Page 3 of The Withering Dawn (Wicked Tides)

Henry poked one last hole in my shoulder with his needle and pulled the thread taut, tying the last stitch on my wound. It was always worse when the slug didn’t go all the way through. The way he had to dig it out of me felt like he was tearing my muscle to bits, but he managed and I managed not to break my teeth on the belt I had clenched between them.

“Good as new,” he said, slapping my shoulder just to make me hiss a curse at him.

I took a swig of watered-down rum from a bottle, internally complaining how little the drink burned the way I liked. Merchants never stocked good rum unless they were trading it and we were working our way through a batch from months ago. It was all we had.

I rolled my shoulder to test my mobility before putting on a fresh, cotton shirt. Cathal walked up with a mug of broth and looked at me, bushy brows raised.

“Finished, are ye?”

“Course I am,” Henry said. “I’m quick and efficient. I’m irreplaceable. Remember that.”

Henry was a proper doctor before joining my crew. He had an affair with the wrong woman and when the husband found out, his life was upturned. A string of events led him to my ship where he’d been running from high society ever since.

“How is the prisoner, then?” Henry asked. “Since you didn’t allow me to finish my observations.”

I knew he was curious. He had a fascination with medical conditions he couldn’t solve and a starving siren certainly fell into the category of things he wanted to dissect.

“Quiet,” Cathal said. “Drank up all the broth in one go, though. I said I’d bring her more.”

“Shame you could not bring that beast from the other ship aboard,” Henry said. “I would have loved to study it. There are rumors flying about talking of monsters in the water in these parts. I can hardly believe you saw one since I didn’t see it with my own eyes.”

“It was the woman or the rotting corpse of a sea-demon,” I said. “I chose the woman. Before I knew what she was, of course.”

Henry leaned in, cupping a hand around his ear as if trying to listen to something. “Heart’s too good,” he said with a sigh. “That’s your problem.”

I rolled my eyes at him and grabbed the cup from Cathal’s hand. “I’ll take her more. I need you and Henry to go to Olly. If he wakes, it will be hell.”

“Aye,” Henry said. “It’ll take more than a few stitches for that one.”

Cathal and Henry both headed below where Oliver was resting, his mangled leg a mess of torn flesh. Everyone knew what we had to do next. The leg had to go. We were all just getting our heads on right before we did it. Especially myself and a select few who had known Oliver when we were all much different people. Boys. Desperate, lost boys.

Oliver was a good man. Stupid, sometimes, but he was the youngest of us. He always raided a ship with a smile on his face, completely oblivious to the risks, but this time the risks gave him a harsh reminder that a life on the sea was not the mindless adventure some imagined it was.

I followed my men down and headed into the galley where a pot of soup was sitting on the wooden counter with slices of stale bread. I poured some of the broth into a second cup for myself, taking a piece of bread between my teeth as I headed to the hold.

When I ventured down toward the cell, there she was. The woman was curled against the wall with the blanket Cathal had given her. Were it not for the maturity of her eyes, I’d have thought she was a young girl simply because starvation had taken any womanly curves from her.

I placed my cup on a small wooden barrel and bit into the bread before laying the rest of it atop my mug.

“I am captain Nazario. Comfortable?” I asked as I approached the cell.

Not that I was supposed to care. Despite that, a part of me did. No matter what she was, she did pull me from the water and the few good people in my life had taught me to be gracious. I didn’t want to die an ungrateful man.

I crouched in front of the cell and reached through the bars, placing the other cup on the floor. Her gaze followed my every movement, but she didn’t move. She surely took the bone broth from Cathal when he was down there, but now she seemed unwilling to leave the very back of the cell to take it from me.

“Why did you not kill me or leave me for dead?” I asked outright, fully aware she couldn’t speak.

There were pirates. There were merchants. Then there were hunters, the kind that killed sirens and took their heads and the kind that took their tongues and sold them to buyers who had a sick fetish for the man-eating beasts. The tongues were sold to nobles with equally sick tastes as a delicacy that I would never understand.

I was in the business of relieving ships of their precious cargo. That was it. I’d never traded or sold anyone, be it human or otherwise. Had I killed men? Yes. Many. But I could not even dream of stealing someone’s freedom. But she was a siren. A monster, most believed. Her wellbeing should have been the least of my worries.

Rourk, one of my other men, had already suggested selling her at the next port. That didn’t sit well with me, but I was trying to convince myself she wasn’t human so it should not have mattered. Sirens destroyed ships and devoured men when it pleased them. The cruelty they were shown in return was justified. Or so people said.

“I know you cannot talk,” I said, standing up. “Even if you could, would you use your voice on me?”

She looked at me with those big, emerald eyes and then slowly, subtly shook her head.

The corner of my mouth curled upward. “I wish I could believe that. But growing up, I was told to never trust a pretty face, especially one from the water.”

I reached out, grabbing the back of a wooden chair to pull it closer, forgetting that my shoulder was thoroughly mangled. I cursed as soon as the muscle tensed, nearly dropping the chair. In my peripheral, I saw the woman move as if to come to my aid. I whipped my head toward her, surprised to see her staring at my shoulder, wide-eyed and concerned.

Over me.

I narrowed my eyes as she slowly settled back against the wall again, pulling the blanket over herself. With my other hand, I pulled the chair closer to the bars and sat down, perching my elbows on my knees to study the woman.

“What shall I call you if you cannot tell me your name?” I asked, speaking more to myself than to her. “Those men on that ship. They would have rather died than let me take you out of that cell. That leaves me with a lot of questions.”

Her eyes just looked at me, absorbing my every word. She began to play with the loose fibers in her blanket, wrapping strings around her fingers and then unwrapping them to do it again.

“You see?” I grinned crookedly. “That face right there. That is why I cannot let you out of this cage. You’re too beautiful.”

She blinked like she had taken the compliment to heart. Like she’d never heard someone say it.

More sly manipulations because there was no way she’d never been called beautiful.

“Some of my men think you could fetch us a good amount of coin if we bring you to port.” Her eyes dropped, watching her fingers pick at threads, and I was appalled by how much I hated the disappointment in her face. “I do not sell sirens. I do not sell humans. I am conflicted, you could say.”

Her attention slowly gravitated back toward me and then to my shoulder again where I’d just been stitched up. She lifted a hand to gently tap her own shoulder as if to ask me about it.

“This?” I said. “This is nothing. It will heal.”

She didn’t quite show it, but I did get the sense that she was happy about that. Something in the slight twitch of her mouth made me think that news of my recovery had lifted her mood. Then, very slowly, she crawled out from under her blanket and moved toward the cup of broth. I watched her cautiously approach the bars and kneel in front of me, taking the cup in both hands. Slowly, she lifted it to her lips and began to drink, one small sip after another. A tiny drop slipped from the crease of her mouth and down her chin and I watched it, my fingers itching to reach out and catch it. When she was finished, she lowered the mug and wiped the corner of her lips with the back of her wrist, her throat bobbing a few awkward times.

I’d never been without a tongue, but I imagined it was strange. She couldn’t just lick the broth off her lips like someone with a tongue would, but she seemed oddly used to it.

“How long have you been on that ship?” I asked.

She politely set the mug down and then lifted her hand, holding up two fingers.

“Two days?” She shook her head. “Two weeks?”

She nodded at that one, her gestures solemn and slow.

“And how long have you been with those people?”

Her eyes wandered as if to contemplate her answer before she held up eight of her fingers.

“Eight weeks?” She shook her head. “Eight months?” She shook her head again. “Eight years?” I raised my brows.

Again, she shook her head and then pointed at herself. Then she held up eight fingers once more and it clicked.

“Since you were eight,” I said.

She slouched, letting out a deep breath. The motion made one strap of her dress fall off her shoulder. I watched her pull it back up and decided she needed new clothes. Whether she was staying with us or not, remaining in her filthy rags didn’t do anyone any good.

“How old are you now?”

It was hard to tell when she was practically skin and bones.

She shrugged and then canted her head, trying to think, and that pulled at my heart a little. She didn’t even know her own age.

“Where were you before if not on that ship?” She slowly shook her head as if to say she wasn’t sure. “And they suddenly decided to take you somewhere? Why?”

Her eyes wandered again, working through ways to answer me without using words to explain. Chewing on her lip, she raised two hands to her throat as if choking herself. I furrowed my brows, not quite understanding. When she realized I wasn’t putting the pieces together, she carefully rolled onto her back and repeated the motion.

“Someone tried to kill you?”

She shook her head, but the gesture seemed uncertain that time. Then she sat up again and her eyes dropped intentionally to my crotch. I followed her gaze, giving my groin a glance before catching her pointing at herself and repeating the choking motion.

“Someone raped you,” I said, that disgusting word leaving a sour taste in my mouth. She shook her head again and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Someone tried to rape you,” I corrected.

Her eyes fell to the floor and she nodded, pulling up the same strap on her dress.

“Someone tried and so they decided to put you on a ship?”

Once more, her shoulder bobbed as if acknowledging a half-truth. But even half of the truth gave me some insight. My eyes roamed over her small frame, and I hated looking at her that way, especially considering I didn’t know how old she was. And I’d put her behind bars, so the condition she was in felt like it was somehow my doing. Siren or not, she appeared human. But my eyes were untrained. Hunters likely knew all the tells, whether or not a woman appeared normal. I was inexperienced when it came to those things. My business was with men, but it seemed natural, the farther northeast we sailed, that sirens and talk of sirens and monsters became more prevalent.

I stood with a sigh and left the holding area, finding a small corner of storage where we stacked things we were planning to sell at port. Sheets. Trade goods. Clothes. I found a trunk full of men’s shirts for a larger frame. I pulled out a faded green chemise with long sleeves and walked it back to the holding cell. It would have to do until I was able to find something more appropriate.

The woman was standing, slowly pacing her confines like a bored animal. When she heard me approaching, she turned, picking at her nails. I stepped up to the bars, holding the folded shirt toward her.

Warily, she reached for it, taking the item out of my hand and unfolding it. As I expected, the shirt was long. It would be like a dress on her, but a less holy, stained dress than what she had on.

The slightest hint of a smile graced her full lips and without waiting for me to leave, she turned her back and pushed the straps of her dress off her shoulders. The worn material slid down her body and pooled at her ankles, revealing her bare backside to me.

On her buttocks and upper thighs was a crosshatch pattern of slightly raised scars. Scars I knew very well. The ones on my forearms burned like someone was taking a thin, wooden stick to me again right then and there. The only difference was that I’d only been whipped once. This woman had not been whipped once. That was evident. She’d been whipped countless times and in ways that were meant to leave marks.

Once the fabric fell over her body and covered her back, I returned to myself. She’d turned her back for a reason. Likely so I would see her scars and sympathize. Another manipulation, no doubt.

Slowly, the woman pivoted to face me, gathering her red hair and pulling it out of the shirt. As expected, the blouse covered more than her tattered dress did. She tucked her hands into the long, slouchy sleeves and gave me a hint of that illusive smile again as if to say thank you.

If it was my weakness toward frail, abused things that she wanted to exploit, I feared she would win that little game. I swallowed hard before opening my mouth to speak, only I did not have time to say anything.

“Cap’n!” Cathal said, making it halfway down the steps to peak in on me. “It’s Olly. We may need you.”

Mention of Oliver broke the mild trance I found myself in. I cleared my throat and followed Cathal out of the hold, rushing to aid the doctor in whatever way he needed to see our youngest crew member healed.

I marched into the crew cabin to the sound of Oliver whimpering and the smell of alcohol and blood. Cloth that had once been white was in a heap in an oak bucket, soaked through with his blood. Henry sat beside the cot on which Oliver was laying. When he saw me, his ashy expression turned pleading.

“Cap’n,” he whined. “He wants to take it! He wants to take my leg!”

Henry was wiping his hands, his glasses balancing on the tip of his nose. He shot me a look as if to say there was no other way and even if I was no doctor, I could tell the options were limited. Oliver’s leg was a length of gnarled meat barely hanging on to his bone. The fact that he was awake was surprising enough. That he knew what was happening, even more so.

I strolled toward him, dawning a half smile.

“Are you complaining about being a peg leg like the great capitán Luis Corazón de Oso?”

“I don’t know who that… ah!” He wailed, his eyes screwing shut with agony. I grabbed hold of his hand and he squeezed, clenching his teeth.

“Have a drink, eh?” Cathal said, pressing a bottle to Oliver’s lips and pouring a mouthful of rum into his mouth.

He coughed half of it up, but once he swallowed, Cathal was giving him another swig. Henry pulled off his own belt and wound it around Oliver’s thigh, pulling it tight and eliciting another scream. Oliver began to thrash, sweat beading on his forehead.

“I don’t feel good,” he mumbled, seeming more incoherent.

“Do ye have to be so rough with it, doc?” Cathal said, putting a cork on the rum bottle. “This is our Olly. We’ll not have ye fuck it up.”

“If I’m going to cauterize his leg and wrap him up, this part has to go. He’ll bleed out. With any luck he’ll pass out from the pain.”

“Fuck,” someone said, leaving the cabin, hands scrubbing his face.

“What do we need to do?” I asked, anxious to get it over with.

“Hold him down.”

Henry reached into his leather satchel. He’d been carrying the thing since he first stepped foot on my ship. In it was an array of instruments, but the one he pulled out was a fine-toothed saw.

I glanced at Oliver, thankful and worried at the same time over the way his head was swaying and his eyes were rolling back.

“We need to do this fast,” Henry said with a sigh.

I wanted to believe it would work, but the way Oliver’s blood soaked the sheets under him and the paleness of his complexion told me things weren’t going to end well. Perhaps he was better off dying on that cot, passed out with some rum in his belly. Or perhaps we owed it to him to take a chance and try to save him, no matter the pain it caused.

As the captain, I should have known what to do.