Page 64 of Wicked Tides #1

Dahlia

Empty silence may greet you in death

But in life, memories never leave you

~ Hugh Teller

I burst from the warm water with a gasp, my body trembling with memories of the son’s slimy hands on me.

In me. The dream was a horrid one and I felt it all as if I were there.

I’d stumbled once more into a nightmare that wasn’t mine and found myself the subject of torture.

Torture at the hands of the things I’d been running from my whole life and a fat man in a gaudy blue outfit.

The rage I felt at seeing him devour my tongue as if he was better than the sirens he plucked them from ate a hole in my chest.

But the sons. They were my nightmare, not his.

None of it made sense, but it didn’t have to. Dreams didn’t often build themselves with plain weaves. They were crooked and askew and that particular one was a deformed disaster of tangled webs. A hybrid of two people’s twisted minds, I suspected.

I felt sick as I moved my still attached tongue in my mouth.

When I had opened my eyes to see the sons standing over me, jeering with their jagged, crooked teeth, I wished for death instead.

My greatest fear was being used, tattered, and emptied out by their sadistic hands and there I was, their fingers down my throat, wishing it would all end.

I waded toward the edge of the pool, looking around at my surroundings. I was alone, from what I could see.

My heart was racing, sending blood through me so fast it was almost painful. My mind should not have gone immediately to Vidar, but it did. He’d been screaming my name as the sons ripped into me. He’d been fighting thick chains trying to intervene.

And I vaguely recalled him meeting me at the water’s edge and carrying me into the village when I returned with Ligeia’s head.

And now I had found myself in his nightmare where he was unable to save me.

On a rock, I found a bundle of thin blankets and a cotton dress. I took it and slid it over my wet body, loosely tying the laces over my breasts. Looking around again, I tried to remember how I got to the spring.

A pair of urgent footsteps drew my attention. I looked over my shoulder just as Meridan slid around the corner, nearly slipping on the slick stone. When she saw me, she blinked as if surprised to see me awake.

“You must run,” she said.

“Why?”

“Vidar is coming. I told him about the dreams.”

“You what? Why?”

“I have not been myself. I have been foolish. I see the way you look at him and I wanted to protect you. I—"

She ceased talking when the heavy thrum of hooves could be heard drawing closer to the spring.

I stepped around the stone wall to see Vidar just up the path on horseback, galloping across the packed mud.

The moment I met his eyes, I could see the tension in them.

Instantly, I wanted to shout at him. I wanted to explain myself and the way things had changed since I first set foot on the Rose, but seeing that great beast hurtling toward me made me rethink that .

“Dahlia, run,” Meridan urged.

“He will hear me out,” I said, trying to convince myself more than her.

“You cannot risk it. You’ve only just healed.”

She pushed me away from the spring and I turned to her. “Where will you go?”

“It doesn’t matter. Just go!”

She pushed me again and I stumbled out into the open as Vidar careened up to the spring, pulling the horse to a skidding stop. I spun around and took off toward the trees. Not out of fear. Out of a need to survive long enough to explain.

“Vidar, don’t!” I heard Meridan shout.

“Stay out of this!” he roared.

I looked back long enough to see that Meridan was safe. I saw Vidar leaping off the horse and sprinting toward me. I couldn’t even tell if he had his weapons. I just kept going, hoping whatever position we found ourselves in next would be one that would allow me to speak.

The trees were thick and tall the further I ran. I was barefoot and the stones and frosted ground hit the soles of my feet like glass.

“Dahlia!” Vidar bellowed. “Stop!”

As if I was going to suddenly start doing as he said. I leapt over logs and rocks and ducked under snow-salted branches trying to gain enough distance to gather my thoughts. But Vidar was fast. Outrunning him would not work. Not when he was born with legs and I was born with a fin.

I reached a small clearing covered in yellowed grass and patches of snow.

In the middle was a thick, fallen log lying as high as my hip.

I jumped over it and turned to face Vidar once something—anything—was between us.

I saw him race into the clearing and slide to a halt on the other side of the log, his eyes glaring daggers at me.

“Stop running,” he panted.

I shook my head in defiance. “Stop chasing. ”

He moved to one side and I moved to the other, keeping my distance.

“It’s true, then” he muttered, regarding me like I was a stranger.

I shook my head, but did not say anything. I couldn’t deny his accusation, as vague as it was. I knew exactly what he was talking about. Pressing my lips together, I straightened my shoulders and fortified my thoughts.

“How long?” Vidar said, stepping toward the log. I backstepped, ready to take off again.

I was not accustomed to running, but I’d made it so far with him. A part of me didn’t want to ruin that. If I didn’t run, I would have to fight and one of us would perish in that confrontation. I knew it.

“How long?” he barked. “Since we were children or since I brought you onto my ship?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

“I didn’t know I could.”

“Then how did you?”

“The first night on the Rose, I slipped into your dreams by accident,” I shrugged.

“And then?”

“And then…” I raised my eyes to meet his, steeling myself. “And then I decided to use our twisted bond to manipulate you since my song could not.”

Vidar’s lip twitched. I could see the muscles in his neck and shoulders tighten.

He lunged for the log and bounded over it.

I nearly tripped over myself backing away, but I managed to slip away from Vidar’s outstretched hand.

I took off again, searching for an even path to run on, but the woods only looked thicker moving forward.

So, I just ran with no destination in mind.

I stumbled and Vidar crashed into me, his arms coiling around my body.

He slammed me against a tree, his forearm pressing against my back while he twisted my arm behind me with his other hand .

“You’ve been toying with me the whole time,” he breathed harshly against my ear.

“Now you know,” I said through my teeth. “I have been in your head, even if you’ve woken every morning remembering nothing of the dreams we’ve shared.”

“If ever there was a part of me that wanted to trust you—”

“I am a siren! My existence is the result of violence and hatred and I am nothing more than a monster. You knew it the first moment you saw me.”

He shoved off of me, allowing me to turn and face him.

“Was it your plan to convince me otherwise then? With the girls? By saving David? Was it all part of this morbid fucking dance of ours?”

“Would you be surprised? I am an outcast. Your ship was the safest place to be. I needed to make sure it stayed that way.”

A flash of sorrow burned behind Vidar’s rage before he cleansed it with the flames of his disappointment.

“And Uther? Laurence? All those men who betrayed me. The men I killed . Did you play a part in that?”

I winced with surprise. “No. That was Ligeia. I thought all of your men were with silentiums.”

“I was and you found a way to get in my head.”

“Because I’ve tasted you!” I shoved him angrily, appalled that he suspected it was me behind his men’s uprising.

Although, who I was only weeks ago would have enjoyed seeing his men try to kill him.

“We are bonded because of what happened on that island when we were children. And I used it against you. I wanted to destroy you from the inside out since I could not do it any other way. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. I have wanted you dead, Vidar.”

“Then prove it and kill me,” he said. “You say you invaded my dreams to manipulate me, then be done with it and take your revenge, Dahlia. Prove you are the same kind of monster I have made a living off hunting and we will end each other, here, tonight.” He moved in closer and I stiffened.

“Or admit what you’ve been too afraid to tell me since that night in Port Devlin. ”

My heart hammered in my chest. My lip trembled and I could feel the cold around me fighting to snuff out what little warmth I had left in me. I felt Vidar’s gaze searing into me, forcing truths from me that would both wound and liberate my soul.

“I am a devil,” I forced out, the words bitter on my tongue. “I am a killer. A beast. Trusting me would be suicide.”

“Lies.”

“Believing I am more than my mother will leave you wanting.”

Every word I spoke was sour bile on my tongue because I knew it was not entirely true. I was a killer, but I knew that wasn’t all I was.

He thrust me back against the tree again, raising his chin with disappointment.

I could see his nostrils flaring as he breathed like he longed to shout and curse at me, but he didn’t.

I spun to move away when he suddenly braced his hand against the trunk, blocking my path.

I stiffened, pressing myself against the pine and preparing for a fight when he pulled a knife from his leather bracer and handed it to me, handle first. I glimpsed it warily, narrowing my eyes.

“Go on, then,” he said. “Cut it out.”

My gaze flashed to his in disbelief. A deep “v” plunged down his shirt where loose laces barely kept it together. I could see his jagged scar stretched over his sternum, beautiful and gnarly.

“What?” I spoke.