Page 31 of Wicked Tides
But I would not shatter. I would not break. Not the way she wanted me to.
Wordless and obedient, I served up the men to the demon women, forced to call Reyna “mother” every time I placed a well-cut piece of human meat in her hands. The girl always sat somewhere nearby, watching me as I did my morbid duties, but she had yet to take what I offered up as the others did. In fact, I had not seen her eat in front of me at all.
No matter. Any spark of empathy was likely a trick. None of them could be trusted, least of all the most innocent-looking of the bunch.
On the fourth night of my torment, I curled into my cage, my limbs starting to fail me. Every time I woke from my stupor, half a coconut shell sat near my cage, and from it, I drank fresh water. Their minimal effort to keep me alive a while longer, I supposed.
My senses slowly returned to me. Night had draped its black cloak over the island as I sipped from my nightly ration of water. The women didn’t enjoy fire, so all the light I had was from the moon beaming between the parted clouds. On one of the old stumps, Gus barely clung to life. All had died but us, but I knew I would be carving up his body soon enough like I had the rest.
I didn’t need to see to know the sirens were still finishing their nightly feast. The sounds alone created an image so detailed that I would dream of it until the end of my days. Gnawing. The ripping offlesh. The slurping of fresh blood and pleasured moans of hungry mouths. Teeth scraping on bone. Tendons snapping.
Soon, it would be my limbs being ripped apart by their savage teeth.
I would endure. No hunter hunted without knowing the risks. Even me. My first hunt was a catastrophe. My last would be a slaughter.
I gazed out toward my father’s corpse lying on the beach. It had been left to rot before me for days now. Regret and rage mingled and made a rancid taste in my mouth and an even more foul feeling in my gut.
This will anger you beyond reason… use it. Bronze and blood.
Though I wasn’t in control of my actions or my mind then, Reyna could not deafen me to my father’s last words.
I balled my hands into fists, my nose twitching at the smell of salt and rot. If Reyna wanted me to suffer the sight of my murdered father, I would. I would stare at him every night if that was what it took to harden me. To make me rigid. To make me a killer.
A stone chiseled enough became sharp. I was going to be the sharpest stone in the black waters. Nothing would bend me because I was already broken.
I stared and I stared, rubbing layers of blood against my palms. It was my blood to bear and I would remember the feel of it. The smell of it.
For hours I watched as the crabs crept up the beach to climb over my father’s unmoving form. Their carapaces glistened under the moon.
Better he’s in the stomach of sea creatures than those monsters.
It was the slight movement to my right that finally made me turn my head. Looking at the sand, I saw nothing. Well… almost nothing. Two silvery orbs glinted in just a way to let me know someone was there. On the rocks, Reyna and the others had calmed their incessant feasting and seemed to be engaged in quiet conversation in tones my human ears could hardly detect. But someone was watching me. And once she realized I could see her, she moved.
The girl. The skinny young siren that had given Reyna the bone dagger that was still lodged in my father’s neck. Curious thing.
Or hungry thing…
I could trust a siren to be nothing but vile.
The girl slowly walked toward my cage, soundless on the wet sand. Her eyes glimpsed the others as if to make sure no one noticed what she was doing, and then she continued, creeping closer and closer to me. The clouds ate up the moon and left the beach so dark it was as if my eyes were closed.
But I could smell her.
I could feel her.
The girl smelled of salt and rain, a testament to her wickedness and deception. No pleasant smell could ever come from a beast like her. It was all part of their ploy.
I could hear her feet in the sand, her steps so soft they were nearly undetectable against the soft rolling sound of the water sliding against the shore. Reyna had no taste for children, she said, but perhaps this young fiend did. I ran my tongue along my teeth, envisioning myself biting through someone’s neck and escaping. If my teeth were my only weapon, I’d use them like a wolf.
“Boy,” came a small whisper.
She was to my left and if I had a blade, I’d have shoved it right through the bars of my cage and into her eye.
But she was speaking so softly. She did not want to be heard by the others. That sparked my interest. I turned my head toward the eerily pleasant tone of her young voice.
“What do you want?” I said through my teeth, matching her volume.
“Are you hurt?”
