Page 45 of Blood of the Sirens
Whatever we were doing, it had to be done quickly.
“I will return soon,” I promised and went to dive into the water.
“Merrick! Don’t you dare—”
I never got to find out what. I dove into the water and straight down into the underwater cave, praying she wouldn’t follow. My body writhed as I fought the instinctual urge to breathe through my mouth. My gills appeared with my tail and fins moments later, and I knew instant, glorious relief as they opened along my neck and started filtering air.
I hoped Jesse wouldn’t be angry with me for trapping her there, even though she had every right to be. The holes in the cavern had grown bigger since last time, and that made me nervous. She had no access to fresh liquids, which also made me nervous. All of the hunters were likely scouring the ocean this moment, tracking her blood.
Fuck, as Jesse would say.
Just do your best to protect her.
The thought felt like a spear going through my chest, but I shoved it away. I would do what I had to in order to protect her. I recognized that what I felt for her was more than protectiveness—there was an instinctual possessiveness that had already come out frequently.
And I think Jesse liked it.
But if she didn’t want any more kisses or didn’t want to have my children, I would not force her.
Nor would I let any other mer force her.
The darkness swallowed me as I swam hard, relishing the burn in my muscles as I pushed myself harder. I emerged from the cave into the open ocean, adjusting my tail to rise. I would sniff out the surrounding area, and wait until the hunting party returned back home. That would be the time for Jesse and I to escape back to land.
Hopefully, the blood was too diluted through the water, and the hunters too stunned and injured to immediately follow the trail.
It wasn’t much of a hope, but it was the only one we had.
THIRTEEN
Jesse
That motherfucker.Not only had he casually dropped that he was a fucking mermaid—er, merman—and oh, by the way, those men on the boat apparently were also all mermen who wanted to breed me, but then he abandoned me in this cave!
“Yeah, right,” I mumbled to know one. “He’s just trying to keep me here.”
The man had gills on the side of his neck, and a massive tail! He’d lied. About everything.
Tears welled hotly in my eyes. I’d thought Merrick was different. I wanted to do nothing more than have a good cry, but my eyes shifted to the small feast of raw ocean delicacies. He’d given me food. He’d made up my bed.
No matter how I tried, I couldn’t simply view him as another asshole guy who was just trying to score because she was an easy target.
Merrick cared about me even if I was pissed beyond hell at him.
The thought allowed me to stop crying and take a few deep breaths. First things first, I’d break up some of this driftwood and see if there was anything I could use to start a fire. If I could manage that, it was seafood buffet time. The raw mussels wouldn’t be great, but people ate them like that all the time, didn’t they? And I was still fucking cold.
Happy to have something to occupy my hands with, I moved around the dim cave. A large drop of water landed on the back of my neck.
“Shit!”
Fuck, tit, that was cold!
Wait ... was that running water?
The sound was growing louder and was from a steady trickle to a small stream. Water poured down the side of the back of the cave.
Had it been doing that this whole time?
I put a hand to the slimy wall then tentatively licked.
