Page 6 of Between Salt and Serenades
“Then why don’t you leave? Swim back to your cove?”
“My home is too far from here. I need to rest for a few days before going back,” she said, eyeing the chest where her pelt now resided. I also needed a few days—at least—before I would be strong enough to transform again, and we wouldn’t make it on the boat for that long without getting caught. I need to go to land—I suppose we both did.
“Well, if we’re stuck together on this ship, I guess I should know your name.” I peered at her with narrowed eyes. “I’m Sidra Solei.”
“I am Breena. Just Breena.” A snarky smile passed over her lips before she dropped her expression all too soon.
“Well, this one won’t be waking up for a while,” I said, kicking the leg of the sleeping man. “We should probably use that to our advantage.”
I crept toward the door, peaking my head through the crack. All the fish once on the deck were now gone, sorted into baskets. The fishermen’s supply was bountiful, yet here they were, casting another net into the water and looking for more. My pod would have been satisfied for months with their last haul, but that was what humans did. They took and took until there was nothing left.
I hissed as I watched them toss another net into the water with a splash.
“Alright, lads, three more hauls, then we’ll head back,” a man with copper hair shouted.
Three more hauls?
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I couldn’t believe the greed. My kind and the humankind had not been friendly since well before I came into this world. When people spoke of human tendencies, they became no more than detached stories to me. Seeing it firsthand, I understood the rage that filled the veins of the pod elders. They were the ones who remembered. They were the ones who experienced the betrayal firsthand.
An uninvited heat grew in me as I thought of all the trapped souls I witnessed within the large aquatic enclosure. At first, my eyes were glazed over with hunger, but now, seeing their catch and knowing they planned to take so much more, I was fueled by far more than my aching belly.
How often do they come out to sea for these catches? Monthly? Weekly? Daily?
My eyes darted to the basket closest to the door. I was desperate to draw it close to me so I could refuel my body andsteady my racing thoughts. I wouldn’t be able to think rationally until the hunger was no longer altering my thoughts.
My gaze locked on the tempting basket and fish sitting in a small puddle, and my stomach growled with a furious need. Lifting my hands in front of me, the water on the deck began to vibrate with my magic. The shimmery blue swirl only I could see mixed with the puddle and slipped under the basket. My magic caused the puddle to flicker and rise, pushing the basket closer to me, as if brought to shore by a rolling wave. The puddle met its end, spreading too thin to carry the basket any farther. I would have to close the distance myself.
I peered around, seeing if anyone was close by and if they would notice me stealing the fish from right under their noses. The men were too busy casting their nets into the water to bother looking my way. I could leave the safety of the room, grab the basket, and be back before any of them saw me.
I took a deep breath, steadying my nerves. As I took a step forward, a severe grip tightened around my wrist, halting my progress. My head swung around to see Breena standing no more than a foot behind me. How she snuck up on me, I had no idea.
“What?” I seethed, trying to yank my wrist from her. My slitted eyes refocused, the haze of hunger, the hunt, washing away. Her hand didn’t budge, and neither did my arm. I felt cemented to her, and the bite of fear nipped at me as I realized she could snap my bones right here and now. This woman was a stronger opponent than I gave her credit for.
“Where are you going?” Her head tilted, seemingly unaware of what her grip was doing to me.
“What, are you worried you’ll miss me?” I asked, pulling at her one more time, signifying I wanted my freedom, because I sure as depths wouldn’t ask her for it.
“I’m worried you’ll get us caught.” She finally released me, and I pulled my sore wrist into my chest, rubbing it with my other hand. There was a red ring wrapped around my skin, the ghost of a handprint that would surely bruise later. Breena glanced at my arm and frowned, as if she found the marks she left on me unusual, as if confused by my apparent weakness.
“I won’t get caught. I’m light on my feet, and what I’m after is no more than a few feet away,” I said. “If you think about touching me like that again, don’t.”
Breena’s eyes relaxed, and she took a step back. I spun on my heels before inspecting the ship’s deck one last time and sneaking out of the room. I tilted my head downward and let the small lip of the hat shield my face as much as possible. At first glance, you would never know I wasn’t one of them.
I grabbed the handle of the wooden basket and lifted it. I brought the fish-filled basket back with me to the room and shut the door behind me as Breena’s eyes darted between me and the basket of fish. Staring at the contents, I saw the mixture of still fish of varying sizes.
Reaching into the basket, I grabbed the smallest one. I tossed it to her, and she didn’t hesitate before swallowing it whole. In seconds, the selkie began choking, her face contorted and paling. I stared at her in horror as she coughed up the contents of her stomach, a mixture of scales and fins in a pile on the deck before her.
“What’s the matter? Is this fish not up to your fancy selkie tastes?” Grabbing another one from within the basket, I turned it over in my hand to see if there was something off about it, or if the selkie had simply taken too much at once.
“Something is very wrong with that fish,” she said, wiping her chin with the back of her hand. Her lips were contorted, and she twisted her body away from the remaining fish, as if seeing them would cause another bout of vomit. She smacked her lipstogether, hungry for more but hesitant to refill her stomach that had rejected the food.
I glanced down at the small fish in my hand before dropping it into my mouth. The second the salty creature touched my human tongue, my stomach clenched. The smell of it struck my nose, and nothing about the scent was right. I spit the fish back into the basket before it could slip down my throat. Setting the basket down, I turned my back to the contents within, unable to cast my eyes upon them without feeling a wave of nausea consume me.
I spit out the residual fishy taste that lingered in my mouth. “It’s not the fish. It’s us. I think we need to cook it or something. We need human food.”
The selkie stared down at the regurgitated fish on the floor, realization setting in. Her jaw tightened before saying, “I don’t eat fish in this form. None of us do. We hunt in the sea and eat in the sea, always.”
“I’ve also only ever eaten raw fish in my siren form. It seems our needs are different above water. We need to findtheirfood.” I pointed to the man on the floor. “And we need water. Fresh water.”
