Chapter Four

Pain explodes from my wrist, shattering inside me, pulling me out of the comfort of darkness until I'm thrust back into the world.

A horrible, dry world.

My eyes open, a high screech ripping from my raw throat, my lungs burning as they struggle to be used, to find oxygen in the air. It feels like I have stones set on top of them, and I'm gasping, wondering why I have been brought back from the dead and into such agony.

There is a man right in front of me, the strange, otherworldly scent of him filling my nose. He winces at the scream coming from my mouth, and somewhere, I hear glass shattering from the power of my voice.

But the man doesn't stop what he's doing. I see a long, sharp spike in his hand, and he quickly places it against my other wrist before slamming it in through my arm with a round wooden object. He moves so fast my eyes can barely track his movements; he's just a blur, a smudge in the air.

The pain hits me even faster.

I scream again, thrashing against the spikes that have me nailed against a plank of wood. It causes my flesh to tear, blood flying everywhere. The man tightens the ropes around my arms, ensuring I can't do any more damage to myself, and the pressure on my lungs lifts a little. My tail below smacks wildly against the ground until I'm able to keep myself supported.

Then, the man takes the end of the rope and slams it into my mouth, as if he wants to keep me from screaming.

As if that will help.

Fool.

I stare right into his eyes and bite down on the rope, my teeth slicing through it with just a few snaps of my jaw until it falls, frayed and free.

His brows rise, and he looks impressed more than anything.

This is the first moment I really take a look at him.

Because he's not like most men, is he?

When I saw him in the ocean, I thought perhaps he was another fisherman, one who had come to investigate what I did to the others. One who wanted revenge.

And I welcomed it. Because of my injury, I knew that eating another's heart and liver would go a long way to fuel me until I healed.

It seemed too good to be true, and it was.

I had grabbed his ankles hard enough to snap the bones, and yet, they didn't break. I hauled him down from the surface and went in for my attack.

But when I got a look at his face, I realized this was no ordinary fisherman.

He was handsome in a beautiful way that most humans aren't, with a strong jaw and nose, bright blue eyes framed by long black lashes, coupled with a brushy dark beard and long, black hair. His aura was unlike any human I'd ever had the pleasure of devouring.

But it was his eyes that struck me as the most unusual, that made me think he perhaps wasn't human at all.

They held no fear in them whatsoever.

Instead, they danced with excitement.

With violence.

Before I could act, he opened his mouth, showing off a pair of sharp fangs, and simultaneously found the knife wound in my back, digging his fingers in until I screamed in agony.

The last thing I felt was his teeth on my neck, a hit of pleasure until I blacked out from the pain.

Now, the man stands in front of me, those same cruel blue eyes staring at me with a mix of respect and malevolence.

What are you?I want to ask. What do you want with me?

I decide to scream again since it bothers him so much.

The corner of his mouth quirks up in a cold, calculating smirk. With regular humans, a Syren's scream can immobilize them, but with this man, it does nothing.

Suddenly, he moves away from me in a blur, and in that moment, I manage to take in where I am. I'm in a windowless room with white walls, the only light coming from candles placed here and there. Despite the pain and confusion, I feel proud of myself for recognizing what these things are. My friendship with Jorge, the boatbuilder's son, wasn't for naught.

The man comes back to my side, a heavy rattling sounding as he adjusts a chain in his hand, like the one a ship would anchor with but thinner.

Before I can figure out what he's about to do, he snaps the chain taut between his hands and then shoves it at my face, pressing it between my lips.

I let out a growl, tasting rust, the metal cold, hurting my teeth. He quickly pulls the chain back until my head hits the wood behind me, then wraps the chain around until I'm held in place.

He says something to me in a deep, rough voice that makes tiny bumps appear on my flesh, but I can't understand what he's saying.

"Or do you speak Spanish?" he says, staring right into my eyes until I start to feel a little dizzy, though perhaps that's the loss of blood pouring from my wrists and into silver cups below. Then, he shakes his head. "Of course you can't understand what I'm saying."

But I do understand what he's saying, at least I do now. He's speaking a human language Jorge managed to teach me during those nights I'd meet him at the shipyard, when I learned everything I could about humans and their world in the chance that it could somehow lead me to my sister.

Not that I can inform the man of this when I'm gagged with a chain, and not that I want to be having conversations with this monster.

He steps back and looks me over, as if he's admiring what he's done to me. Like he's created art out of my pain.

His blue eyes meet mine, the color of the cold ocean pierced by sunlight, and I hope he can read all the animosity in my own gaze. This is not the first time I've been held captive, but it is the first time it has been on land. While I can survive out of water for long periods of time, I will eventually dry out and die if I don't get wet. I don't think this man knows that, and I'm not sure he'd care.

The man nods thoughtfully, as if understanding this, and then he gestures to my wrists. The blood has slowed down to a trickle, collecting in the silver cups, and he stoops down to pick one up.

He holds out the cup in front of me, my own blood a pool of dark red, like the wine Jorge used to steal from his father.

I growl at him, my teeth gnashing at the chains until they hurt.

He keeps those eyes focused on mine and then slowly lifts the cup to his mouth.

He stares right at me as he takes a sip.

He's drinking my damn blood.

I stare at him in utter horror. Even Syrens don't drink blood; we eat the organs of creatures so we can sustain ourselves. Humans aren't particularly nourishing—they don't have as much fat as seals do—but they are especially tasty.

But blood-drinking is utterly depraved.

What the hell kind of man is this?

No, not man. Creature.

Monster.

He swallows the blood down, his thick throat bobbing, until he's drained the whole glass. A trickle runs from the corner of his mouth, dripping onto his bare chest. He's made of power, muscle, and strength, every inch of him taut and hard, giving me the impression that he could rip me apart with his bare hands if he wanted to. He doesn't need claws—or his fangs—for that.

He wipes his bloody mouth with the back of his hand and then takes the cup to a table on the other side of the room. With his back to me, he looks through his desk drawers, and I hold my breath, wondering what he's going to do this time, what other ways he plans on torturing me.

When he turns around, he's got something in his hands giving off smoke, a sweetly herbaceous scent. It looks like a bundle of dried leaves tied up with twine, the ends smoldering with bright embers.

"This will hurt," he says, and I brace myself.

He reaches over and removes the spike from my wrist in one fluid motion, the pain making my eyes roll back in my head. Then, he presses the burning bundle to my wound.

I scream against the chain, watching as he holds it against my bleeding flesh, chanting in a language I don't understand.

And then, the unthinkable happens.

I feel a prickling around the burn, and then the pain starts to fade until it's barely noticeable.

He takes the herbs away, and I stare in complete awe as the bloody wound at my wrist begins to heal itself, the flesh growing over it as if the injury is being erased before my very eyes.

"I don't want you to bleed to death," he says quietly. "I need you alive."

How fucking noble.

He goes over to the other wrist and does the same. This time, I try to stay composed. I don't want him to revel in my suffering.

Finally, he steps in close to me, so close that I can see tiny flecks of silver and green in his eyes. It's hypnotizing, the way they pull me under those dark long lashes, and the scent of him, similar to the stuff he's burning but with something sweet, only adds to the headiness.

"I can fix your back as well," he says, his voice low, and he stares at my mouth as he reaches back behind me. My breasts brush against his warm chest, my nipples hardening despite the fear and hatred I feel for him, and my breath hitches. His gaze drops even lower now, the corner of his full mouth quirking up as he watches how my body responds to him, how it betrays me.

Then, he finds the wound at my back and presses the herbs on it until I feel that heal too.

"There," he says with a satisfied nod as he looks me over. "Like no harm ever came to you. I'll collect more blood in a few days, give you time to heal and recuperate. You'll get used to the cycle, and the magic should make things easier."

Magic? My eyes widen, and he notices.

"Yes, magic," he says. "You seem to know this word? Do you know of us witches? Do you have blood-drinkers? Or is all this new to you? Perhaps you are used to being the only monster around."

I am not a monster, I want to scream at him. I am doing what I must, what I am made to do. Is that what this is all about? Is this punishment for what I did to those men?

"It should be a pity that you can't understand me," he says as he stoops down to pick up the other chalice. I expect him to drink my blood like he did with the other one, but he doesn't. "But I am used to talking to someone who doesn't understand me and never talks back." He glances up at the ceiling, and my gaze follows, expecting something or someone to be there.

"I wonder," he says, looking back at me, the coldness in his eyes softening slightly, "do you have God under the sea? Do you Syrens worship sharks? Other Syrens? Man itself? Do you ever wrestle with how God could create a horrid creature such as yourself, how they could ever let something like this happen to one of their precious living souls? Have you ever spared a thought for who created you?" He gives me a caustic smile. "What a blessing that would be, to never have to believe in anything."

Then, he starts to walk toward the door.

He opens it, cautiously looking outside before he turns back to look at me.

"I will be back after daybreak," he says. "I know you don't understand what that means. I just want you to know that I will be back, for better…or for worse."

Then, he exits the room, shutting the door behind him. There is a loud click and rattling of the handle, then nothing.

There is relief in the silence of this room, with only the crackle of the candles surrounding me. My body aches from the position it's strapped in, my tail starting to dry out a little as I press myself up to get the pressure off my shoulders and chest.

He will be back, for better or for worse, he says.

I know what he means for the worse.

More bloodletting, or some other form of torture.

And there probably isn't anything for the better.

But he is magic. He called himself a witch. A blood-drinking witch.

I've spent eleven years looking for Edonia, the sea witch who tricked my sister into giving up her fins for legs, hoping that, if I found her, she could either tell me where Maren was or give me legs so I could cross the world to find her. My search brought me to Jorge, then across the Pacific, then back to my kingdom of Limonos until the last of our Syrens left. Then, I traveled down here, to the frigid southern oceans, forever searching, unwilling to give up.

And now, I've been captured and tortured by this blood-drinking witch who seems to have malevolent plans for me.

But I have plans too.

If he can give me legs, the same way Edonia did for Maren, then I am prepared to give this monster exactly what he wants.

No matter what it costs me.