Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 106107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Under the moonlight, the snowcapped and craggy mountains on the other side of the strait appear like a row of jagged teeth. I swim as fast and as quietly as possible, spending most of the time underwater, where I don’t need to breathe. Even in the darkness, my eyes can see clearly through the murky depths.
I smell her before I see her.
The scent of woman, heightened and combined with something primal. A young woman. I smell sex and energy.
I smell an animal.
I open my mouth and take a delicate taste of the ocean.
There’s salt, and then there’s blood.
Her blood.
My Syren is bleeding.
I pretend she’s bleeding for me and let it flow through me, the lust, the hunger, the need for this creature I haven’t even met.
Salvation, I think. That’s what she tastes like. Just the faintest hint of what’s to come.
Then, out of the dark, I see the faint outline of her body. Blonde hair moves around her head like seaweed, glowing silver in the moonlight. Her breasts are full, pale, and exposed, her torso curving down to a soft, round belly that fades into a long, thick tail of shimmering pink scales.
She’s the most stunning creature I’ve ever seen, shining in this watery darkness like a beacon, a North Star, a light that will lead me somewhere.
Except I already know she’s going to lead me straight to Hell.
And I’m going to go willingly.
Chapter Three
PRIEST
Salvation, I think again as I stare at the Syren. Or is it damnation?
I watch as she hovers in the current, her body so sinfully soft and curved that I have a hard time imagining her as a vicious creature. She’s too beautiful for that, too delicate.
I want to see her monstrous side in action. So far, she has not spotted me. She’s just hovering in the water a few feet below the surface, and though I can’t see her back fully, I spy faint splotches of blood coloring the water from where the fisherman must have stabbed her.
It takes all my resolve not to make a move for her. I could be at her in seconds flat, tearing her apart.
Instead, I shoot up to the surface, breaking through. I gulp in the cold night air, staring up at the moon as I wait for her to attack.
I hear her approach, a snarling sound from the depths beneath me, and brace myself.
She grabs my ankles first, sharp claws digging in through my flesh and tendon and bone, surprisingly strong. If I was a normal man, she would have broken my bones like splintered twigs.
I could fight back right away and stay above the water, but I let her pull me under.
Until she has pulled me right down to her level.
She spins me around, silver-blonde hair swirling around us.
I am staring at two large, hooded eyes that glow like violet flames, pupils a diamond of coal at the middle. Her brows frame them like archways. Her nose is short and pert, her face the shape of a heart, with small, full lips above a dainty chin. For a moment, I trick myself into thinking I’m staring at a beautiful woman until those lips part, and she bares her teeth at me. Her smile is razor sharp, like looking into the mouth of a shark.
A shark that thinks it’s about to devour its prey whole.
But I don’t want to lose my nose, even if it will eventually heal, and I don’t feel like experiencing pain—the gouges she dug into my ankles still throb.
I duck out of the way just as she lunges for me, teeth bared, letting out a roar that travels through the water like a wave.
I bite her before she has a chance to bite me.
My fangs pierce her neck, her skin surprisingly tough, and she lets out a scream. I put my hand at the back of her head, making a tight fist in her hair, the other hand squeezing down her back until I find the knife wound.
I press my fingers inside it, hard.
Her back arches, buckling in my grasp, her cries of agony filling the water, but at least I’ve gotten her to stop fighting. The pain has stunned her.
I start drinking, pulling the blood into my mouth.
The moment it hits my tongue in a burst of salt and vitality, I feel the beast inside me rattling its chains. If I let go, it will rip this Syren to shreds, and while it will feel good in the moment to succumb to the very thing I’ve fought so hard against, to lose all the humanity I’ve earned, I know it would be the foolish thing to do.
I could devour her, and she would keep me going for a long time.
But not forever.
Yet if I brought her ashore, kept her as a prisoner, as a pet, I could slowly drain her of her blood. I could take as much as I could without killing her, put it in the casks with the rest of my supply as a backup in case I accidentally do kill her, and then, every few days, take more from her. It wouldn’t have to be much, just enough to sustain me.