Page 6 of The Withering Dawn (Wicked Tides)

It was well into the night. The storm rocked the ship, making the wood creak and moan around us, but otherwise, it was nothing that would set us back too far. I finally stepped down from the helm, ready for some much-needed sleep, but instead, I chose to venture back down into the hold to torture myself by looking at my captive again. Cathal wasn’t helping in my decision making, either. He provided ideas, but he wasn’t providing me with solutions, and I knew it was because he was struggling with the situation, too.

Instead of going to her empty-handed, though, I took a folded blanket with me into the hold along with a small stack of paper and charcoal. I ducked into the room carrying a thick candle with me and used it to light the hanging lantern and brighten the chamber, although even that didn’t do much. There in the shadows like she hadn’t moved was Aeris. Her head turned toward me, those eyes watching every tiny movement I made as I pulled up the chair to sit in front of the bars.

On the floor inside was the bone broth and the meet strips, cold and untouched.

“You did not eat,” I said. “Are you not hungry?”

She looked at me, expressionless, with not so much as a head shake to indicate what she was thinking. Nodding with acceptance, I rolled up the blanket and set the paper on top of it, sliding it through the bars. She watched, clearly interested in what I was offering.

“I thought we would try to communicate and since I know a wood floor is not very comfortable, I brought another blanket.” I paused a moment, watching her diligently. “Aeris.”

Her gaze flew upward and I could see that the name meant something. It had to be hers and it had affected her like no one had used it to address her in a very long time. There was the slightest crease between her brows that vanished as quickly as it appeared. Then she glimpsed the paper again and pulled it and the blanket closer.

“Can you write?”

She nodded slowly, sitting on her knees in the middle of the cell with the parchment spread on the floor in front of her. She sat there as if waiting for me to ask something, but suddenly I didn’t know what to ask. I had prepared questions, but for some reason, she robbed me of my focus. Eventually, she hunched over the pages with the little charcoal stick in hand and wrote something in small, neat letters on the top of the page. When she sat back up and turned the page to face me, I fully realized it was the first time I was going to be able to have a real conversation.

What do you want to know?

I chewed on my tongue as I stared at the writing. When I finally looked up at Aeris and saw the absence of emotion in her eyes, it was like a knife in my stomach. I’d felt that hopelessness before and whether it was an act or not, it was convincing and hit me right where I was most tender.

When I still didn’t ask anything of her, she turned the paper back around and wrote something else on it.

I’m sorry for your friend.

I was taken aback by that and shifted on the chair, clearing my throat.

“Do not lie to me,” I said softly. “I cannot imagine you care what happens to any of the men on this ship or the last.”

She bent over to write again.

I’m not a monster. And I don’t think you are the same as the men on the Perry Smith.

“You don’t know anything about me.”

You saved me.

“I didn’t know what you were.” Her head dropped at that. I scrubbed my face with my hands, trying to get my thoughts back on track. “If I let you go, I could be freeing an enemy. But… I do not see an enemy when I look at you. How cunning you must be.”

Finally, something appeared across her face that was not empty acceptance. Her eyes were red and raw, trembling with unrealized emotion before she bent over the paper again.

Do you wish you left me to die on that ship?

“I would not be able to live with myself if I left a woman to die in a sinking ship.”

I’m not a woman.

Each word she wrote became sloppier and more rushed.

“If you’re not a woman and not a monster, then what are you?”

Please don’t sell me, she evaded

She waited a while as if searching for a reaction and then wrote, I’ve always been in a cage. You know what that’s like.

I paused at those words, frowning with discomfort. The familiar heat of anger boiled in my chest, pumping hot blood through me as I reread the charcoal letters.

“That is a big assumption. God, woman. Why did you not swim away when I gave you the chance? It would have been so much easier. Was it that creature? What was it?”

Scoffing, I stood from the chair and shook my head, feeling a need to move. As I turned to pick up the chair and move it away, I heard something scurry across the wood floor and spun back around to see Aeris at the bars, her arm outstretched. I felt her grab at my belt too late and as she moved away, my knife was in her hand. She backed against the wall, a stunned look in her eyes like she hadn’t even expected her own actions. But then she turned the knife toward her palm and began to cut into her own skin.

“Don’t!” I barked.

I reacted without thinking, pulling the key ring off the wall to my left. All in one motion, I unlocked the gate and stepped inside the cell, seizing her wrist with one hand and her shoulder with the other as I shoved her against the wall.

Her eyes darted up toward me, her whole body going rigid at my nearness. I realized then that we had no bars between us and the woman—the siren—had a knife in hand. Silence filled the hold and all I could hear was my own heartbeat and Aeris’ shaky breaths.

We held each other’s gaze for far too long. I knew it, but I couldn’t look away until I heard the wet sound of something dripping on the floor. I glanced at her palm and remembered that she had succeeded in driving my blade under her skin enough to draw a significant amount of blood. It was running down her pale fingers and into the grooves of the wood by our feet. With a curse, I snatched my knife from her hand and sheathed it on my hip.

Bending, I picked up her thin, tattered blanket and tore a long strip from the side, using it to wrap around her bleeding wound. All the while, she seemed complacent, barely twitching a muscle to protest. If she was trying to escape, she was doing a poor job.

What was I doing? I should have left the cell, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I needed to stop the bleeding and get everything under control, including myself.

Once her hand was tightly bound, my eyes locked on hers again like she was a shiny pearl and I was a foolish trout. That raw look had returned as if she was going to weep, but she did not. Not even a tear glistened, but the redness made the green in her irises look otherworldly.

Stupid. I was being stupid.

Behind me, the cell gate was wide open. I had never made so many mistakes in such a short time, but she seemed to strip me of all reason.

My gaze dropped to her lips as they parted to let in a deep breath and that’s when I made another horrifying realization. My hand flew up, covered in her blood, and I grasped her chin hard enough to make her wince. I pressed my fingers to her cheeks, forcing her to open her mouth, only to find that it was not as empty as it had been the day before.

“You have a tongue,” I said.

She whimpered, struggling against me, but despite what she was, she was still starved and small. Her strength was barely what it should have been.

“Please,” she said.

The sound of her voice went straight through me like a ripple through a pond. It was so gentle and sweet. I wondered if that was her monstrous power trying to overwhelm me and shoved away from her, gawking. She hugged her hand to her chest, watching me like I was going to lunge back at her and drive my knife into her mouth.

“How long have you had a voice?” I asked.

“Only hours.” Her tone was breathy and soft like speaking took too much energy. “Don’t sell me. I won’t hurt anyone.”

“I cannot be sure of that, mu?equita. I do not know you.”

Finally, those reddened eyes began to shine with tears.

“You are different, Nazario,” she whispered. “I believe you will be the one to realize I am not to be feared.” She tore the makeshift bandage off her hand, the deep cut in her palm facing me. “I bleed as you do. I feel as you do. I plead as you did in your dreams last night.”

I drew away from her, the shock of her words making my heart tremble. A part of it, anyways. The part that was still stuck in that great big mansion that felt smaller than a box for years.

I planted my hands against her shoulders and drove her back against the wall again. “I do not plead for anything,” I snarled.

“Why have you not killed me?”

“Because…” I trailed off, caught off guard by the constant shift in directions. “Because you pulled me from the wreckage.”

“But you’ll sell me,” she said flatly. “A worse fate than death.”

“I have not decided.”

That was a lie.

She paused a moment, taking a few more breaths.

“Who is Leo?” she asked, making my pulse hitch.

“What?”

She grabbed my wrist with her free hand, turning it over and brushing her thumb across a bracelet of marred skin beneath my leather cuff.

“Did he do this?”

I pulled my hand away and instead grabbed hers with harsh force, tightly retying her bandage with another curse.

“No.”

“Then who did? Antonio?”

Anger reared its ugly head and my hand lifted to collar her throat by its own volition. Aeris immediately stiffened, her hands clutching at my wrist. Panick flashed across her eyes and it almost knocked me backwards.

“How do you know those names?” I said.

“You said both in your sleep,” she whispered. “But I have also heard the names when you talk to your men.”

My chest burned at the thought. I swallowed, trying to get control of myself, and slowly dropped my hand from her slender neck. I could so easily break it. In theory, at least. Sirens were supposed to be stronger than men. More resilient. Hunters carried bronze blades and loaded their pistols with bronze slugs to defend themselves. They soaked their swords in hemsbane and drank hemsbane tea so their blood flowed with the herb that no siren could stand. They took precautions. And yet there I was thinking I had things under control because Aeris appeared small.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered softly. “Leo was important to you, then.”

“It doesn’t matter who he was to me.”

She quieted after that, her arms dropping to her sides. Her eyes, however, remained fastened to mine, and something between us seemed to twist and tangle until I feared I would not be able to look away if I did not step back. So I did. I stepped away from her as if she was a venomous snake painted in beautiful colors. Her gaze looked… caring. Genuine. Desperate.

And tortured.

I saw a bit of myself in those green pools. A bit of myself from many years ago. A version of myself that I had come to hate for a long time and it startled me.

“I would rather die than be forced into another cage,” she said. “I believe the hint of kindness you’ve shown me, whether misplaced or not, has frayed the last thread of my will. If a man like you can sell me to another cruel captor for a few coins, then there truly is no hope left and I suppose that’s made the idea of death a bit easier for me to stomach.”

“Why did you not flee when I gave you the chance?” I pleaded.

“Because I am a fool.”

She slouched as she said those words like it shamed her to admit. We locked eyes and for a few beats, I felt like she was seeing far past the barriers I was so used to putting between myself and others. Her brow relaxed. Even the tension in her shoulders eased as if she had found peace in those fleeting seconds. I rested my hand on my knife, ready for anything, when she finally stepped toward me. I pulled the blade from its sheath, but before I could use it, she hooked her hands behind my neck and lifted on her toes to press her mouth to mine.

The kiss was soft and careful like she was fighting herself. But then she relaxed into it with a content sigh.

It was tender. Slow. I hadn’t kissed a woman in a long time. Years. I’d fucked plenty of them, but this… this was different. We were barely touching and yet I felt closer to her in those fleeting seconds than I had to anyone before.

But it was all too brief.

When she drew away, I found myself reaching for her but stopped. She opened her eyes to look up at me. Serenity washed through her gaze, stealing away all the tension, tears, and heartache that had plagued her only seconds ago.

I furrowed my brows, wanting to ask so many questions, but my tongue wasn’t working.

“I’ve never kissed a man,” she whispered, her tongue licking over her top lip. “If this is the last I see of you and this world, I wanted to know what it felt like.”

Her kiss lingered on my lips like the cool touch of fresh mint leaves. I reached up, gently taking her wrists and pulling her hands from my face, but I couldn’t deny that my body had enjoyed her touch.

No one had ever touched me so gently. So carefully.

I slid my foot back and put some space between us before gradually backing out of the cell. I glimpsed the cold mug of bone broth and dry meat still sitting on the floor as I did.

“Eat, mu?equita,” I said to her, slowly closing the gate and twisting the key in the lock. “You need to eat. Your fate is not sealed. I assure you of that.”

Looking defeated, she backed up and slid down the wall to the floor, pulling her knees to her chest.

Licking my lips and the remnants of her kiss, I turned and found Henry standing halfway down the steps and by the way his eyes were narrowed at me, he’d seen at least some of what transpired. In one hand was his leather medical bag and in his other was his notebook. I eyed it suspiciously.

“Henry,” I greeted.

“Captain. It’s morning. I was thinking I would give our prisoner a checkup.” He cleared his throat, straightening his worn, gray vest. “I have never studied something like her. I was wondering if—”

“She’s wounded,” I cut him off, throwing Aeris another glance. “But I don’t think she’ll let you look at her.”

“Well,” he scoffed. “She is a prisoner. We could use the irons—”

“She will heal,” I said, the thought of putting her in irons making me uneasy.

I’d heard that sirens healed quickly. Her regrown tongue was proof of that. And I didn’t want Henry poking and prodding at her. He was a good doctor, but even I knew that his curiosities sometimes got the better of him. He’d tried to slice up more than one corpse during his time on my ship and always seemed rather depressed when I denied him the chance.

“Come, Henry,” I said as I moved up the steps. “I need to address the crew. That means you, too.”