Chapter Six

For a moment, I think I'm elsewhere.

The ocean.

I'm in the cold, bottomless depths, that stretch of blue that goes on and on forever. There is nothing here that can hurt me. No one I've lost. No pain, no sorrow, no grief. Just blissful nothingness in which to float forever.

But then, reality sets in.

The pain sets in.

A sharp stabbing in my neck.

The sensation of having my soul, the very essence of myself, ripped out of me while, at the same time, I am filled.

Filled with something I didn't know I needed, didn't realize I craved. It strikes hot and quick, like liquid lightning that sinks into my very core, causing an insatiable hunger like I've never known.

This man is sucking the blood from my neck, feasting on me, swallowing me down his throat, and there's almost something pleasurable in the pain, enough that I let out a low moan.

The man stops.

Goes still.

Unhooks his fangs from my neck.

He pulls back and stares at me. His bright cerulean eyes are the color of the ocean in that blank void I was afloat in. Perhaps I had been floating in his eyes that whole time. They take me in, his pupils contracting and widening again, like a black sun in a blue sky.

But there is a change from the way they were before. Earlier, his eyes glinted with cruelty, combined with something like piousness, a smugness that rattled me. He clearly enjoys having power and will do everything he can to hold on to it. He also seems to think he has some Christian god on his side. I know enough about that god from Jorge to know he's never on anyone's side.

Now, there is a flash of shame on his face, or something close to it.

Does this cruel bloodsucker have the capacity to feel remorse?

I think about screaming. I could probably get one loud screech, my Syren song, in before he either bites me again or slams the chain into my mouth. Didn't he say something about taking my voice away? Isn't that what Edonia did to Maren?

But he mentioned how the humans would treat me if they discovered me, and I know he's right. I've seen how cruel they can be, the way those pirates hauled my older sister, Asherah, right out of the water while we were on the search for Maren while Jorge kept me hidden from his brothers.

"I shouldn't have done that," he says quietly as he stoops to pick up a bucket. "You need to heal and replenish your blood before I take more again."

He pauses, seeming to think. "Then again, I did just watch you eat a part of my hand." He lifts the one I bit, which is still bloody and missing a chunk of flesh. "Perhaps I should eat a piece of you to keep it even."

I swallow hard.

"I could start with your nose," he says. "It seems so sweet and delicate, too much for such a vicious animal. Or perhaps I'll take a bite out of those plump lips of yours. Or chew on these decadent tits."

In any other circumstance, I would feel disgusted, and yet I can feel heat flare on my cheeks. "You have a filthy mouth for a holy man."

He seems surprised by my comment. "I suppose only a filthy creature like yourself could bring it out of me."

I glare at him. "You say I need to heal. I'll heal faster if you keep me wet."

His black brows rise. "How wet are we talking here?"

I frown. I am not sure we are discussing the same thing.

"I need to be in water, or I will dry out and die," I tell him, my patience tried. "If you wish to hold me captive, then you'll need to put water on me constantly, especially my tail."

In other words, I need him to get me down from this wooden structure and put me in a bathtub or a pond if he won't set me free in the ocean.

"How constantly?" he asks.

I nod at the bucket. "You best be filling that up soon. I'll dry out again in a few hours. I have to be hydrated from the inside as well. I can go weeks without eating, but I need water. However, I am fine with the wine you have given me. Though I must say, I've had better," I add.

He frowns, turning the bucket over in his hands. "How have you had wine?"

"That's none of your concern," I tell him, enjoying the flicker of annoyance in his eyes. He wants to know more about me, that's clear as ice. It's the one advantage I have, and I plan on using it.

I go on. "Of course, if keeping me wet seems to be getting in the way of your plans to keep me alive so you can drink my blood, I have a solution for you."

He folds his arms across his chest, and I can't help but admire the way his muscles bunch. Pity he's such a malicious brute. "And what might that be?"

"You said you have magic. Use that magic on me. Turn me into a human. Give me legs."

He blinks at me for a moment and then chuckles, giving his head a shake. "Give you legs? Just like that? I'm not sure you know how magic works."

"I know very well how it works," I tell him with a raise of my chin. "We do have sea witches. You think I haven't seen what they can do?"

You think I haven't been searching for a sea witch for the last eleven years so she can do to me what she did to my sister?

"Sea witches," he says with a slow nod. "So, what have you seen them do?"

I don't want to tell him about Maren. I feel like giving him personal information might be like giving him a weapon.

"I know a Syren who wanted legs instead of a tail," I say carefully. "She wanted to become a human, to walk and live on land. The sea witch was able to do that for her."

He frowns. "And you saw this happen with your own eyes?"

I shake my head. "No. But it happened all the same."

A look of disbelief comes over him. He starts to pace slowly in front of me, hands behind his back. "Tell me, then… What is your name, anyway? Or should I just call you little fish?"

I press my lips together. I'm not about to tell him my name, and being called a fish isn't an insult where I'm from.

"Little fish it is," he says, and though his face is ever so serious, I catch a look of delight in his eyes. "So tell me: why should I use my magic to give you legs? What would I get out of that? If I were to make you a human, surely you would lose all the special properties in your blood, the very thing I crave."

"How do you know that would happen?" I ask him. "All you need to give me are legs. I can keep my gills. I can keep my ability to breathe underwater. I can keep my long life. You don't need to change my blood."

He studies me for a moment. "Why do you want legs?"

"Would it not be easier for you to manage me? You can't keep me in this room forever. Eventually, someone will discover me. You said so yourself: my screams would bring attention. Therefore, that means there is an audience to be had. If I had legs, you could pass me off as perhaps some woman who has been shipwrecked."

"Yes," he says slowly. "I could do that, though I would need to figure out a way to keep you from escaping, from talking to the villagers. You wouldn't be any freer than you are now. So I want you to answer the question: why do you want legs? What is in it for you?"

"I suppose I get to experience something new before I die," I tell him. It's the partial truth.

"Speaking of death, you don't seem to fear it," he says, taking a tentative step forward, his gaze searching my face. I can't tell if he's afraid to come closer because of me…or because of himself.

"I fear death," I admit quietly. If I didn't confess it, I have no doubt he would try and make me fear it in torturous ways.

"But you haven't once tried to beg for your life. At least, not really."

"Perhaps this is me begging." Perhaps I've been through worse before and lived to tell the tale. You don't get to roam the seas alone as a female Syren without running into trouble.

"No," he says dismissively. "I know what begging looks like. I know it very well. You aren't afraid of me, at least not as much as you should be. Tell me, where were you before you showed up in these harbors? Does your kind not live in colonies? Why were you alone?"

"Who says I was alone?" I ask, my voice growing hard.

"You were alone," he says after a moment. "I can tell when someone is running away from something—or running to something. It's my calling to take those in, no matter which direction they're running."

I can't help but curl my lip at him. Again with this pious talk. He should know it doesn't have any weight with me. "You have a strange calling, kidnapping Syrens and bringing them into your church to torture them in secret."

He gives me a sharp look, black brows knitting together. "I am not torturing you."

I nearly laugh. This man is terribly delusional.

"Oh, so I suppose tying me to a plank and putting holes in my wrists isn't torture? Biting me and drinking my blood isn't torture? Gagging me with a chain isn't torture?"

The sharpness in his eyes doesn't dissipate. "It isn't a plank."

Now I laugh, the sound acidic. "My sincerest apologies for not knowing your terminology."

"It's a cross," he says, though his voice is softer now. "A crucifix. To symbolize the death of Jesus, who died for our sins."

"Then he died for your sins, not mine," I tell him snidely. "So what are you trying to do? Make an example of me?"

"I'm trying to remind myself not to get carried away," he says, his gaze searching the cross I'm tied to.

"Is that so? And what does getting carried away look like?"

He doesn't answer at first; he just rubs his lips together in thought. "I need reminders to keep myself in line. I fought so very long and hard to become the human I am today. I can't afford to slip up and throw it all away just because I…because I lost control. I need a reminder of who I need to keep being."

"And who is that?"

His eyes darken. "A man looking for salvation. A man who might deserve it."

I snort. "If you think you're going to find salvation, you best look harder. I may not know a lot about your religion, but I'm sure this isn't how you find it."

"I'm not torturing you," he says again. "I'm not trying to cause you pain. I am doing this because I need you to survive. You have no idea what it's like to be a creature like me."

"I think I might."

He shakes his head. "No. You are from a world where your monstrous side can freely exist. I live in a world where it cannot. This world doesn't know what I truly am, doesn't know my kind even exists. Not yet, anyway. And if they ever do, we'll be the ones put in a cage in an exhibition to suffer for all eternity."

"Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for you?"

"No," he says quietly, his gaze flitting over my features. "I don't want your pity. None of us do. It is the way God made us. Well, the way he made everyone else." He pauses. "God didn't make me."

"Who made you, then? Why are you so special?"

He doesn't say anything to that. "I suppose I better go get another bucket of water before the day gets away from me."

"If you gave me legs, you wouldn't have to worry about that," I quickly tell him.

He gives me a bitter smile. "No. My worries would only grow."

And then, he's gone.