Page 15 of Ocean of Sin and Starlight

Unhooks his fangs from my neck.

He pulls back and stares at me. His bright cerulean eyes are the color of the ocean in that blank void I was afloat in. Perhaps I had been floating in his eyes that whole time. They take me in, his pupils contracting and widening again, like a black sun in a blue sky.

But there is a change from the way they were before. Earlier, his eyes glinted with cruelty, combined with something like piousness, a smugness that rattled me. He clearly enjoys having power and will do everything he can to hold on to it. He also seems to think he has some Christian god on his side. I know enough about that god from Jorge to know he’s never on anyone’s side.

Now, there is a flash of shame on his face, or something close to it.

Does this cruel bloodsucker have the capacity to feel remorse?

I think about screaming. I could probably get one loud screech, my Syren song, in before he either bites me again or slams the chain into my mouth. Didn’t he say something about taking my voice away? Isn’t that what Edonia did to Maren?

But he mentioned how the humans would treat me if they discovered me, and I know he’s right. I’ve seen how cruel they can be, the way those pirates hauled my older sister, Asherah, right out of the water while we were on the search for Maren while Jorge kept me hidden from his brothers.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he says quietly as he stoops to pick up a bucket. “You need to heal and replenish your blood before I take more again.”

He pauses, seeming to think. “Then again, I did just watch you eat a part of my hand.” He lifts the one I bit, which is still bloody and missing a chunk of flesh. “Perhaps I should eat a piece of you to keep it even.”

I swallow hard.

“I could start with your nose,” he says. “It seems so sweet and delicate, too much for such a vicious animal. Or perhaps I’ll take a bite out of those plump lips of yours. Or chew on these decadent tits.”

In any other circumstance, I would feel disgusted, and yet I can feel heat flare on my cheeks. “You have a filthy mouth for a holy man.”

He seems surprised by my comment. “I suppose only a filthy creature like yourself could bring it out of me.”

I glare at him. “You say I need to heal. I’ll heal faster if you keep me wet.”

His black brows rise. “How wet are we talking here?”

I frown. I am not sure we are discussing the same thing.

“I need to be in water, or I will dry out and die,” I tell him, my patience tried. “If you wish to hold me captive, then you’ll need to put water on me constantly, especially my tail.”

In other words, I need him to get me down from this wooden structure and put me in a bathtub or a pond if he won’t set me free in the ocean.

“How constantly?” he asks.

I nod at the bucket. “You best be filling that up soon. I’ll dry out again in a few hours. I have to be hydrated from the inside as well. I can go weeks without eating, but I need water. However, I am fine with the wine you have given me. Though I must say, I’ve had better,” I add.

He frowns, turning the bucket over in his hands. “How have you had wine?”

“That’s none of your concern,” I tell him, enjoying the flicker of annoyance in his eyes. He wants to know more about me, that’s clear as ice. It’s the one advantage I have, and I plan on using it.

I go on. “Of course, if keeping me wet seems to be getting in the way of your plans to keep me alive so you can drink my blood, I have a solution for you.”

He folds his arms across his chest, and I can’t help but admire the way his muscles bunch. Pity he’s such a malicious brute. “And what might that be?”

“You said you have magic. Use that magic on me. Turn me into a human. Give me legs.”

He blinks at me for a moment and then chuckles, giving his head a shake. “Give you legs? Just like that? I’m not sure you know how magic works.”

“I know very well how it works,” I tell him with a raise of my chin. “We do have sea witches. You think I haven’t seen what they can do?”

You think I haven’t been searching for a sea witch for the last eleven years so she can do to me what she did to my sister?

“Sea witches,” he says with a slow nod. “So, what have you seen them do?”

I don’t want to tell him about Maren. I feel like giving him personal information might be like giving him a weapon.

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