Page 50 of Wicked Tides #1

I couldn’t forget who we were. What we’d done. One night of tormented desire couldn’t change that.

When I saw Meridan’s white figure slink over the railing, naked and soaking wet, I started toward her.

The men noticed and I saw sneers on the faces of some, but for the most part, they consciously were looking away.

When she saw me approaching, she folded her arms over herself and turned to retreat to our quarters, which was still the holding cell, where she could cover herself up.

I followed her, eager to get out of my corseted dress.

The Rose was on its way. Meridan helped me out of my dress so we could get comfortable.

She pulled on a thin shift with long sleeves and I slipped into a pair of drawstring pants and a shirt and belt again.

By midday, the island was out of view and we were once more in the open ocean.

The sea was anything but safe, for siren or man, and the crew had their eyes peeled for anything breaching the surface.

Bored, I decided to help and stood out on the foredeck, watching the waves for threats as the hours passed.

Unable to stand the light for long, Meridan stayed in the hold, making the space as comfortable as possible using whatever new supplies we were allowed.

When shifts changed, I stayed put, pacing slowly from one place to another until I saw Gus walk out and sit on a water barrel with his pipe.

He glanced at me, but his eyes didn’t linger as he started to blow smoke rings into the breeze.

With the sun out and the clouds thin, he seemed to be enjoying the warmth for a while as he rested his old bones.

I glimpsed him from time to time, my mind turning.

Every now and then, he caught me looking at him and I wondered what he thought of me.

I knew Vidar’s father was close to him. I knew the slaughter of his crew had affected him like it did Vidar.

I knew he was a hunter like the rest of them, ruthless and fierce despite his frail age.

He probably hated me.

But I was used to being hated.

I turned and started walking in his direction. When he saw me coming, he barely paused smoking his pipe.

“Gus,” I greeted.

“Dahlia.”

I took a deep breath and kicked an empty wooden crate over to sit on it.

“There a reason you’re filling this space with your presence?” he asked, his tone solidifying my suspicion that he hated me.

“Yes. I have a favor to ask.”

“Ask away. Don’t mean I’ll grant it.”

It was fair. I didn’t expect anything much from him.

“You speak to the girls,” I said. “You understand their language.”

“I understand enough.”

Sakari lying on that ship’s deck, her head bleeding and her body limp, flashed across my mind. I swiped it aside, trying to focus on what I wanted.

“How do you say, ‘I’m sorry’?” I asked .

Gus paused, resting his pipe hand on his stomach as he blew out a breath. He wrinkled his forehead like he didn’t think I was done with my sentence. Then his face softened.

“Oweh,” he said softly.

“Oweh,” I repeated.

He shifted his weight with a groan. “Oweh tia paloei.”

“Oweh tia paloei.”

He nodded and cleared his throat as if a little uncomfortable. “I’m sorry. For your aunt. That’s what it means. I’m sorry for aunt, actually. Don’t know how to say ‘your.’”

I blinked at the fact that he knew my intentions. When our eyes met, he looked a little defeated. He slumped back against the wall, pulling in a lungful of smoke.

“You know, either you’re the best actress I’ve ever seen, which isn’t too far-fetched for your kind, or you truly care for those girls. What I can’t figure out is why.”

I hesitated, watching one of his smoke rings float away and dissipate.

“I believe I was caught in the middle of a war I did not want to fight when I was a girl,” I said. “And it turned me into a horrible monster.”

Gus slowly nodded his head, coming to understand my meaning. Luckily, he didn’t push it further. I wasn’t sure I could truly explain my motives even if I wanted to.

“Boil made beans and pork,” he exhaled. “Should get the meat while we have it. I hear pork tastes like humans.”

I raised a brow at his comment and then rolled my eyes. “Humans are greasier.”

He paused mid-breath to stare at me and then, the slightest hint of a smile graced his lips and I couldn’t believe the sight. The joke was morbid, but amusing in some darkly satisfying way. Still, it was Gus. I shook my head and moved to retake my place near the railing for a few hours more.

“Thank you,” I muttered as I walked away .

When my few hours were up and the night was thoroughly upon us, I ventured down into the hold where Meridan was picking at a plate of food.

“Food’s bland,” she said.

I shrugged. “And what would you call what we usually eat?”

We both half-smiled with amusement as I continued to the other cabins.

In the largest of the divisions was a space full of beds and hammocks where half the men were already napping while others took shifts around the ship.

Further in was a smaller cargo room where bedding had been laid out for the girls.

I slowly headed toward it to find most of the girls already sleeping, but Ahnah was awake, her fingers black with charcoal as she sketched designs on a piece of paper.

She had a few other pictures spread out around her on the floor.

Someone had given her supplies to draw and she was fully taking advantage.

She looked up at me with a sad, flat look on her young face.

She no longer smiled when she saw me and it broke what little was left of my heart in two.

I wasn’t too sure if I was even welcome around her.

I was the last one to see her aunt. We were both taken and only I returned.

I couldn’t imagine what was going through her head.

“Ahnah,” I muttered.

She sat back from her drawing and folded her legs beneath her, wiping her blackened fingers on her skirts. I stepped closer, sitting down on the floor and leaning against the opposite wall.

“I wish we could understand each other,” I said. “So I can tell you how truly sorry I am. Oweh.” Her eyes fluttered up toward me. “Tia paloei. For Sakari. Oweh.”

Little glistening tears formed in her big eyes as the words reached her.

She stared at me, her lips slowly parting, and blinked, letting a couple of those tears trickle down her cheeks.

And then she stooped forward and crawled on her hands and knees toward me, curling herself up in my lap.

I stiffened at first, but when I realized she was crying, I couldn’t help myself.

I wrapped my arms around her and I squeezed, pulling her close.

I’d failed her. I wasn’t sure if she really knew it, but I had and I hated myself for it. But I wouldn’t fail her again. I would see her home. I would see her removed from the horror and death that haunted the water like I wished someone would have saved me as a child.

As Ahnah wept quietly against my chest, Meridan found her way to us.

I found her staring quietly at the weeping girl in my arms, her head cocked.

Maybe she agreed with my need to be with Ahnah.

Maybe she didn’t. But then she locked eyes with me and gave me the subtlest nod of approval.

I didn’t want to be at odds with my only remaining sister and the only person I could trust. That acceptance was everything.

Meridan left me there with Ahnah that night.

Uncomfortable as I was against that wooden wall with no bedding for my bones, I didn’t want to be anywhere else.

I couldn’t imagine it. I felt my own sadness in Ahnah that night and I’d wished a thousand times before that someone—anyone—would cradle me while I felt it.

I had never been allowed to feel it. To feel was practically a crime.

I’d never gotten the chance to let it pass through me.

It simply remained, growing and rotting and killing me.

Now, I was a husk of the child I was and all I could do was feel that lost sorrow through Ahnah’s tears.

And it was there in our shared pain that I found sleep.

Until those horrendous, toxic tones found their way into my slumber like the barbs of a sea urchin. Wet fingers gripped me, pulling me somewhere I didn’t want to go. All was black and I felt the pressure of the deep sea squeezing my lungs.

Was it real or was it a dream? Was Ahnah still in my arms?

Meridan, I called out, finding I had no voice. Meridan!

Father is hungry, Dahlia, said a deep, unnatural voice.

Those fingers touched me everywhere. My arms. My face.

They slid into my mouth. Into my throat.

They gripped my jaw and pried apart my teeth.

They ventured lower, finding places I desperately didn’t want them to find.

And yet it was still dark. Cold. Stifling.

I screamed, but no voice came out. I wanted to move, but nothing happened.

I felt their cold presence in my bones. In my stomach. In my lungs. In my womb.

I needed someone to hear me. Terror crashed through me like a wave of burning flames and his name rolled from my tongue in a panic .

Vidar!