Page 27 of Wicked Tides #1

With what we took off the Cornwallis, Boil was able to cook up something with a bit of actual taste that night.

Merchant ships were always better stocked with luxuries.

Naturally, the girls ate huddled together in a corner of the deck.

Once in a while, one of the younger ones would laugh, which renewed my hope that they’d forget about their whole ordeal if we managed to return them home.

After the men’s bellies were full and their moods lightened, I met with them all and announced the plans to head north.

There were a few skeptical looks among them, but I eased their minds by reminding them that we had two sirens on board and a bunch of supplies from the Cornwallis to either use or sell.

Eventually, I won the crowd and everyone went about their business as usual.

After that, there were only two other people on board that hadn’t heard the plan.

I wasn’t sure if they deserved to, but they hadn’t eaten since the night prior, so I took a single platter of bean soup and some bread down to the holding cell.

I found Dahlia and Meridan leaning against the far wall atop the thin bedding, bored and still.

Meridan’s head was rested against Dahlia’s shoulder, her eyes closed.

Dahlia, however, was completely aware and followed me with her gaze as I walked to the front of the cell.

“Comfortable?” I asked .

“Not at all.”

I shrugged and crouched down to slide the food across the floor and into the cell. She didn’t move.

“Are you planning to sell us?” she asked.

“I’m thinking about it. Your kind is fetching a higher price alive than dead these days.”

“Why?”

I shrugged again. “Some men have a fondness for fucking things they shouldn’t. I imagine it might be satisfying to defile a thing like you. A thing that man has feared for a long time.”

“So, it is a twisted sense of revenge to take our power away.” She straightened her head and sighed.

“Do you want to take my power away? Would you like to put those irons back on me?” Her voice lowered, her eyes becoming shrouded in shadows.

“Wet your cock in a body you’ve longed to destroy for so long?

Is that how men get their pleasure? By feigning control? ”

There was no fear behind her words. Just taunting calmness.

My gaze raked slowly down her body, now clothed in a thin shift and oversized coat.

She was a predator. A killer. A monster.

Not one bit of her was human, despite how much she emulated one outside of the water.

Even with all her hard edges and that long scar on her cheek, she had a rigid and dark beauty to her.

One that made my eyes want to keep looking, even if something in the back of my mind told me to run.

All sirens had that eerie allure, but Dahlia…

Dahlia was different. Dahlia and I had a history that made looking at her even more agonizingly addictive.

“Are you thinking about it?” she whispered. “About spearing me with your cock instead of your sword?” A wicked grin teased the corner of her lips. “You must be wondering which one I would hate more.”

Taking a deep breath, I leaned forward on the gate, pressing my forehead to the cold bars.

“All these years, I knew we’d meet again,” I said. “My plan was to run you through the moment we did. ”

“My plan was to devour you.”

“Seems we’ve both been fools thinking it could end that quickly.”

“I didn’t kill your father’s crew, you know,” she said, her tone softening and catching me off guard.

“You stood by and watched.”

“Killing is what we do.”

“Killing is what we all do and yet here you sit, alive. I could have killed you both. I still could.”

“Why haven’t you? Were I not in this cell, I don’t know if I’d have the self-control to spare your men.”

“You mean if those girls weren’t on board. Why do you want them to live if it’s in your nature to kill?”

“They’re—”

“Innocent? Like you believed me to be when we were children?”

She swallowed, her teeth grinding as if she were chewing on her words. I waited, but she only responded with silent defiance.

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “Tell me something. Do you truly believe that I was wrong to have done what I did? Do you believe your mother to have been good?”

“Do you believe your father was good?”

“Do you believe you are good?”

“No,” she snapped.

It was at that point when Merilyn awoke to our bickering. She noticed me at the door to the cell and flicked her gaze between us in alarmed confusion.

Dahlia kept her eyes on me. “That we are good is the greatest lie we’ve ever told ourselves.

We are simply caught in the same whirlpool, going in circles, completely unaware we are drowning.

” She paused to take a breath, her brows twitching.

“I believe I tried to be good when I unlocked your cage.” Another pause.

I watched the duskiness in her eyes become even darker, defying the definition of the word.

“And then you turned me into a hateful monster. You turned me into my mother. ”

She spoke as if that was the worst thing that could have ever happened to her.

Her words were rigid and stained. Pained and broken.

I recalled for a second what her body looked like when she’d removed her previous clothing to change.

She was covered in scars. More scars than I had seen on any siren’s body, dead or alive.

I had to wonder why. Had she lost that many fights?

Had she been in that many fights? Or perhaps the scars were a symbol of her victory.

I didn’t know and I didn’t think I cared enough to find out.

The most certain thing, however, was that she was not like others.

She did not even harbor the same kind of empty disdain.

Hers was her own, built up over the years with me being the pillars on which it was erected.

Beside her, Merilyn looked at me like most sirens did, with a sense of abhorrence and fear.

That look was what I knew. But Dahlia looked at me with so many years of contempt, confusion, and fire.

It mimicked the way I looked at her. I didn’t know if I wanted to march into her cell and behead her, ridding myself of her presence for good, or…

well, I didn’t know what else I wanted to do.

I truly didn’t and it twisted me up inside.

“We know where the girls are from,” I divulged, eager to see her reaction to the fact. “It will take a week or two to get there, but that’s the direction we’re headed.”

She seemed unaffected by the news. It was irritating. I started to walk away, feeling frustrated that I didn’t get further than a small argument with her.

“Why do you care about the girls?” she called after me. “Rugged killer like you.”

I stopped and slowly turned back around to look at her through the iron bars. The cold space between us and the obvious disdain that tainted both our souls made my resolve clear as glass.

“They’re young enough,” I sighed. “If they go home now before they see the rest of the world, maybe they won’t end up like us.”