Page 13 of Wicked Tides #1

He looked at me with a sense of wonder like he hadn’t quite registered whether he was awake or sleeping yet.

I glared from beneath the shadows of my brows and took a step back, flipping the dagger in my hand while my other palm slammed down on the candle, extinguishing the flame.

The room fell dark, but he was perfectly clear to me.

His heartbeat sent ripples of visual sound through the room.

His blood practically glowed beneath his skin.

But the moment the lights went out, he sprang into action.

I wanted there to be panic, but I should have known better. Vidar knew exactly where to find a weapon and precisely two steps later, he was pulling his cutlass out of his belt, which was draped across a chair near the door.

I should have been smarter. Were I less eager, I would have hidden it before he woke. But no matter. He couldn’t see me… but I could see him.

I stalked forward, silent as death. Vidar moved for the door and I lunged, pushing him into the wall hard enough to knock whatever was hanging on it to the floor.

He reached around, fisting a clump of my wet hair and tugging my head back with a sharp snap just when my knife was going for his stomach.

I choked back a scream and turned my head, biting down on the inside of his wrist. He growled in pain and shoved me away from him.

He was holding back. He could have used his blade and he didn’t. What foul plan did he have for me and had he been perfecting it all these years like I’d been modifying mine?

I licked his blood off my lips and couldn’t help the moan that slipped off my tongue at the sweet and salty taste.

I swallowed it down and slipped into the darkest shadows, silencing my breath completely so Vidar was forced to still himself and listen.

But his human ears would never hear me unless I wanted him to.

“You taste like lies and death,” I whispered into the silence.

I could hear the soft drip, drip of his blood as it slid down his fingers from the crescent bite. I could smell his scent permeating the room even further.

A smirk tugged on the edges of Vidar’s mouth and he shrugged, fire behind his blind eyes.

“So, you have been looking for me,” he spoke, his voice deep and calm despite the danger he was in.

I stalked to another corner of the room. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“Oh, I knew you would.” He turned toward my voice, his cutlass hanging loosely in his hand. “It’s in your nature, right? To hunt. Just like me.”

I cocked my head at those words. “We’re not alike.”

“Aren’t we? I’ve been looking for you, too. On every face of every bitch I’ve beheaded.”

Suddenly he swung directly toward me. I ducked out of his reach, watching the blade cut right into the wood where my head had been.

“I’m rather distinguishable, aren’t I?” I hissed, standing up behind him.

Vidar spun around and swept his blade toward my neck. I leaned away from it and then dropped to the floor in a low crouch, creeping into another corner.

“You killed the men on this ship,” he said.

“Gruesomely.”

“And why are the kids still alive?”

“Dessert.”

I chuckled, my voice carrying through the room like a rippling whisper.

A mere taste of my abilities, but I couldn’t help it.

He brought out the predator in me like blood attracted a shark.

I could hear the hum of a silentium in the room and my ears followed it right to his chest where that gnarly scar sat on his sternum .

The man had cut himself open and placed the damn thing under his skin.

As if that would make it harder for me to snatch it off of him if I tried…

“Smart,” I whispered as he pressed a palm to his chest. “To mutilate yourself in your own defense.”

“Foolish to come back aboard this ship and expect not to die.”

He came at me again with his blade and that time I rushed toward him. We slammed into each other, but in the darkness, he lost his footing first. He careened to the ground with me on top of him, my dagger at his throat. I jammed my knee against his wrist, pinning his cutlass to the floor.

“You took everything from me!” I screamed, my voice carrying so fully across the ship that I could hear the wood moan and the bell on the figurehead shudder with a low hum.

“Couldn’t help yourself, could you?” Vidar chuckled, unafraid of the blade against his neck. “You just alerted my men. Did you plan on killing me even if it meant you’d die, too? Tsk . I’m flattered at how you’ve obsessed over me all these years.”

My anger was gnawing at me. I wanted to spill his insides across the wood, but the irrational part of me didn’t want to end it like that.

No, he deserved so much worse. For my mother.

For all the sisters he’d taken. I pressed my blade to his neck hard enough to draw blood and soaked it into my lungs.

I could hear another bell being rung. An alarm bell.

His crew was coming for me. Vidar could have yelled out to tell them where I was, but he didn’t.

I could see his eyes staring up at me in the dark, wild and curious.

I leaned in toward him, dragging my nose up the side of his face to take another deep breath before I licked my tongue over his lips. He remained perfectly still as I pressed my mouth to his and bit down on his bottom lip just enough to get another taste of that sweet blood of his .

“I’m not dying here tonight,” I whispered. “But you. I have plans for you, my red prince. And it will be sunrise before I let you take your last breath. You’ve never known pain like the pain I can show you.”

Before he could reply to that, I drew back my head and slammed it down against his, knocking him semi-unconscious.

I sheathed my blade in my armband and quickly jumped to my feet, heaving his body across the floor.

Men were shouting outside, gathering to look for the source of the scream they heard moments ago.

But they were looking in the wrong direction.

I kicked the doors to the cabin open and hauled Vidar up until I could hook my arms under his. I made it to the railing before one of his men saw me in the dark night. His white beard practically glowed in the dark. He paused, a pistol in hand.

I knew him. He knew me. We were both there the day Vidar and I signed a silent contract to hate each other.

He knew very well what I was going to do to his captain and it pleased me to see the realization dawn on his face.

A wicked grin stretched across my lips at the sense of victory I was feeling and he could see it under a flash of distant lightening as it lit up the ship.

“Lovely to see you again, Gus,” I said.

He raised his pistol and I raised Vidar’s body in front of mine, stilling his hand just long enough for me to roll over the railing and into the sea with his precious captain.