Page 76 of Wicked Tides
Most men looked his way, including the one who’d just assaulted Sakari, but my eyes saw only him. I zeroed in on the hand that was still around her unwilling waist as she struggled to get away from him. Mullins turned to push him away when the man pulled a pistol from his belt, aiming it at his head.
“Oy!” Thelasa shouted. “We have ladies of the night here for that. Leave the damn girl alone.”
But they were deaf to her words.
My teeth throbbed in my mouth. My fingers stung as my nails grew from the sensitive beds. His scent was all I could find in the array of odors filling that tavern and I focused on it. While his back was turned, I rushed him, leaping onto his body. He went careening against the wall as my teeth closed over the side of his neck. With one turn of my head, his jugular and a good chunk of flesh and sinew was ripped away. Blood spurted over me, hot and bitter. The man clawed at his open wound as I got to my feet and spit a mouthful of his flesh from my mouth. My hat fell, letting black hair spill over my shoulder.
All eyes turned to me and in my ears, I could hear muffled screaming. I saw pistols aimed and blades drawn and no part of my mind could convince my body not to cut down the ones wielding them. I lunged, pushing Mullins aside and leaping onto the nearest sailor. Gunfire rang, breaking the pattern of furious shouting. These men were hunters, but I had no truce with them. Not like I did with Vidar. Ihad no obligation to spare any of them and I certainly had no desire. They were merely a proxy for what I wished I could do to the crew of the Rose.
It was in my nature to kill and no matter what, the men reeked of siren blood. They’d killed many of us. Perhaps they’d done worse. All I wanted to do was kill.
Screaming. Gunshots. Tables were being flipped and swords were clashing. The taste of blood coated my tongue and flesh was lodged in my teeth. Another man charged me, blade raised. I leaped at him, my thumbnails piercing through his eyes. All I could think of was Sakari and even Meridan. Meridan was like me and these men were killers. Fiends. Even if she was on the Rose, she was vulnerable if anything happened.
I had bitten into three of them before I spun to see Sakari wrapped in the arms of one of the strangers, a knife to her throat. I hissed, blood dripping down my chin, when the pop of a gunshot rang in my ears. Something hit my shoulder and sent me stumbling forward. Three men moved in, grabbing at me with their hands. Within seconds, my arms were being painfully twisted behind my back and wrapped in thick twine. I struggled, but the hole in my shoulder had rendered me unable to fight all of them off. Someone managed to stuff a rolled cloth in my mouth and pulled it tightly behind my head.
Everything was a blur. I barely heard the words that were spoken around me. All I felt was hot rage and searing disdain as the tavern sat in ruins.
“Fucking siren!” someone shouted.
Sakari was screaming, but soon, her screams were as muffled as mine. They’d gagged her.
“Take them both!” another voice said. “Could both be sirens.”
I was dragged outside onto the muddy street while inside, I could still hear men arguing. No one was fighting anymore. Something had happened to make them stop and I was unwilling to think it hadanything to do with me. They would be happy to be rid of me, I suspected, but Sakari? I had hoped they cared more about her. I only prayed they wouldn’t allow the other girls to be taken soeasily.
~ 27 ~
Vidar
Vengeance is more blinding than the sun
Yet darker than the night
~Unknown
“What the fuck?” I growled, shoving David outside as the rest of Collin’s rotten crew filtered into the tavern. David stumbled onto the street, tossing me a disdainful look. “What in the hell are you doing with Collin Jones?”
“He offered me work and I needed work,” he said.
“I told you to take care of your mother. Have you left her all alone, then? You left her for your selfish and foolish pursuit of coin and excitement. Is that it?”
“She is dead!” he barked. “The day after you left, she saw fit to leavemealone in this world just likeyouleft me alone in this world. Jumped off Roger’s Point right in front of me, so fuck Treson and fuck you. Collin needed a deckhand and I needed work.”
The news of Agnes’s suicide was a knife to my heart. I had always suspected her mind was not right. I’d suspected it never would be right after everything. I didn’t know how to fix her and a part of me didn’t want to carry the burden of trying. Perhaps it was selfish, but I was notthe right man. I was too broken to mend her the way she needed. Still… knowing how badly I’d failed at taking care of David and his mother had never been more blatantly clear than at that moment.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Your mother… she was not right. I couldn’t replace your father. I—”
“You didn’t have to replace him. You just had to be there.”
There was bitterness in David’s voice, but the sorrow had long passed. He’d expected her to do something drastic, too, even if he never spoke of it. It pained me to know he had been preparing to be alone for so long and I’d left him to that task like a coward. Guilt stabbed me as I tried to contend with the news, but I was no stranger to the feeling.
“Leave Collin’s crew and join me on the Rose,” I offered.
His jaw ticked as if he was considering it, but he didn’t have time to say anything before I heard Mullins raise his voice inside. Collin’s crew had never been the civil type. Knowing they were inside with my men was an uneasy thought. I sighed sharply and shook my head.
“This discussion isn’t over,” I said, walking back toward the doors. “If you’re going to be on the water, you should be on my ship. Not his.”
I walked back inside to see a face-off between a few of my men and Collin’s crew. The damn shits couldn’t be in a space together for two seconds without someone getting hurt. Upon my reentry, eyes flicked in my direction, but near the back, one of Collin’s men stepped up behind the young woman Mullins had brought into the tavern and picked her up in a maliciously playful manner that she clearly did not like.
