Page 2 of Wicked Tides #1

Vidar

He swept his blade across her knee

And down she fell, a slayer was he

~A Sea Shanty

I stood before Governor Whitton as he fattened himself on a pork thigh.

The dining room of his pristine mansion was quiet save for the sound of his chewing and the slow rhythm of water dripping off the hem of my still-soaked coat onto the stone floor.

I’d tracked a muddy trail into his home.

Not that he cared. Two servant girls were cleaning behind me, making sure traces of my presence were erased.

Whitton was fully focused on his meal, his plump cheeks bouncing with every bite of greasy meat. He smacked his food and internally, I was wincing at the irritating sound.

Gnawing. The ripping of flesh. The slurping of fresh blood and pleasured moans of hungry mouths. Teeth scraping on bone. Tendons snapping.

I cleared my throat, hoping the governor would get on with things .

At my feet sat the sack with two heads stuffed inside. I was eager to pass them off. Burn them. Burry them. Whatever I was asked to do with them after I was paid.

“How many did you say?” Whitton asked with a full mouth.

He slapped his half-eaten leg of pig onto his silver plate, splashing melted butter onto the ivory tablecloth. With greasy fingers, he picked up a crystal glass of wine and slurped its contents. His wooden chair creaked under his weight as he leaned back to regard me and my bag.

“Two,” I said simply. “One of them a matron.”

“Oh?” he said with boredom. “Which matron?”

“Matron Ethrelia.”

“Hmm.” He took another drink, waving a hand at one of his other servants.

He had no idea what any of their names were. He knew very little about anything, especially sirens.

The servant walked to the sack and picked it up, setting it on the table next to Whitton.

He untied the ropes, pulling it open to peer inside.

I could have warned him, but I didn’t. Instead, I watched as the young man reared back with disgust at the macabre sight and the wall of sour stench that hit him in the face.

He went pale, his eyes glazing over, and I knew he was trying not to retch.

“New kid?” I said, lifting a brow toward Whitton.

He shrugged with disinterest.

“I’ll give you fifty,” he sighed.

I stilled, eyes narrowing at the pampered fuck. “Fifty. For one?”

“For both.”

Chuckling, I said, “That won’t go over well with my crew.”

“I’m not responsible for your crew.”

“A matron alone is worth—”

“They’re worth what I say they’re worth.

” He picked up his pork leg again and continued gnawing on the meat.

“The Ginger James’ crew brought two of the singers to shore last month.

Madam Letty put them up in her brothel and I swear half of Dawn was here paying just to see them and paying more to touch them. ”

Which meant Madam Letty was paying twice as much in taxes. I ground my teeth at his greed, but I wasn’t surprised by it.

“And?”

“And the butcher in White Crown has been asking about tongues. Says his governor got a taste for them and is willing to pay hundreds.”

“Wonderful for him,” I said with a sarcastic smile.

Finally, Whitton’s eyes met mine, partially yellowed and droopy. He had the face of a bulldog without any of the cute-ugly appeal.

“So, killing them is outdated. No one cares about their heads anymore. They care whether or not they can eat their tongues or fuck them.”

Disgust roiled through me like turned milk in my stomach. I hung my thumbs on my leather belts, transferring my weight to one leg.

“The only good siren is a dead one,” I muttered to myself, repeating words my father fed me over and over as a child.

“What was that?”

“Cutting out their voice and selling their bodies is wrong.”

Whitton leaned back again, resting his hands on his round belly.

“Sympathizing, are we?”

Never . “Keeping them on land around all these people will turn bloody someday, and not for them. For us.”

“The fact is, Treson Harbor is the biggest town on this coast. People inland want exotic things. Excitement. We can give that to them. In a year’s time, this will be the richest town this side of the country because we have what no one else has.

We have creatures of the deep. Creatures some people still think are just myths.

That’s a lot of coin I could be putting in your pocket if you’d just bring me some damn live ones instead of this shit. ”

He knocked the sack off the table, letting the heads roll across the floor with a wet thump. Gray, clammy faces with mouths agape peered up at the ceiling, long tresses of black hair like an ink spill on the floor .

I wasn’t buying it and Whitton could see it. He leaned forward, elbows on the table, and grumbled against the fat of his abdomen pushing on his lungs.

“Times have changed, Woelfson. Those creatures aren’t feared anymore. Merchants don’t go missing like they used to. The ocean’s safer and people don’t want heads, they want product.”

Disgusting .

He waved his hand at the same servant that nearly expelled his last meal all over the dining room and the boy walked stiffly out of the room.

“The oceans are safer because I’ve hunted every damn singing temptress under its waves and those that are left have fled,” I argued.

“Our merchants wouldn’t be sailing with as much confidence if I wasn’t out there hunting.

Our fishermen would be too scared to go out.

I’ve killed the most and if I hadn’t, children would still be lying awake at night afraid of what’s out there.

We wouldn’t have bronze bells hanging over every chapel and on every dock. ”

Whitton still seemed bored as the boy servant returned with a platter covered by a silver dome. He set it down in front of the governor and backed away.

“If I was focused on tongues, I’d have never cleaned the tides of those wicked monsters and we’d be a fucking ghost town.

But because of me, rats like Collin Jones and Peter Michaels can hunt for tongues instead of heads.

Merchant ships like the Camdon and Cornwallis leave and come back.

That’s how you make your town rich. With successful trade. Export.”

“Hmf. The Cornwallis has been gone two weeks longer than expected. I wouldn’t use them as an example.”

Tucking a fresh napkin in the collar of his shirt, Whitton lifted the silver dome from his plate to reveal a small strip of red meat atop a bed of pickled watermelon rinds.

I furrowed my brows at the odd delicacy, somewhat in denial.

When Whitton’s knife cut into the meat and the rare insides glistened pink, my nose twitched with revulsion .

Whitton sliced off a bite-sized piece of the tongue and slid it between his teeth with a pleasured sigh. He made a show of chewing the bite slowly and then pointed his fork at me.

“You’re about to have some trouble, Woelfson.

If you don’t evolve with the times, people like Collin Jones and Peter Michaels will try to take you out of the picture.

And I won’t be able to stop them. See, they’ve adopted the skin trade and if you keep killing their product and leaving nothing to be scavenged, you’ll have a war on your hands with the other hunters. ”

“Hunters,” I scoffed. “What’s a hunter that doesn’t kill his prey?”

“Still a hunter. Just one who values coin over his own personal vendettas.”

“What you’re doing here is dangerous. Keeping sirens on land. It won’t end like you want. Their voices grow back. Their tongues grow back. You silence them and they’ll find a way to whisper in your ear.”

He took another bite, unbothered. “Which is why I can think of no better person to make sure they’re maintained.”

“Maintained?”

“The ones we already have in Treson Harbor need regular… trimming. Not everyone can afford one of those…” He paused, staring at my chest and circling his fork in the air toward me. “One of those… things.”

“A silentium,” I said flatly.

“Yes, that. Common folk can’t afford nor do they want to wear one of those things. So,” he shrugged. “We keep them trimmed and quiet and leashed and the money flows.”

“I’m not ‘trimming’ your stock.”

He smiled, still chewing, and raised his hands out to the sides proudly. I stared at him, trying my best to mask the utter disgust I was feeling at his proposal. But if he wasn’t going to pay me anymore for the heads of defeated beasts, I wasn’t going to keep my crew for much longer.

My father would be sickened by the way things had evolved.

Or perhaps he’d be proud. Almost single-handedly, I’d thinned the numbers of those damned sea creatures so much that townspeople barely considered them a threat anymore.

At the very least, I’d driven them back from our shores and into rougher waters where most ships didn’t even venture.

But with the lack of threat came ignorance. Comfort.

One day it would lead to violence, but I seemed to be the only one who knew it.

“So?” Whitton said, slurping his wine. “Do you consent to our new deal?”

“What deal is that?” I sighed.

“You, the best hunter, son of the great Ethelwoelf, remakes his name. You bring in the women. You collect the reward.”

“Hmf. You mean you collect the reward.”

“If I get rich, you get rich. It’s time you realized the way of things.

I’ll even give you an advance because I’m that confident in your skills, captain.

I’ll double my offer for those rotting heads if you agree to bring back the spoils of your next hunt alive and intact.

Come now. You have a crew to pay and a woman and child to support. ”

Nothing about the governor’s offer sat well with me, but my thoughts wandered to my crew. Almost every one of them was plucked off the streets and they relied on me and our hunts. Some of them relied on them to feed their families. Perhaps Mullins was right. Perhaps Uther was right.

Fuck, who was I kidding? They were all goddamn fools…