Page 43 of Sea of Evil and Desire (The Deep Saga #1)

41

Finn

T eachie screamed as I raked my webbed claw through his flesh. Drops of sweat tried to pool across his red and furrowed brow, but the water immediately claimed them.

It hadn’t been hard to track him down. The Captain had told me who’d given Morgana the bruises; he’d heard the pair bragging about it, and I waited in the shadows of the ship until I found him dragging another woman into the vessel’s dark bowels against her will.

I might not be able to kill the pirate, but I could ensure that, once I was done with him, he would never touch Morgana again.

I couldn’t kiss her, couldn’t claim her the way I ached to, but at least I could give her this. I also needed information, so I’d kill two birds with one stone.

“Where is his fortress? Don’t make me ask you again,” I whispered icily.

“I’m telling you, I don’t know,” Teachie snarled. His eyes darted about the slick, dark chambers, searching for a way out, but there would be no escape for him.

Beneath the Neptūnus castle sprawled a labyrinth of tunnels and dungeons. Hewn from dark rock, they twisted like the skeletal remains of some long-forgotten sea beast. The tunnels had been built thousands of years earlier and stretched in all directions, some narrowing into corridors, others opening into vast chambers where the ruins of old prisons remained. Iron-barred cells encrusted with barnacles, their gates long rusted shut and shackles dangling from stone walls, held remnants of those who’d once suffered here. Deeper within, the tunnels grew more treacherous. Chasms split the pathways. Some had caved in, and others had become shrouded in the ink-black abyss, where the gods knew what lurked just out of sight.

The castle dungeons comprised part of this network, but the central dungeon was at the heart of the labyrinth, and that’s where my interrogation chambers were. Some said the tunnels stretched beyond the castle’s domain, linking to secret caves and trenches where the ocean’s darkest secrets slumbered. But those tales were likely the ravings of the Drowned men I’d sent on their way, mad with fear after what I’d put them through.

Teachie grunted in pain as I raked my clawed finger down the flesh on his right leg, splitting the material of his tattered pants. Wicked delight surged through me as a gaping wound appeared. Had Morgana screamed when he had his big, calloused hands on her? The thought made me dig deeper.

“Are you ready to talk?” The words came out a hiss and my gills flared.

“Never.” Teachie’s top lip curled under his mustache.

I chuckled and shook my head, dragging my claw down Teachie’s left leg and watching his skin open for me again. His thick calf jolted with the pain, and his many-ringed hands curled into fists in their rusted shackles. Good.

The water down here was heavy, pressing with an unnatural stillness, disturbed only by the occasional echo of a distant, unseen current. Strangely, I had always found solace in these dark, silent tunnels. After my mother’s death, it was here I would come to read or seek an escape from my father’s sporadic rages, but it was also here that I had carried out all the heinous tasks he demanded of me.

I dragged my eyes across the shelves lining the space, filled with books, maps, and artifacts I’d collected over the years.

Teachie’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped onto the stone table. My lips curled into a grin. The pain had rendered him unconscious. He wasn’t getting out of here until I broke him or he died. It might take weeks, but I was patient.

I cleared my instruments off the second stone table. The guards had apprehended two more Drowned caught stringing up Mer and filling vials with their blood on the dune tops. I ran my hand over the now-empty benchtop, unlocking the rusted manacles. I was looking forward to dragging these new prisoners in and breaking them alongside Teachie.

I settled into a carved chair beside the unconscious Teachie. Leaning back, I poured myself a glass of whisky and waited patiently from the gloom as his flesh knitted itself back together and his eyes flew open.

“Fucking Mer scum!” He snarled, eyes narrowed as he struggled against the shackles that held him.

Morgana must have begged him to let her go, but he didn’t. He bruised her beautiful face with his rough hands.

Exhaling, I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my tail. “If you tell me where his fortress is, perhaps I’ll be lenient . . .”

“I’d rather stay here until I die,” Teachie spat.

“That can be arranged.” I smiled and stretched back in my chair again, my tail curling up one side.

“Your Highness.”

There was a presence in the doorway—one of the guards.

“What is it, Percival?” An angry breath shot out of me. I didn’t like my sessions being interrupted.

“It’s the new prisoners, sir. The king has called them to the throne room for a trial.” The man hung his head, and his seaweed cleft billowed.

“I see.”

“And another thing.” He averted his gaze. “The merboy we retrieved from the dunes didn’t make it. I know he was your valet.”

I curled my fists. “Take me to the throne room.”

Knocking my chair away with my tail, I focused my attention back on Teachie on the table, grating my claw through his abdomen before turning and following Percival out. Teachie’s screams ricocheted through the dark tunnel as I made my way back to the castle.

I will make them all pay.