Page 26 of Wicked Tides
“Couldn’t help yourself, could you?” Vidar chuckled, unafraid of the blade against his neck. “You just alerted my men. Did you plan on killing me even if it meant you’d die, too?Tsk. I’m flattered at how you’ve obsessed over me all these years.”
My anger was gnawing at me. I wanted to spill his insides across the wood, but the irrational part of me didn’t want to end it like that. No, he deserved so much worse. For my mother. For all the sisters he’d taken. I pressed my blade to his neck hard enough to draw blood and soaked it into my lungs. I could hear another bell being rung. An alarm bell. His crew was coming for me. Vidar could have yelled out to tell them where I was, but he didn’t. I could see his eyes staring up at me in the dark, wild and curious.
I leaned in toward him, dragging my nose up the side of his face to take another deep breath before I licked my tongue over his lips. He remained perfectly still as I pressed my mouth to his and bit down on his bottom lip just enough to get another taste of that sweet blood of his.
“I’m not dying here tonight,” I whispered. “But you. I have plans for you, my red prince. And it will be sunrise before I let you take your last breath. You’ve never known pain like the pain I can show you.”
Before he could reply to that, I drew back my head and slammed it down against his, knocking him semi-unconscious. I sheathed my blade in my armband and quickly jumped to my feet, heaving his body across the floor. Men were shouting outside, gathering to look for the source of the scream they heard moments ago. But they were looking in the wrong direction.
I kicked the doors to the cabin open and hauled Vidar up until I could hook my arms under his. I made it to the railing before one of his men saw me in the dark night. His white beard practically glowed in the dark. He paused, a pistol in hand.
I knew him. He knew me. We were both there the day Vidar and I signed a silent contract to hate each other. He knew very well what I was going to do to his captain and it pleased me to see the realization dawn on his face. A wicked grin stretched across my lips at the sense of victory I was feeling and he could see it under a flash of distant lightening as it lit up the ship.
“Lovely to see you again, Gus,” I said.
He raised his pistol and I raised Vidar’s body in front of mine, stilling his hand just long enough for me to roll over the railing and into the sea with his precious captain.
~ 11 ~
Vidar
The past is a ghost we shall never be rid of
~Titus
18 Years Ago
“You hear that, my son?” my father said, standing at the bow of the Mother’s Fang with his finger pointing toward a small inlet. “Those desperate cries?”
The fog had settled on the placid waters of the bay, making the eerie songs that echoed against the rocky cliffs that much more haunting. But the sounds I was hearing were not the ones sailors talked about. The suffering noises singing from deep within the inlet were the very noises hunters enjoyed the most. Agony. Despair. The tune of monsters defeated.
I looked down at the figurehead, a wooden wolf holding a bell between its teeth, but it was as still and quiet as ever.
“The bell isn’t humming,” I whispered.
“No, those sounds won’t makethe bronze hum.”
A smile spread across my father’s lips, shrouded by his untrimmed mustache. Greasy hair was pulled into a thin ponytail, but I’d learned long ago that there was no one to impress on a hunter’s ship. My father would clean up when we returned home lest he face the wrath of my mother who hated the smell of the sea on him. Not a hair had grown on my face yet, but soon I’d be like him, rough and resilient like the two generations of hunters before me.
And this was my chance to finally be a part of a chase. I clutched my cutlass tight and stared into the hazy bay where the broken sails of ruined ships breached the surface of the water like drowning men with their hands stretched toward the sky.
Seeing the ship graveyard just fueled my resolve. It was one of many that tainted the borders of ship lanes across the south sea, but it was the first I was witnessing with my own eyes. It was a violent sight to see wooden maidens of the sea broken, ruined, and forgotten.
The Mother’s Fang had seen many hunts and had succeeded in killing more sirens than any other ship in the region. Now I was on it and learning the trade. I squinted into the fog, anxious to find one of the fiends. I’d never seen one alive.
My father gestured to his men. As the wailing grew louder, the crew grew more silent. I watched the movements of his hands, reading his words. He was ordering the men to drop anchor. I could see the land close by. The rocks were sharp and black, perfect for tearing into ships that had sailed off course, but my father knew better than to skim the shore. We stopped in the deepest water of the bay and slowly, the men lowered the jolly boat into the water, being careful not to make much noise. Amongst the loud, pained cries coming from the foggy shore, I doubted we could be heard, though.
“Come, now,” my father muttered, turning me to face him. “Look at me, boy.”
At fourteen, I was a head shorter than him, scrawny, and my hair was a tawny shade like my mother’s. Where he was covered in scars, I was smooth as a baby’s bottom. He’d seen everything and I’d seennothing. This was my moment. I stared up into his dark brown eyes and saw my boyish face looking back.
That was about to change. Boys ran the farm and took care of their mothers. Men braved the sea.
“We row to shore, slow and quiet,” my father explained. “You keep your wits about you and you stay close, you hear me? And no matter what, you keep that necklace on.”
I nodded once and lifted my fingers to prod at the little pendant under my shirt. Every hunter had one. Without them, the songs were just as deadly to us as they were to any man. It fascinated me that a tiny pendant, forged to be hollow and light, could provide so much protection.
Excitement made my fingers twitch against the hilt of my blade, but I wasn’t an idiot. Foolishness got people killed. Recklessness lost them limbs. The crew of the Mother’s Fang was smart and it was why they were the best.
