Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 144411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
A cold pang stabs my gut, followed by the heat of anger.
Captain Ed Smith.
The bastard that Sedge shot in the face survived and he’s come back to finish the Nightwind, this time with the rest of his company.
I can’t just leave now. Even if the Nightwind sails away, I need to do something to this man. This man deserves an awful death and I want to be the one to give it to him. After all, I’m already quite good at it.
I dive under the water and start swimming to his ship until I’m right under it, trying to figure out if there’s a weakness. Perhaps if I tried hard enough I could pull off the planks from the hull. After all, everyone on the ship is only three or four inches from death.
I swim up until my hands are running over the planks. Unfortunately they’re coated with tar as waterproofing, with barnacles making their home there too. My claws extend and I start trying to pry them off, but even with my strength as a Syren they don’t budge.
Maybe if I start at another part, I think and while I’m swimming along I hear a splash into the water.
I look over to see a naval man has fallen in and is attempting to swim. He’s not very good at it, barely able to keep above the surface.
I grin to myself and slowly swim over to him.
I poke my head up right beside his, giving him an awful fright.
“Hello there,” I say to him.
“Hello?” he says, spitting out water, his wig floating beside him. “How did…Who are…?”
He glances down into the water and sees my tail flash in the sunlight.
He gasps, his eyes wide. “Mermaid,” he cries out, starting to thrash in the waves.
“Syren,” I correct him.
Then I lunge.
I bite into his neck while my claws start tearing at the rest of him. Blood fills the water and he chokes on his screams and I start ripping him apart, swiftly removing his organs, eating my way through his liver, his kidney, and finally his heart.
Then I let him go and he starts to sink in the blood, and I should be satisfied by having eaten so much of him but I’m still ravenous.
I wait, circling below the ship like a shark, just by the curve of the hull so I’m not spotted, though from here I have a clear view of the Nightwind. I see Ramsay on deck, who has clearly spotted Captain Smith, and instead of the ship turning tail and leaving with the wind, it’s staying in place. No doubt Ramsay wants his final piece of revenge.
I want it too.
I get started by tearing apart every naval man that falls into the sea from the cannon explosions. I rip them limb from limb. I shred their skin, remove their organs, and at this point I’m just tossing them aside as fish food because I’ve had my fair share and I’m saving my appetite for one man.
But now that the Nightwind isn’t leaving, the other naval ships close in, coming around the pirate ship from all directions. I’m enjoying being a predator, but in the end I’m not helping much, just killing those who would probably die anyway.
I wish there was something more I could do.
“Maren.”
I gasp and whirl around to see Nerissa treading water behind me.
“You’re alive,” I gasp.
“You have blood on your mouth,” she notes, a sly smile.
I quickly run my hand across my lips. “I’m so happy to see you. I thought you were gone. I thought the Kraken would have torn you apart.”
Her smile deepens as her kelp hair flows in the water around her. “The Kraken are free, my child. Edonia is gone.” She reaches into the waves and pulls out the bottle necklace around her neck, the one that my soul was kept in. Now there’s green smoke swirling about. “Well, I suppose she’s not too far gone.”
I frown. “Is that…is that her soul?”
Nerissa gives me a haughty look. “She is my sister, after all. It would be unkind to leave her completely dead, wouldn’t it? This way I can have her at my side for all time, and I’ll never have to hear a word from her.”
She looks back to the ships and the cannon fire, now coming from the others in the fleet. “Looks like your side might need some help,” she says, nodding to the Nightwind.
“I’m not sure if that’s my side anymore,” I tell her. “I’m no longer part of their crew, if that wasn’t obvious.” I gesture down to my tail. “I’m no longer a part of their world.”
She makes a tsking sound as she swims closer to me. The waves reflected in her copper eyes make them glow like the sun. “You, my dear,” she says to me, placing her hands on both sides of my cheeks, “are one in a million. And you can make any world your own.”