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“Why don’t you be a good girl and feed me those dried pieces of fruit on the table?”
He twisted my wrist slightly, making me wince and hiss. His fingertips digging into my back were a second warning.
I reached back to the table and picked up the fruit, cringing as I stuck a piece in his mouth. He chewed happily—like a juvenile calf chewing grass—making me more and more uncomfortable with each bite.
“Childish scoundrel,” I muttered in his face.
“High-maintenancedebutante,” he replied.
The men continued to laugh. I looked over my shoulder, realizing that Henrik was sitting at the table not too far off from where we were. He looked at both Adrian and me then glared, the anger starting to cloud his eyes once more as his hand tightened around his glass.
Adrian put a finger to my chin and forced me to look at him.
“Eyes over here, princess. I want to watch you hate me as you do this.”
“You’re a terrible and vile human be—”
Luc’s voice rang out above the crowd. “Gentlemen! Allow me to be your entertainment tonight!”
He practically sang it as he said it, jumping up on the table and using it as a walkway to greet the men. He skillfully danced along the dishes and cups, not knocking a single morsel of food from its plate.
“I have a wondrous tale of adventure and intrigue,” he said, “and a little romance, if it tickles your fancy. Would the captain be ever so gracious to allow my tale?”
Adrian shrugged and nodded. Luc looked at me and winked.
“Then listen closely, dear men of the sea! For among the five great seas is a terrible curse!”
The men buzzed with laughter and intrigue.
“What kind of curse?” one man shouted out to appease the storyteller.
“I’m glad you asked, good sir. Glad you asked! You need to know many things about our dear waters if you ever hope to survive them.”
Luc sank down to his ankles, his robe brushing the plates of fruit and dried bread. He held his hands out as he began his story.
“Once the sea was guarded by spirits of the air and water, a harmony of beautiful protection and fair travel for the sailors that wished to find their own way.”
The table went silent. Even Adrian didn’t seem as interested in torturing me for the moment, his eyes glued to Luc.
“The spirits blessed the sailors,” Luc continued, “hoping to see the humans thrive and live peacefully, in a way that brought harmony to the spirit and human realms. And for many—nay, hundreds—of years, the spirit realm and the human realm were one in the same.”
I glanced at Henrik, who was leaning forward on his elbows in interest.
“But!” Luc cried out, “the humans became greedy and arrogant. They thought they were greater than the spirits. ‘They serve us!’ they cried. ‘We are the masters of them! Look how they worship us!’ Their hearts became proud and cold, demanding from the spirits things that were not theirs.
“As time progressed, the spirits became more and more angry. ‘Look at these men!’ they said. ‘They worship themselves so that they choose to abandon their families, betray their kings, and torment the spirit world with their boasting! We shall create demons to patrol the waters, destroying those who would bring impurity to the sea.’ And thus, the sirens were born.”
Adrian chuckled. “Sirens? Those half-fish people?”
Luc clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction. “Those aremerfolk, my dear captain. They existed long before the curse, and yes, they were turned into spirit creatures of the sea. Sirens, however, were creatures born of the air. They bore wings and flew over the sea, finding sailors of black hearts to bring to their deaths. Whoever escaped the sirens were killed by the merfolk. Whoever escaped the merfolk were plucked out of the sky by sirens.”
Something in my stomach churned. The idea of killing men—evil or not—made everything within me shudder with fear. How could someone kill so easily? Were there really men so far from redemption?
“And under what conditions did the sirens and merfolk decide who would be destroyed and who wouldn’t?” Henrik asked, breaking his silence at the table.
Luc put a finger to his nose with a smile. “I should have known you’d ask the philosophical questions, my dear first mate. To find the men of black hearts, a siren only has to look deep into the eyes of his victim. From that he can see every pure or black-hearted desire.”
Luc’s eyes rested on mine for a long moment, the light of the moon picking up his green irises in a breathtaking glow. It wasn’t until he looked away that I remembered to inhale.
