Page 9 of The Withering Dawn (Wicked Tides)

It all happened so fast. Henry nearly shot me and in a blink, Aeris charged him, changing course only to diver Rourk’s pistol and rip out his throat.

It was chaos.

I clambered to my feet just as Henry turned on Aeris, slamming his pistol into the side of her head. I watched her body spin from the impact and she toppled over, limp. I aimed my flintlock at Henry just as he was turning to face me again, but the sea was doing everything to sabotage us. The Amanacer moaned as she pivoted, parallel with another wave, making every bit of the confrontation a struggle. I slid forward, crashing into Henry. In having to use both hands to hold onto the mast, I dropped my flintlock.

On the other side of the mast, Aeris’s body was careening toward the railing, unconscious. A wave of water washed over the deck, sweeping Henry’s legs out from under him and carrying Aeris out of my reach. Behind me, Cathal was scaling the steps to get to the helm and steady the ship’s course.

I had no other option.

Henry cried out like a child as he lost his grip on the mast. I grabbed hold of his wrist and guiding him to a rope until he could steady himself. Rourk was hanging onto the base of a cannon, one hand firmly pressed to his bleeding neck, but either his grip or the loosened cannon would give out soon. I untied some of the rope coiled around the mast and tossed it to him, keeping a grip on what was left of it as I dove after Aeris.

She was sliding quickly toward the edge of the ship with yet another wave of water that swept across the deck. I dropped, skidding on my hip when the incline was too much. Just as her body was slipping through the gaps in the railing, I reached for her arm and locked my hand around her wrist. The wind was unyielding, pelting me with stinging raindrops and the salty ocean spray blurred my vision, but I had her. I hoisted her up toward me, ignoring the ache in my shoulder when the stitches tugged on my already torn flesh, until I could wrap my arm around her waist. I waited for the ship to straighten out, my other hand tangled tightly in the thick rope. When it finally did, I wasted no time, worried the ocean would toss us again. I got to my feet, lifting Aeris’s limp form into my arms and speeding toward my quarters.

I threw the door open and rushed inside, setting her down on my bed, soaked and possibly dead. I didn’t have time to check before I had to rush back out to tend to the chaos.

Cathal managed to steady the ship enough for me to march straight over to Henry unhindered. I grabbed him by the front of his vest, lifting him to his feet and slamming him against the mast, baring my teeth. His glasses had been knocked off and he could barely balance his own weight, but I didn’t care about any of that. Part of me wondered why I even tried to save him after his betrayal had almost gotten me killed.

“Bastardo traicionero!” I roared. “?En qué diablos estabas pensando? You idiot!”

He said nothing. He just shook his head, his hands raised in surrender. Aleksi appeared from the crow’s nest, leaping the last few feet off the shroud to help me. He pulled a large hunting knife on Henry without asking any questions.

“I saw the whole thing, you fucking wanker,” he snarled, pressing the edge of the blade to his throat. “I’d have killed yuh.”

“This is madness,” Henry said. “You’ve lost your damn mind!”

Rage simmered inside me until my hands were shaking. He’d betrayed me. He’d put the whole ship in danger. Cilian had been tossed overboard. Rourk was not far from death himself.

Why had I saved him?

What was I trying to prove?

I stepped away from Henry, unable to take my eyes off of him as the world around me became a blurred landscape of muffled chaos.

“I am the captain,” I muttered.

Aleksi’s flintlock was tucked in his belt and without thinking, I reached for it, eyes fixed on Henry. Extending my hand, I fired, emptying the one bullet into his head. His body went limp and with a disgusted hiss, Aleksi stepped away and let him curl to the floor. He sheathed his knife and looked up at me, his nose wrinkled in disgust. I handed his pistol back to him, still staring at Henry’s body. He took it and slid it back into his belt, no questions.

“Coulda let him go overboard. Man’s not worth the bullet,” Aleksi said.

“He can go overboard now,” I said, turning to make my way to Rourk.

I didn’t know the man nearly as well as I knew most of the others on my crew. He was a fairly new addition and now I knew he was the kind of man that let fear guide him. He let it guide him so astray that he got himself killed.

I grabbed him by his arm and hoisted him upward only to feel him slump back over, his entire front painted with blood. His hand dropped from his throat and I could see that the hole Aeris had bitten into him was far beyond what any of us could salvage. Rourk’s eyes drew back into his skull and he fell backward, tumbling over the railing and into the sea.

My crew alone was feeding her voracious appetite.

I swore out loud and threw my hair back from my face with frustration. I could not have them scheming and creating problems amidst an already problematic storm, but I would not have wished death on them.

It was all so mixed up. The siren was in my room and three of my crew members were dead, one with my own hand. From the outside looking in, none of it was right, but I couldn’t forget the way Aeris dove in front of me when Henry pulled his weapon. That didn’t make sense either and yet it happened.

Nikolas had come to aid Cathal at the helm. I felt confident we would be able to ride out the storm without any further complications and that, at least, took a bit of weight off my shoulders and allowed me to get my thoughts in order.

“She kill ‘im, cap’n?” Cathal asked as I marched past.

I nodded once, swiping my hands over my face to clear the water from my eyes.

“Not too sad, are we? Rourk was a right bastard,” he added.

It didn’t matter whether I was sad over him or not. I’d lost four men in total since the Perry Smith and that was a problem. The realization tightened my hand into a fist and with a growl, I slammed it against the wall beside the door to my quarters. My knuckles split and pain shot up into my wrist, but it was the kind of pain I needed. The kind I always looked for. My mind cleared in an instant as I paced, flicking the soreness from my knuckles and coming to my senses.

“Might want to handle the unconscious bird in yer cabin, eh?” Cathal said.

I raked my fingers back through my wet hair again and spun, swinging the door to my chamber open and stepping out of the rain.

Aeris was sprawled on my bed, her hair in a mess of wet, crimson tresses across my pillow. I’d practically thrown her and she remained in that position, one arm hanging off the bed. I took a few deep breaths, still shaking off the excitement of what had just transpired, and shrugged off my drenched coat, draping it over my chair.

“Fuck,” I muttered, shaking my hand again as if that would rid it of the sharp discomfort dancing across my bones.

I braced my palms on the back of the chair and lingered there for a moment, my head hanging low.

What a mess. And all because of the woman lying unconscious in my bed. The siren.

I turned to look at her. Her head was facing away from me. I could scarcely see her chest rising and falling. I walked toward the bed and loomed over her, studying the stillness of her body. She could have very well passed for dead with how pale she was. The thin shirt I’d given her was drenched and the dark circles of her nipples shown through the material. So did every angle and divot in her body down to the oddly hairless area at the apex of her thighs. The wet fabric did little to conceal her naked form.

Given what she’d evidently been through, I felt wrong even looking at her that way.

I pulled a throw from the foot of the bed and draped it over her before sitting on the edge of the mattress. I reached out, carefully clearing wet strands of hair from her face to see the abrasion above her temple where Henry had hit her on the head with the butt of his pistol. The water had washed away a majority of the blood, but it still looked irritated. I reached around her, sliding my hand under her cheek to turn her head.

Warm blood drenched my fingers and I noticed it had soaked my pillow, too. Streams of it dripped from her mouth. Enough to make me wonder if she could drown in it. Could sirens drown in their own blood? I turned her onto her side, pulling the throw I’d just put over her toward her face to soak up whatever else was left in her mouth.

“Mu?equita,” I muttered, brushing her cheek with my thumb in an attempt to coax her awake.

Her brows twitched and slowly, she pried open her eyes to look up at me. Her gaze flitted back and forth across my face as if she didn’t truly see me, but when she understood where she was, she frowned. A soft whimper escaped her lips and she tried to sit up, but she stopped, coughing into the blanket and expelling another mouthful of blood.

Feeling impatient, I gripped her chin and tilted her head up toward me. She wasn’t entirely cooperative, but I saw what I needed to. Her tongue was still there, but her teeth were stained red. She was bleeding profusely and I could only guess Henry had something to do with it.

I moved to stand and get something to clean her with when she reached out and grabbed the wet fabric on the front of my shirt. I dropped my gaze to find a plume of red staining the shoulder of my blouse. The laces on the collar of my shirt were loose and out of place, so I tugged the fabric aside enough to see that my stitches had been ripped open in the commotion.

Aeris gently placed her hand on my shoulder beside the wound, framing it between her thumb and fingers.

“It is nothing,” I assured her, grabbing her chin. “This is something. I’ve only just been able to talk to you and you’ve almost been silenced again.”

She shook her head. “No,” she said, though it sounded weak.

I stood and walked to one of my trunks, pulling out a glass bottle of fresh drinking water. After I uncorked it, I handed it to Aeris. She hesitated, smelling it like she thought it was something else, and then took a big gulp, swishing it before swallowing and repeating the process. I winced at the fact that her mouth was full of blood every time she swallowed. Then again, sirens were maneaters. Blood likely had a pleasant taste to them. If not pleasant, it certainly didn’t appear to bother her.

“You took a big chunk out of Rourk,” I said as she handed the bottle back.

“He was going to shoot someone,” she replied, her throat bobbing as she spoke like her tongue was bothering her speech.

“He would not have shot me.”

Her eyes darted up toward me. “Yes, he would have. Out of panic if nothing else. I saw it in his eyes. And the doctor. He’s a sick man. I smelled it on him.” She paused a moment, her gaze wandering my cabin. “Rourk. Is he… did I…”

“Dead. Surrendered to the ocean.”

Her breath quickened at the realization and she gulped, her fingers curling against the sheets beneath her.

I shoved the cork back into the bottle and set it aside. “What does that make you?”

She pushed herself onto her feet, swaying a little as the ship tilted, sending the bottle right off the table. I caught it in my hand before it crashed to the floor. Aeris spread her arms for balance and then headed toward the door, unstable. I was certain the blow to her head was not helping. She walked around my desk, and I moved around it on the opposite side, placing the bottle on the floor and meeting her at the door. She reached for the handle so I braced a hand against the door to stop her, pulling her away from it.

“Where are you going?”

“I… I don’t know. I shouldn’t have followed you onto your ship.”

“Perhaps not. Why did you?”

“I thought…” she trailed off, her eyes diverting as if she was trying to look anywhere but at me. “I thought… I saw you and… I…”

The Amanacer swayed, leaning suddenly enough for both of us to lose our balance that time. I stumbled backwards, my back hitting the wall. Aeris tripped forward, crashing into me with a grunt. Instinct drove me to grab her arms, trying to keep her steady, when the ship lurched the other way and we both staggered toward the other side of the room. She hit the wall and to keep from crushing her beneath me, I braced my hands on either side of her. I looked down at her caged between my arms. Her fingers hooked the wet fabric of my shirt for support as she peered up at me, her gaze betraying the countless emotions she was trying to suppress. I was taken aback by that. It was sudden and it seemed to be taking over quickly. Her breath quickened and her eyes started to widen like a horrible realization had taken over her thoughts. I frowned with concern when a distressed sob escaped her throat and she squeezed her eyes closed. The ship slowly leveled, but she kept a firm hold on my shirt, tugging me close.

My whole body itched to pull her into my arms and cradle her. I could tell she was breaking apart inside. Her heart was racing and every breath she took sounded labored.

I knew that feeling.

The feeling of being swallowed by the dark and screaming silently for someone to keep your head above water. I’d wished in those distant moments that I had something—someone—to hang onto while I was falling. I never did. The only one to have ever tried was devoured by the very darkness that wanted to destroy me, too. I climbed out on my own.

But I wished I didn’t have to.

All the voices in my head shouted in unison, telling me to ignore my impulses, but it was too late. My body and soul had made the decision already. As Aeris dropped her forehead to my chest, I cradled the back of her head with my hand. God, I wanted to do more.

The ship began to tilt again, driving both of us back to the other side of the room. The frustration I was feeling was palpable and I wished the storm would stop. The excitement of it had passed and now it was a nuisance.

When I hit the wall again, I felt Aeris’s legs give out beneath her. As she sank, I wrapped her up in my embrace and slid down to the floor with her. She curled herself up between my legs, her head against my sternum, and I held her. She did not weep, but her breaths were rattled, and her body began to tremble like a terrified little rabbit in a cage.

I knew then, without a doubt in my heart, that I was not holding a monster. I was holding a frightened, fractured young woman in my arms in desperate need of a lifeline. I pulled her closer, combing my fingers through her damp hair to get it out of her face, but she would not look up at me. She stayed there, tightly curled against me until finally, her rapid, uneven breaths slowed and her body ceased shivering. The ship continued to creak and shudder against the tempest, but I anchored myself there against the wall, bracing a foot on my desk leg so that we were not jostled about. It was sturdy, bolted to the floor like every other piece of furniture I had.

“I was scared,” Aeris finally whispered.

“Of what?”

“I have not seen the open ocean since I was a child. When you said I was free to leave… I didn’t know what to do. I have known only men and cages and chains.”

“You don’t have a people to go back to?”

She shook her head against my chest. “I have no people. They were all slaughtered long ago by another clan. The Kroans. They are who attack ships and kill and devour men. They are the ones all your stories warn you about. But not all sirens are Kroans. Yri dislike confrontation. We do not even like the taste of men.”

“Yri?”

Her fingers began to play in the loose laces along the neckline of my blouse.

“That’s what I am, but there are none left. I will be alone in the ocean, at the mercy of monsters like the one you saw on the other ship. The ocean is not what it used to be, and I have no idea how to navigate it.”

“But you’ve suffered at the hands of your captors. How is that better than a solitary life at sea?”

She slowly lifted her head, looking up at me through her long lashes. “I thought death would be better… until I saw you. You did not look at me like others do. I wish I could have hidden what I was much longer only so you would keep looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you cared for me. But the way you looked at me when you realized what I am…” Her eyelids fluttered like she was fighting tears.

She closed her eyes and tucked her head under my chin, cupping a hand over her ear as if shielding herself from noises only she could hear. She remained like that for a while and then slowly relaxed again, her fingers returning to toying with my laces and then the leather strings of my necklaces. Then, slowly, her fingers crept over to my shoulder, gently prodding the bloodied flesh around the torn stitches.

“Your doctor stitched you up,” she muttered. “He will not mend you again after what happened.”

“No, certainly not. He’s dead.”

Her fingers stopped for a moment, but she said nothing.

“I don’t need mending anyways. It will heal.”

“He was not a good man,” she whispered.

“None of us are.”

“No, he disguised himself as one, but he was foul. I could feel it.”

“You could feel it?”

“His presence had a stench. Like a rotting animal. You do not feel like that. Neither does your friend, Cathal.”

“Tell me. What is my presence like, mu?equita?” I continued.

“Warm. And I came to your warmth like a fish to a hook.”

I leaned my head against the wall. “I am not warm. I am cold.”

“The dead are cold. You are not cold. You are quite beautiful, Nazario.”

Her words were getting stranger. After a while, they were barely words at all and she seemed to be mumbling to herself until her fingers stopped toying with my jewelry again and she went completely lax against me. I realized then that she had fallen to sleep. The broken siren had fallen to sleep in my lap, her head pressed against my chest. I couldn’t fathom how she’d done it. Sleeping next to anyone had proven stressful in my years growing up. It was hard to trust anyone enough to surrender to that helpless state in their presence.

I couldn’t imagine she trusted me that much, but if she did, I did not want to break that trust, despite what she was. I barely knew her, but I knew her pain. Knowing she’d let her guard down enough to close her eyes made me responsible. She’d put her life fully in my hands. I felt as if she’d given me something precious and fragile and now I had to try not to drop it.

Fuck.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, staring up at the ceiling, unsure what to do. Eventually, my heart acted for me, and I wrapped her gently in my arms again, making sure that she would not roll if the ship took any hard turns. She seemed like she hadn’t slept well in years and I understood how that felt. She deserved a good night’s rest to heal her tattered soul. No matter what the next day brought, at least I could give her that.

And if it was all her plan to leave me unguarded and vulnerable, then perhaps I would not wake at all, but that would be my last mistake and dead men couldn’t regret anything.