Page 5 of Wicked Tides #1

“If I’m around, I won’t have you doing the work yourself,” I said.

“But you’re never around,” David finally spoke up, talking under his breath like a pouting child.

I glanced back at him, but I didn’t respond.

I’d been like him before. My father took me on the Mother’s Fang because I begged and it turned me into a broken man far too soon.

I wouldn’t bring David into that nightmare.

Few men could walk that line and none of them were untouched by some level of madness.

“He’s upset,” Agnes muttered. “Don’t mind him.”

“I’m not upset,” David argued. “I expected him to refuse me. I’m not his son. Not really. So why would he want me around?”

“David,” Agnes turned chidingly. “Vidar loves you.”

He threw his chair back, letting the wood scrape loudly against the floor, and stood.

“If he loved me—if he loved us —he’d come around, but even when he’s anchored here, he stays in brothels, fucking every woman but you.”

“David!”

“And for some reason, you crawl back to him every time he docks. You’re pathetic.”

I spun around and took two strides toward the scrawny young man, smacking him across the face with the flat of my palm.

Agnes gasped but didn’t intervene. David was too old for spanking, but clearly, his mother hadn’t been disciplining him.

His head snapped to the side, but instead of cowering, he just clenched his jaw.

Maybe he was growing up after all. He certainly took the pain like a man.

“Don’t speak to your mother that way,” I said, grabbing the boy’s chin and forcing him to look at me. “She is your mother and you’ll respect her.”

“What about you?” he snapped back. “Do I have to respect you?”

“I don’t give a damn what you think of me, boy.” I released him and stepped back, straightening my shoulders. “You’re right. I’m not your father. And I’m not around enough for you to see me as one, but she’s your mother and she needs you.”

“She needs you ,” he spit, his eyes reddening.

For some reason, that threw a pick in my heart. I swallowed and took a deep, centering breath. I didn’t have words. Not ones I wanted to say at that exact moment, anyway. Not with Agnes standing right behind me. I half-glanced back at her and then stepped over to continue drying dishes.

“Take the leftovers out to the animals,” I said to David.

He walked stiffly over to the bucket full of scraps and left out the back door toward the animal pens. Agnes turned and continued scrubbing dishes and rinsing them, her shoulders tight.

“You didn’t have to hit him,” she said softly.

I slammed a bowl down on the table and sighed sharply.

“I cannot take him with me,” I reiterated.

“You have a cabin boy younger than him on your crew.”

I scoffed. “Whose father whipped and raped him until he was ten and old enough to drive a kitchen knife through his gut. That boy’s already ruined and if he’s not on my ship, he’s off to the gallows.

David has a chance. And I cannot believe that is the life you’d want for him. Not after what happened.”

“I don’t know everything that happened. You never told me.”

“You don’t want to know what happened!”

She snapped her head toward me, sorrow making her eyes swell. We stood for a while just staring at each other and letting our thoughts spill into the silence between us. Finally, I spoke.

“Maybe you should sell the house,” I said. “Move inland. David can join a good trade. Perhaps you can find a man who will look after you the way you deserve.”

“Leave Treson? This… this is our home.”

“And it’s about to become much more dangerous. Whitton is promoting the trade of sirens, alive and well, in Treson Harbor and in neighboring towns.”

“That’s ridiculous. You cannot allow it.”

“But it’s true and I have no power over the matter. This next run, I’m to bring him live ones.”

“You’re helping him?”

“What I bring back combined with what you get for the house will be enough for you to leave Treson.”

“You can’t do that." Her eyes began to glisten with tears .

“David can’t be out there with the way things are turning. He needs to understand that. You need to understand that.”

Agnes stepped forward and shoved me, her tiny hands barely pushing me off balance.

“Those creatures killed my husband,” she said. “They killed your father. How could you think to ever leave any alive.”

“I’m not discussing this with you any further.”

“You swore you’d kill every last one!” she screamed, pounding my chest with her fists. “Every one, Vidar. You promised me!”

Again and again she hit me and I let her until her hand connected with my jaw.

I grabbed both of her wrists and she began to thrash, emotional and crazed.

I shoved her back onto the tabletop, pinning her wrists on either side of her head.

She was heated, tears wetting on her cheeks.

Our eyes met and for a split second, her pain became mine.

I promised her I’d kill every last daughter of the sea, but that was a young boy’s promise.

A foolish one. I was about to say so when Agnes raised her head and pressed her lips to mine.

For a moment, I started to kiss her back.

Chasing a bit of pleasure would give me a fleeting bout of relief from the shit that filled my head, but I quickly came to my senses.

I pulled back, shaking my head as I released her and stepped back. She sat up and tried to reach for me, desperate for affection. For touch. I gently kept her at a distance.

“I am not the person to fill the role you need filled,” I said.

She sniveled, brows knitted. “I don’t need you to fill a role. I just want to feel your warmth before you leave again. I need your arms around me.”

“Agnes, stop.” I gathered both her wrists in one hand and cupped her face with my other, wiping her tears with my thumb. “Do as I say. Leave Treson. Use this beautiful face on a rich man who will love you.”

She stopped pushing toward me, her face relaxing into a blank stare for a while like my words had cut her too deep and made her numb .

“Then it’s true what David says,” she whispered.

“You don’t love us. We were just the burden you inherited when Jack was taken by the sea.

Your guilt incarnate.” She paused as if waiting for me to deny it, but I couldn’t even do that for her.

Slowly, she pulled away from me, shoulders hunched with defeat.

“Then consider yourself relieved of us when you set sail next. The next time you dock, whenever that may be, I pray we are gone.”

Her voice was monotone and empty which was more painful than it would have been if she’d yelled at me.

But I still made no attempt to dissuade her.

In truth, I did love her. I loved David.

I would do anything to see them safe, but safety was not all they needed.

If my coldness finally convinced Agnes to move on, then so be it. It was the best I could do.

As she walked quietly to her bedroom, I glanced at the back door. I wasn’t staying in that house for a week. Not after the words we’d just exchanged.

I walked to the door and pulled it open to find David leaning against a wooden post just outside, the empty bucket in his hand.

He looked up at me, his face as solemn as his mother’s without as much pain.

The look in his eyes said he heard everything.

I stepped out and shut the door behind me.

Leaning against the opposite post and crossing my arms, I waited for him to speak his mind now that we were alone.

“She cries into her pillow at night all the time, you know,” he admitted. I wasn’t surprised. “She misses you.”

“She misses your father. She misses a man in her bed. But that can’t be me. I regret that I made her think it could be.”

He hesitated for a long moment, letting his eyes wander. “Are we really just your guilty burden?”

I looked him straight in the eyes and took a step toward him, grabbing him by the back of the neck.

“You listen to me,” I said, pointing a finger at his face.

“Never once have I ever thought of you two as a burden. Did I care for you and your mother out of guilt? Yes. But also, because I wanted to. Because I loved your father. But you’re a man now.

And a man takes care of his mother, you hear me?

And you can’t take care of her from my ship.

” I straightened and grabbed his shoulders, squeezing his slowly developing muscles.

“Use these muscles and pick up a trade.”

I looked him in the eyes again and raised my brows, waiting for a response that would put me at ease. It took him a while, but he finally answered.

“Yes, sir.”

I patted his cheek and stepped back, leaning against the post again.

“Good man. Besides,” I looked up at the full, reddish moon behind the parted clouds.

“You don’t want to be like me. Men like me are empty and empty men can’t take care of their loved ones like they should. I pray that you never become this.”