Page 34 of Bind Me

“You can’t do this!” I shout, trying to twist free. “I’m innocent!”

They don’t listen. They drag me out of the room, and I fight against their grip, my heart pounding in my chest.

“You’re making a mistake, please!” My voice is desperate, pleading.

The officer in front of me pauses outside a closed door to what appears to be a cell, holding up a photo for me.

“The men’s identification of you confirms our other evidence,” she states, her response cold. She thrusts the photo farther into my face. “One of the sailors on the ship took this while you attacked his colleagues as proof. Otherwise, no one would believe him.”

I stare at the photo, my breath catching in my throat. The image is slightly shaky and slanted, but it clearly shows a horrific scene. One of the crew members is about to fall over, his throat ripped out by a woman with aquamarine hair standing almost facing the direction of the camera, holding the bloody throat in her grasp. She’s completely naked, blood sprayed across her chest.

But it’s her face that grabs my attention.

She looks so much like me—same almond-shaped eyes, same facial structure. It’s uncanny, but as I look closer, I realize it isn’t me.

The icy, hard truth strikes me hard.

“Fuck, wait!” Is that my mom? She’s a siren, not a mermaid! And she appears like she hasn’t aged at all. Tears prick at the corners of my eyes at the past rearing its ugly head, but I blink them away.

Flashes of images of her stealing my dad’s life, the look on her face, her transformation into a siren… it’s right there, fresh on my mind, still coiled like barbed wire around my heart. She’s in this photo, appearing as though she’s miles away in her thoughts, yet she just killed a sailor… seven, apparently.

My whole body trembles with anger and confusion. My mind aches with dread, swallowing me, as I try to piece together some explanation, some way to prove my innocence. I can’t let this happen. I can’t let them think I did this.

“You asked me if someone can corroborate my whereabouts for last Wednesday,” I blurt out. My words are breaking, heat churning in my gut. “I wasn’t alone when I went to investigate the fjord. I have proof that it’s not me in the photo.” Even as I speak, I can’t get my mom’s image from that photo out of my head. “You can contact them for my alibi.”

“I will need their details,” she states.

My thoughts are consumed with why my mom is attacking a boat, killing sailors. That’s not normal siren behavior. Sure, she might kill one or two, drowning a sailor, but it’s rare. Seven is beyond unusual, especially doing it openly on a ship.

“The person in the photo isn’t me. It’s my mom,” I state.

The female officer pauses, glancing at the other guards before looking back at me. The stern woman narrows her gaze. “I’m listening.”

My thoughts spin with disbelief, and it takes me a moment to track my voice.

My mom… A wave of nausea washes over me, my insides twisting in knots.

“She’s a siren,” I whisper. “I considered her dead for years, but that’s definitely her, not me.”

The officer’s expression softens a fraction. “That’s something we will investigate, too, but until I speak with someone about your alibi, you’re not going anywhere,” she explains firmly.

It feels like the ground has been ripped out from under me, being blamed for something Mom did.

The cuffs dig into my wrists, and tears are stinging my eyes from everything she took from me and what she’s about to destroy now. I try to stay calm, but the panic is overwhelming. I glance around, trying to find something, anything, that makes sense, but there’s nothing. Only cold walls and stern faces.

And the stabbing ache of seeing my mom after so many years…

Chapter 10

Kaden

“It’s a step forward,” I say, guiding Sasha out of the building, my arm securely around her lower back. She’s not pushing me away, but she’s trembling, her face as pale as a ghost, clearly frightened by being wrongly accused of a crime.

“What is?” she finally answers, glancing up at me with those huge doe eyes, then she stares back at the busy road as though she’s unsure where to go.

“For you accepting me as your fated mate.”

She cuts me a piercing stare, then blinks, looking elsewhere as if she’s lost.

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