Page 16 of Wicked Tides #1

Vidar

Their eyes inspire a thirst

But your ears will betray you first

~A Warning from a Madman

Reyna was not done with me yet. I believed her only regret was not making my father watch.

Her song continued.

For three days, it festered in my head. In my soul.

It twisted me into something not myself.

Something empty and rotten. My boots had been taken.

I wasn’t sure why. Maybe she didn’t want me hiding anything in them.

A sharp stick. A stone I could use to beat someone over the head.

I could think of a hundred things I could use against my enemies.

I strolled barefoot, back and forth, carving and slicing and serving up pieces of flesh to the bitch and her sirens.

It didn’t hurt as bad to do it while under the influence of her sickening lullaby, but at night, she forced me back into my tiny cage where she released me from her hold so I could recall everything my hands had done while my mind was being whipped into submission.

A submission my body was all too happy to accept .

They had not fed me over those few days. Perhaps they planned to starve me, force my labor, and leave me to the tide when they were finished getting fat on men I once knew.

Nightmares had never been so vivid. This was not just a bad dream. It was hell itself and Reyna was the devil. No, she was worse than the devil. She was something more primal. More inhuman.

My hands were crusted with salt and blood, my fingernails stuffed with the flesh of the dead. She didn’t force me to carve up my dad. Maybe she was saving that part for last just to make sure I was well and truly shattered.

But I would not shatter. I would not break. Not the way she wanted me to.

Wordless and obedient, I served up the men to the demon women, forced to call Reyna “mother” every time I placed a well-cut piece of human meat in her hands.

The girl always sat somewhere nearby, watching me as I did my morbid duties, but she had yet to take what I offered up as the others did.

In fact, I had not seen her eat in front of me at all.

No matter. Any spark of empathy was likely a trick. None of them could be trusted, least of all the most innocent-looking of the bunch.

On the fourth night of my torment, I curled into my cage, my limbs starting to fail me. Every time I woke from my stupor, half a coconut shell sat near my cage, and from it, I drank fresh water. Their minimal effort to keep me alive a while longer, I supposed.

My senses slowly returned to me. Night had draped its black cloak over the island as I sipped from my nightly ration of water.

The women didn’t enjoy fire, so all the light I had was from the moon beaming between the parted clouds.

On one of the old stumps, Gus barely clung to life.

All had died but us, but I knew I would be carving up his body soon enough like I had the rest.

I didn’t need to see to know the sirens were still finishing their nightly feast. The sounds alone created an image so detailed that I would dream of it until the end of my days.

Gnawing. The ripping of flesh. The slurping of fresh blood and pleasured moans of hungry mouths.

Teeth scraping on bone. Tendons snapping.

Soon, it would be my limbs being ripped apart by their savage teeth.

I would endure. No hunter hunted without knowing the risks. Even me. My first hunt was a catastrophe. My last would be a slaughter.

I gazed out toward my father’s corpse lying on the beach. It had been left to rot before me for days now. Regret and rage mingled and made a rancid taste in my mouth and an even more foul feeling in my gut.

This will anger you beyond reason… use it. Bronze and blood.

Though I wasn’t in control of my actions or my mind then, Reyna could not deafen me to my father’s last words.

I balled my hands into fists, my nose twitching at the smell of salt and rot. If Reyna wanted me to suffer the sight of my murdered father, I would. I would stare at him every night if that was what it took to harden me. To make me rigid. To make me a killer.

A stone chiseled enough became sharp. I was going to be the sharpest stone in the black waters. Nothing would bend me because I was already broken.

I stared and I stared, rubbing layers of blood against my palms. It was my blood to bear and I would remember the feel of it. The smell of it.

For hours I watched as the crabs crept up the beach to climb over my father’s unmoving form. Their carapaces glistened under the moon.

Better he’s in the stomach of sea creatures than those monsters.

It was the slight movement to my right that finally made me turn my head.

Looking at the sand, I saw nothing. Well…

almost nothing. Two silvery orbs glinted in just a way to let me know someone was there.

On the rocks, Reyna and the others had calmed their incessant feasting and seemed to be engaged in quiet conversation in tones my human ears could hardly detect.

But someone was watching me. And once she realized I could see her, she moved .

The girl. The skinny young siren that had given Reyna the bone dagger that was still lodged in my father’s neck. Curious thing.

Or hungry thing…

I could trust a siren to be nothing but vile.

The girl slowly walked toward my cage, soundless on the wet sand. Her eyes glimpsed the others as if to make sure no one noticed what she was doing, and then she continued, creeping closer and closer to me. The clouds ate up the moon and left the beach so dark it was as if my eyes were closed.

But I could smell her.

I could feel her.

The girl smelled of salt and rain, a testament to her wickedness and deception. No pleasant smell could ever come from a beast like her. It was all part of their ploy.

I could hear her feet in the sand, her steps so soft they were nearly undetectable against the soft rolling sound of the water sliding against the shore.

Reyna had no taste for children, she said, but perhaps this young fiend did.

I ran my tongue along my teeth, envisioning myself biting through someone’s neck and escaping.

If my teeth were my only weapon, I’d use them like a wolf.

“Boy,” came a small whisper.

She was to my left and if I had a blade, I’d have shoved it right through the bars of my cage and into her eye.

But she was speaking so softly. She did not want to be heard by the others. That sparked my interest. I turned my head toward the eerily pleasant tone of her young voice.

“What do you want?” I said through my teeth, matching her volume.

“Are you hurt?”

The obscurity of her question caught me off guard.

There was kindness in her tone, but I knew the creatures were incapable of empathy.

My brows furrowed just as the clouds allowed the moonlight to pass once more.

The girl’s fingers were curled over the bars near my shoulder where her face was so close to mine that I could see a light peppering of silver in her cheeks.

They really were captivating up close… another sign of their malevolent nature. They were meant to draw men in, twist them, and break them. I stared into her eyes and saw temptation. I saw a young girl growing into her wicked nature, but she wasn’t quite there.

I could use that.

I shed the ferocity from my hardened features and let the heartbreak claw its way to the surface for her to see.

“I am not hurt,” I said in a broken voice.

She bit her bottom lip, an unexpected look of regret glinting in her eyes.

She glimpsed the rocks where the others were slowly growing more silent.

With full bellies, they would sleep for hours.

It was why hunters used feedings to draw sirens out.

Killing them after they’d gorged and were too heavy to flee was an effective method.

They ate days, sometimes weeks worth of food after every successful hunt.

And they’d just eaten half a ship crew.

“What is your name?” I muttered, trying to draw the girl’s attention back toward me.

She was uncertain about something. I needed to exploit that.

Always find the weakness and never let it go to waste, my father used to say.

The girl blinked, dipping her head slightly as if she was hesitant to answer. Perhaps that wasn’t the right question.

“I… I’m not hurt,” I repeated. “This cage is small, though. My body aches.”

She met my eyes again, that time seeming to look deeper. I couldn’t look away, as much as I knew I should have. Siren’s eyes could make a man melt. It could strip them of their instinct and leave them unprotected.

Her eyes were doing that to me. They were… beautiful. Silver, starlit orbs that glistened like mirrors, showing the world around us in perfect, miniature detail. And the moonlight smiled in her gaze like the moon itself had birthed her .

And maybe it had. No one truly knew how sirens reproduced. Some said they were devil spawn. Others said they were the children of captive men later eaten after their use had been spent.

A gentle metallic clink brought my eyes to the girl’s hands. Long, thin fingers curled around the bars, her nails like black talons, but not quite as long as Reyna’s. Between her fingers was coiled a thin chain. A necklace. My necklace. She caught me eyeing it and pulled it further into her hand.

“My necklace,” I whispered calmly.

“It keeps you from hearing our voice,” she said, cocking her head like a curious cat. “How?”

“Magic,” I shrugged.

Her rapid blinks seemed uncomfortable. She took a glance at my father’s corpse, undisturbed by the feasting crabs. In the morning, the birds would join in. Eventually, my father, the greatest hunter on the waves, would be nothing but bones, bested by his own son.

I let the sadness infect me. It seemed to affect the girl.

“My mother hated him,” she finally said. “Called him the skinner. He’s killed so many of us.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. It was true he’d killed many of her kind, but sirens had killed many sailors in return.

“This was my first hunt,” I said gently. “I don’t think I knew what I was getting myself into.”

“Your first hunt? Do you…” She dropped her head. “Do you want to hunt us?”

“I suppose it’s always been expected of me.”

“And now that your father is dead?”

“Now that he’s dead… I doubt I’ll be far behind.”

Her eyes roamed my cramped body. “You’re just a boy.”

“You’re just a girl.”

We caught each other’s stares and I was unwillingly captured by the strange, almost ethereal glow.

“I’ve never killed a man,” she said.

“But you’ve fed on them. ”

“It is our nature.”

“But you don’t feed on these men.”

She paused. “Not in front of you.”

It didn’t seem right. The witch was feigning kindness and it made my head hurt. Or maybe that was my hunger doing that.

“I’ve never killed a siren,” I returned.

“But your father has killed many.”

We lingered there in silence for a while longer until I saw her uncurl her fingers, letting the necklace hang at length within my reach.

I swallowed and slowly maneuvered my hand, palm facing up.

She dropped the necklace into it and the ice-cold feel of the metal made my pulse shudder.

I glanced up at her, waiting for the deception to make itself known.

There had to be a catch. A trick. Some sinister meaning behind her returning the only thing that would prevent me from falling under a siren’s spell again.

“What are you doing?” I said, lowering my voice even more.

“Promise to leave?” she said, leaning closer to the bars until she was only a breath away. “Leave and never come upon the sea again.”

It was a promise I couldn’t make. One I didn’t want to make. Her mother had given me far too much reason to take to the sea again. I was not just a hunter. I was vengeful. Enraged. Hate and fury were the only two wolves fighting over the scraps of my soul now.

But saying that would not get me out of that tiny cage. So I looked at her, tears of wrath in my eyes disguised as fear. I trembled, doing everything I could not to shout my hatred to the heavens before her.

Closing my fingers over the pendant in my hand, I nodded.

“There is nothing for me on the sea anymore.” I turned to look at my father’s form in the dark. “All the reason I had to sail is there, murdered by his only son.”

For a while, I couldn’t look away. The entire moment replayed in my head a thousand times in a blink.

It was the cold, damp touch of fingers on my wrist that brought me out of it.

It was jarring and not at all pleasant, but it pulled me from that torturous memory, which I was certain would stay fresh for many years to come .

I turned slowly to look at the girl as she withdrew her hand.

“Wait until the moon has hit the peak of the volcano there,” she gestured toward the dark, mountainous silhouettes in the distance. “They will all be fast asleep. Your father’s crew was quite robust. Your small boat is far down the beach, but you can make it.”

My teeth ground at the coldness of that statement.

The girl was about to stand but she paused, biting her lip again.

“What is your name?” she asked.

“Why should you need a name if we are never to meet again?”

The corner of her lips curled ever so slightly. Not in a malicious way. It was almost… serene.

“I like names,” she said.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to give her my name. Not that sirens held any sway over names, but I wasn’t sure a siren deserved to hear it.

Then again, my lies were thick. I was not going to stay off the sea. I was going to bend it to my will one day. I was going to be a menace to her monstrous kind. I was going to take vengeance on every cunning, beautiful, awful creature under the waves and for that, they would need a name to fear.

“Vidar,” I said.