Page 87 of Wicked Tides
“I was a fool. I still am,” she scoffed. “A fool for trusting you after what had been done to you. Naivety is not just a human trait, I’m afraid.”
“What made you unlock my cage, Dahlia?” I said.
Her eyes crawled up to mine, gray and pleading as if she did not want to answer.
“If I tell you, you will use it against me,” she whispered.
Perhaps I would. I couldn’t lie and tell her there was no chance of that. When she did not answer, I decided to offer something in trade. Something that might reveal one of my weaknesses.
“Thank you. For getting him out.”
She blinked, taken aback by my gratitude.
Straight faced, she said, “I don’t know why I did it. I suppose the way he looked when Sakari died said he was not like them. Not like us. Not yet.”
“I’m doing my best to keep it that way. He makes it hard.”
“It is good you have him. All sirens are family. Until they’re not.” Her fingers lightly feathered over her throat. “When my blood sister found out it was my fault my mother and her sisters were killed, I was cast out.”
I ran a finger across my neck, indicating her scar.
“And that?”
“Her way of banishing me. They all hoped I would die and I nearly did. But hate can keep you alive and it did that for me. Whether I wanted it to or not.”
I took a deep breath and let it out, lifting my other knee to perch my other elbow. There was a cloud of regret hovering over both of us. It was thick and heavy and stirred emotions that we’d been stifling for years. I could feel it on my skin like an oil slick and something told me Dahlia could feel it, too. We were a pair of broken things being held together by thin, cotton sutures that were soon to break.
“I long for it to stop,” she whispered.
I glanced slowly her way to see her gaze drifting far off again.
“I long for relief,” she continued. “I believe I’m at the end of my rope, you might say. I long to answer for my failures and my mistakes and yet Lune has not seen fit to let me die yet. She dangles chances before me that I cannot reach and then steals them away, filling my heart with more pain than I ever thought I could bear. But I am a dam waiting to burst and all in my path may perish.” She took a couple long breaths before continuing. “I let that girl die. I tried to save her and they killed her. And now Ahnah’s been stripped of something she will never get back. I let my sisters get swept away by the sons. I let my family get slaughtered by a young boy.” Her eyes met mine again. “I freed you because neither of us wanted to be there and only one of us was in a cage. I watched you for days as my mother killed all thosemen and I felt… wrong. I thought I could let you go and they would all think you’d escaped. But you came back.”
She took a few more deep breaths, her brows knitting with uncertainty. “We created something that day. Something awful, in each other. It grows more venomous every day. I am the storm,” she whispered. “And I fear the destruction I will bring if someone does not stop me.”
“How does one stop a storm?” I muttered softly.
“We both know you cannot.”
I watched her turn and duck back into the water. Her long shadow curled around and then swam back out into the lake just as rain began to gently pelt the surface of the water. She left me there in that empty silence with her words echoing in my mind. So much pain laced her tone. So much longing and desperation was hidden under her words and as I sat there mulling it all over, something deep inside me desired to be that relief she spoke of. Not just for her, but for me.
~ 31 ~
Vidar
I am the storm
And I pray for those who do not hear me coming
~ Coranthus
Slightly tipsy, I traipsed back to my cottage, my half-empty rum bottle in my hand. The cool air soothed the burn in my chest at the thought of all the things that had happened over the past few days. I itched to relieve myself of all of it just like Dahlia did. In Treson Harbor, I’d have visited the brothels with too much drink in my belly to truly enjoy myself and take out all of my tension on a willing body. One that could take a hard fuck without complaint or judgement. But on that island, near such a small port, there was no such relief.
At least, not the kind I was used to.
I entered my cottage to find candles lit around the room and standing in the center, dripping wet and clothed only in an oversized shirt, was Dahlia.
Her chemise was thin and had soaked up the water from her body and hair, making it easy to see her breasts and pert nipples through the light cotton. It was doing nothing to clothe her really. She was a Grecian statue, every contour of her body on display. I steppedforward, my eyes skimming down her long, bare legs and back up. She watched me with a sense of hope in her gray eyes and somehow, I knew exactly what it was she was searching for.
