Page 38 of Secrets Among the Tides
“Seems like you need to be taught some manners, bottom feeder.” I thrashed and struggled, but he only held me tighter. My gaze flicked down to the merman they’d hurt. He was slowly getting up, his hand sliding up along the stone wall.
“Don’t you know it’s not polite to harm a lady?” he asked. His voice was deep, smooth, and dangerous. He looked up and I swore I caught a glimpse of evil in his black eyes. The merman holding me loosened his grip, the surprise in his gasp evident. Before he could say anything, however, the black eyed merman was attacking.
I barely had time to cry out as he lunged towards us, the blade I’d discarded tight in his fist. When had he picked it up? The tip of the blade came crashing towards us, piercing the flesh of the merman behind me. He howled his pain and dropped me. I fell through the water, fanning my fins and twisting just in time to see the battle that ensued.
The merman crumpled to the muddy ground, holding at his bleeding wound. The other two advanced, but they were no competition. With a few kicks of his tail and twirls through the water, the others fell, injured as well.
The mysterious merman pointed the tip of his blade to them in threat. “You know now who I am?” he asked. There was something dangerous in his voice. Something akin to murder. It chilled me to my very core. The merman stared at the tip of his blade and released shocked gasps before nodding vigorously. “Leave now, scum, before I change my mind and run you through.”
The three mermen didn’t need any more persuading. They got up and swam away as fast as they could. And they didn’t look back.
My heart beat so loudly, I was sure the merman could hear it. He turned to me, illuminated by phytoplankton in the dark. His hair was black and curly, the strands spinning down the back of his neck. His skin was a soft brown color, his tail black with jagged, pointy fins. He wore a black jacket with the spiked teeth of barracudas coming out from the shoulders. His nose was straight and prominent, lips full. A single silver cross dangled from his ear, and with the blade in his hand…he looked frightening.
He tossed his hair aside with a single jerk of his head. Commanding. Powerful. Dangerous. I held my breath as he swam towards me. But I didn’t back down. Would a merman I really just tried to save, a merman who had saved me, really harm me?
“Foolish little fish,” he muttered.
I blinked. “Excuse you?”
“Those mermen would have chewed you up and spit you out like this morning’s breakfast.” He lifted the blade up and pushed it through a sheath at his waist.
I glared. “Give me my blade back.” I didn’t just get it back from Captain Saber to have it be taken all over again by some tadpole.
His thick dark eyebrow raised. “You might want to look again, little fish.” He nodded at the ground. Reluctantly, I took my eyes off him and found my black blade on the ground where I’d dropped it. I quickly picked it up, weighing it in the palm of my hand as I looked at the one sheathed at his waist.
“Where did you get that blade?” I asked, sudden curiosity nagging at the back of my mind..
“I made it,” he replied casually.
“Don’t lie to me.” I was sick of everyone lying and treating me like I was incompetent. It was insulting at the palace and it was definitely insulting coming from this stranger. “That weapon was made by the Black Blade.”
His eyebrows rose, his lips twitched into a smile of mischief. “I know.”
I blinked. “B—but—”
He made a noise of annoyance and quicker than I could blink, he was suddenly grabbing me and pushing me against the stone wall. The rough edges of rock and barnacles dug painfully into my back. I gasped, lifted my weapon, but he was gripping my wrist, pressing it tightly against the wall.
“Enough talk, little fish. You owe me for saving your life just now.”
I gasped, my breathing heavy but quick. “You’re the Black Blade?” That was all I managed to choke out. All I could think to say.Thismerman was the outlaw? The one who had escaped the tight clutch of Selection? He was the one who freed mer from their fates?
The image I had conjured up of him night after night suddenly fell apart and I didn’t know if I should weep, laugh, or rejoice. I didn’t want to believe that he was telling the truth. But I’d seen him move with my own eyes. Quick, sharp and silent. A shadow in the night.
“You’ve heard of me, then?” He was warm against my skin. Close. He was too close to me. I trembled in fear. “Then you’ll know what I am capable of.” His free hand, the one not holding me down, suddenly came up to my face, fingers sliding down my cheek. “And you know I will not leave without payment for my services.”
The slimy barracuda! And here I’d pictured him to be heroic.
“I have money in my bag,” I gasped.
He shook his head. “A pretty mer like you? No. I don’t want your money.”
“Then what do you want?”
He smiled and that was all the warning I got before he bent down and crashed his lips to mine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Elias
