret joining the kingdom of Zellebos all those years ago.

Not that I purposely sought them out. After what happened with Priest, after I turned back into a Syren, I swam for my life. Even deep below the surface, I could see his giant, leathery form overhead, no doubt searching for me. I had to disappear so he could never find me.

Yet, part of me wanted him to. I wanted to know what he would have truly done with me. He transformed into the monster he always feared, but was that monster trying to kill me in the church? Or was it just trying to possess me in the only demented way it knew how?

In some ways, I think maybe I could have tempered the beast. I knew something about appealing to the monster inside. After all, I am one too.

But self-preservation is a powerful thing.

So, I swam. I swam through the depths of the dark seas, heading out into the open ocean. I was lost to myself, lost to the currents. My heart was shattered, and my lover was gone along with my legs, which meant the chances of trying to find Maren again were nonexistent.

I lost everything when that church went up in flames.

I don’t know how long I drifted in the southern ocean, bumping listlessly against icebergs, being sized up by packs of leopard seals. I wasn’t eating; I couldn’t even stomach the taste of raw fish. It was as if being forced back into my Syren body was punishment after being on land.

I was half-dead when the Syrens of Zellebos found me. The queen, Sipha, brought me back to her kingdom, mended the wounds on my tail that still remained even after my legs transformed. She made me eat, even though I didn’t want to, and protected me from the harm of the wild sea.

Everything was both fine and awful at first—fine because most of the Syrens of Zellebos tolerated me. They were suspicious of newcomers, and most of them were cold and unfeeling, but Sipha took a liking to me, so I was largely left alone. I had her protection.

It was also awful because I couldn’t stop thinking about Priest, couldn’t stop remembering the way his hands felt, the way his cock worked inside me, the way he would look at me sometimes like I was a treasure to behold, something more heavenly than anything God promised. When he looked at me, I felt that in my bones, which is why I kept thinking about our last night together, trying to figure out what I did to turn him into such a rabid beast, into something that only wanted death and destruction.

Because it had to have been me. It’s something I did that made him flip, though I can’t for the life of me figure out what it was that night. He had untied me, took me outside to his cottage. I cried when I felt the cold night and saw the stars. He told me he found God in me. Later, he read a book called Don Quixote aloud until I fell asleep in his chair, curled up by the fire. I was human. I was whole.

He had been my captor in every sense of the word. He held my mind, body, and soul, but my heart was last to surrender.

He brought me to his bed, bound my hands in his rosary, and told me he wasn’t sure how he lived so long without knowing me.

I looked into his eyes and saw something that wasn’t there before.

I didn’t want to think too much of it.

I was too afraid.

But what I thought I saw that night was my own feelings reflected back to me. I thought I saw his heart, open for once and completely mine.

And then I fell asleep in his arms, wrapped up in his strength and warmth, comforted by his steady breath and slow heartbeat, almost like a lullaby.

When I woke, he was gone.

I found him in the church.

And I immediately knew this was the end for us.

Our love lines had become hopelessly tangled, and his claws ripped them apart.