Page 31 of Ensnaring the Siren

“Maybe? There’s no ‘serving.’ Everyone just dives in.”

The next time the Surface Dweller server approached their table, Nireed didn’t flinch.

“Here you go,” the woman said, sliding two tall glasses of amber liquid onto the table, one in front of each of them. Both were topped with sea foam. After a polite thank you from Reid, the woman replied, “Sure thing. Just let me know if you need anything else.”

When Reid picked up the glass and took a sip, Nireed followed suit, curious about this Surface Dweller delicacy. As the frothy, bitter liquid hit her tongue, confusion turned to utter disgust, and she spit it right back into the cup, Surface Dweller manners be damned.

Such betrayal.

That was not sea foam.

“Don’t like it?” Reid’s mouth twisted with barely contained laughter.

How could a people who created something as delicious as potted meat also make and regularly imbibe this atrocity? She pushed the glass away, cringing. “That is vile.”

“You know the word ‘vile’ but not ‘flirt’?”

She shrugged. “I pick things up as I go.”

Reid continued drinking his beverage perfectly content, much to her bafflement. “How do you know our language so well?”

The tank flashed across her mind, but she batted away the memory. While she’d learned a lot by listening to the Surface Dweller scientists beyond the glass, fueled by survival and need, that wasn’t the whole of it. And certainly not the piece that deserved the most credit. “A friend taught me. She’s like you but also like me. A Shorewalker.”

“A Shorewalker,” he repeated. “So half-human, half-merperson?”

“Half isn’t quite right. There’s Surface Dweller in my blood too. It’s more that she lives on shore while the rest of us live in the sea. That, and she was raised human.”

“How often do Surface Dwellers and merfolk get it on together? Is that a regular thing?”

While the phrasing was weird, she understood the implication. “My foreparents sometimes mated with Surface Dwellers. It’s what gives us our ability to shift between forms. Our deep-sea ancestors can’t do it.”

Curiosity flickered in Reid’s eyes. “Have you ever seen one? Do they still exist?”

“I haven’t. None of us have in recent memory. But we think they’re still out there somewhere, deeper than even we dare to go.”

This bit of information seemed to disturb him.

“Reid?”

“Yeah, Starfish?”

Her cheeks warmed. That endearment falling from his lips was so soft and sweet. “Even if we had seen them, I’d never let one near you. The night we met, some of my kin couldn’t tell the difference between you and the fishermen. And the fisherman who pushed you under…” Nireed was so used to saying exactly what she meant, but for once, she just couldn’t bring herself to admit to Reid that she’d killed that man. “I just wanted to keep you safe.”

Surprise rolled off his scent as her meaning sunk in. “You’re the one who pulled him off me?”

“Yes.”

“Did you kill him too?”

Goddess, she didn’t want to answer, but she’d previously promised him nothing but honesty. “I think you already know,” she said quietly.

A grim expression fell over his features. “Yeah, I guess I did. I wish you hadn’t done that. The way he climbed on top of me—it happens during rescues all the time. It’s nothing malicious. Just a scared man trying to keep his head above water. I’ve had a lot of training getting out of those situations. He didn’t need to die.”

“I didn’t know. I truly thought he was drowning you.” Not that it would’ve made a difference. They were hunting the hunters that night, and Nireed would never regret protecting and feeding her people, but that was probably more truth than the Coast Warrior could handle.

“I believe you.” He downed his drink. When he was done, a tired expression had fallen over his features. “Thank you for being honest with me.”

She wanted to say more. Something to heal the rift this topic had ripped open. Something to bring laughing, smiling Reid back, but she didn’t know how to take away the sting of her honesty. Surface Dwellers were so hard to understand sometimes, asking for things they didn’t truly want, but maybe there was such a thing as too much honesty and revealing this had been a mistake.

---