Page 24 of Wicked Tides
If I killed the crew of the Burning Rose, I would be in the same predicament, though. I couldn’t sail. I couldn’t bring the girls home.
I would figure all of that out later. My priority was Vidar. No matter what, I’d have his heart.
But I had to wait. I couldn’t just slaughter him, now. No, Vidar was special. He deserved something more memorable.Ideserved something memorable.
I waited in that corner for some time after the men had loaded all of the supplies and all of the girls on the other ship. Until the sun retreated from the sky and storm clouds began to roll in. The Rose sailed some ways from the stagnant merchant ship, likely to get out of sight. Vidar and his men assumed sirens were returning to finish the girls off. They knew the red sails would scare them off if that was the case. I was left to think on that vessel for a while as Vidar and three other men stayed aboard, quietly patrolling before they settled in for the night. I was growing stiff and eager in my hiding place, itching to feel his blood between my fingers. I gathered my hate and rage and emerged from my corner as soon as the men went silent.
The night was on my side and the clouds blocked any light the moon could shed across the deck. Rain was pelting the ship, but there was no wind, which meant the ship was steady and easy to navigate.
My insides fractured with more pent-up anger to think that Bone Heart was Vidar himself. Those red sails had haunted my kind for years and to finally know that the captain of that ship was Vidar, the boy who lied to me, burned worse than any flame could mar my skin. He slaughtered my mother and left me with the only scar that really mattered. As I emerged from below deck, I brushed my fingers over the raised line across my cheek, remembering how his bronze blade cut so easily through my flesh.
I kept my dagger tucked against my forearm as I crept around the corner at the top of the steps. Every inch I moved was an inch closer to the vengeance I’d craved for eighteen years. I’d dreamed of sinking my nails into his eyes. Of scraping the meat off his bones. Of tasting the sweet tang of satisfaction on my tongue as I drank his blood.
I peered across the deck searching for a lookout. Any smart man would have one or two. Someone in the crow’s nest perhaps. Everyknown ship had a bronze bell that would hum if any siren tried to use her voice nearby and sirens knew they had them. Our voices were near obsolete to men like Vidar and his crew. But like men had adapted, so had we. So, smart hunters never took their eyes off the sea, even at night.
And I knew very well that Vidar was a smart hunter.
I let my eyes climb to the crow’s nest to see a skinny young man standing watch. But I could surpass him.
Quietly, I crept around the corner, immediately getting drenched in the cold rain. The doors to the captain’s quarters weren’t far. A sliver of light peaked through the cracks in the wood telling me someone had claimed the space for the night. Likely Vidar. Taking in a deep breath of air, I could smell the wax of a burning candle. The scent of oak and rum. Leather and sweat. All the human scents mingled in my nose to feed my drive.
I started toward the cabin, staying low. When I reached the doors, I pressed myself against the wall beside them, listening. I heard nothing aside from some deep, slow breathing from within the chamber. Even his heartbeat was sluggish. He was sleeping.
My teeth ached to take a bite out of his throat knowing he was just beyond those doors, unaware. Bone Heart. The captain so many of us feared was that pathetic little boy with the treacherous pleas. And he was just. Beyond. Those. Doors.
I took my knife into my hand and slowly stalked toward the ringed metal handle, pulling lightly at it until there was enough of a crack to see inside. I saw a table. Maps and trinkets were scattered atop it. Among them was the single candle burned nearly to its base.
I glanced back up at the crow’s nest one last time to make sure I hadn’t captured any attention. The man was looking entirely in the wrong direction so I carefully slipped inside the cabin, staying so low to the ground that my breasts nearly touched the wood. Inside, I took up a place in the corner behind the table, letting my skin adapt to the colors, tones, and textures of the room. A pile of old sheets covered in the former captain’s blood sat in a corner.
Peeking through the space between the table and the wall, I could see Vidar’s bare feet on top of the narrow bed. I trailed upward along cotton-bound legs to his waist and a hand hanging over the edge of the bed.
My breath paused upon counting only three fingers. His last two were severed at the knuckle.
I could still taste his blood on my tongue and feel the crunch of his marrow between my molars. I had found him. He’d been under my nose the whole time, sailing our waters and killing more of my kind than any hunter before him. It was Vidar all along. My own personal demon.
I took a breath of his particular scent again, letting the smell of his flesh, his leathers, and the subtle trace of rum on his breath fuel me. Then I uncurled from my corner, fingers clutching my bone dagger with breaking force. Oh, how I’d longed to sink that dagger into his gut and watch him squirm.
My eyes crept up the length of his body, over scarred and sun-licked skin. Corded muscle meant for slaughter and pain. Tattoos. His thin cotton shirt did little to cover him. My eyes paused on the scar over his sternum. It was short but rigid with the faint remnant marks of stitches.
But no silentium. No necklace to warp my voice and render it useless. If I used my voice on him, it could work. Unless he wasn’t that stupid. Recalling his deceit and his actions when we were children, I couldn’t say that he was. No, he was smart and he knew exactly what dangers lurked beneath the waves.
I turned my knife in my hand as I inched closer to the bed, watching his chest slowly rise and fall with every breath. Finally, my eyes came upon his face and I saw nothing of the child I met nearly two decades ago. His features were chiseled and strong. A layer of stubble framed his mouth and traced his jaw and long, sun-bleached dreadlocks fanned out around his head. The boy I knew was soft. Too pale for the sea. Scrawny. This man was built to overpower. To kill. Tohuntand slaughter my kind.
I tasted blood in my mouth and realized I was clenching my teeth so hard I could break them. I eased the muscles in my jaw and took a silent step forward. Then another. Slowly, I let the colors of the room melt off my skin until I was myself. Pale, scarred, and ravenous. My shadow loomed over his bed, slithering like an ink spill across his body. I raised the dagger, my pulse picking up until my skin was warm with anticipation.
I wanted it to be slow and painful. I wanted to see his eyes. For him to know it was me. But I would slaughter him in his sleep if it was the best I was going to get. If it could clean him from my nightmares and let me sleep at night.
I leaned over him, wet tendrils of my black hair hanging over my shoulder. My shadow devoured him, finally finding his face. He was so close. His heart was right there, ready to be pierced. I could hear his pulse and see the movement of blood pumping through the vein in his neck. I breathed him in, wishing to see his eyes. To see the shock on his face.
Just then, a single drop of cold water slid down a tress of my hair and landed on his cheek. His brows twitched at the sensation. I could have stabbed him then. I could have driven my dagger right into his chest and watched him drown in his blood. I could have slit his throat so he couldn’t scream. Any number of things would have brought me pleasure.
But I didn’t do any of those things. Instead, I watched as his eyes slowly fluttered open and focused on me leaning over him. Earthy brown. They were the only thing resembling the boy I met so long ago.
Something about the slow realization that washed across his face excited me. Our eyes connected and my heart leaped into my throat. Vidar, son of the wolf, only inches from my face and the tip of my blade.
He was mine. Finally, mine.
“You,” he whispered.
