Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 106107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
I holler and rip my hand out of her jaws, but her bite is tight, and she keeps part of my hand in her mouth, the bloody mess hanging from her teeth.
I look down at my ravaged and bleeding hand. I’m lucky she didn’t take a finger. Tissue and muscle can repair and regrow, but bones rarely can.
She grins at me, a gruesome sight.
To think, this creature made me feel something for a moment.
I let out a roar, and my other hand shoots out, wrapping around her neck. She manages to swallow part of my hand before I squeeze her throat tight until I feel her vertebrae close to snapping.
“What did I just tell you?” I hiss at her. “You bite me, and I’m going to bite you right back.”
I yank her head to the side, exposing the skin of her neck, and sink my teeth into her jugular. She yelps, jaws snapping, but I’m stronger and keep her locked in place while I take my fill of her blood. I wasn’t planning on feeding from her so soon again—if my plan is to work, I have to be strategic when I take blood, give her time to replenish—but I refuse to let her win this little game she’s playing.
In time, she’ll learn that her freedom is an illusion.
And if the monster inside me escapes, he will always win.
Chapter Six
LARIMAR
For a moment, I think I’m elsewhere.
The ocean.
I’m in the cold, bottomless depths, that stretch of blue that goes on and on forever. There is nothing here that can hurt me. No one I’ve lost. No pain, no sorrow, no grief. Just blissful nothingness in which to float forever.
But then, reality sets in.
The pain sets in.
A sharp stabbing in my neck.
The sensation of having my soul, the very essence of myself, ripped out of me while, at the same time, I am filled.
Filled with something I didn’t know I needed, didn’t realize I craved. It strikes hot and quick, like liquid lightning that sinks into my very core, causing an insatiable hunger like I’ve never known.
This man is sucking the blood from my neck, feasting on me, swallowing me down his throat, and there’s almost something pleasurable in the pain, enough that I let out a low moan.
The man stops.
Goes still.
Unhooks his fangs from my neck.
He pulls back and stares at me. His bright cerulean eyes are the color of the ocean in that blank void I was afloat in. Perhaps I had been floating in his eyes that whole time. They take me in, his pupils contracting and widening again, like a black sun in a blue sky.
But there is a change from the way they were before. Earlier, his eyes glinted with cruelty, combined with something like piousness, a smugness that rattled me. He clearly enjoys having power and will do everything he can to hold on to it. He also seems to think he has some Christian god on his side. I know enough about that god from Jorge to know he’s never on anyone’s side.
Now, there is a flash of shame on his face, or something close to it.
Does this cruel bloodsucker have the capacity to feel remorse?
I think about screaming. I could probably get one loud screech, my Syren song, in before he either bites me again or slams the chain into my mouth. Didn’t he say something about taking my voice away? Isn’t that what Edonia did to Maren?
But he mentioned how the humans would treat me if they discovered me, and I know he’s right. I’ve seen how cruel they can be, the way those pirates hauled my older sister, Asherah, right out of the water while we were on the search for Maren while Jorge kept me hidden from his brothers.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he says quietly as he stoops to pick up a bucket. “You need to heal and replenish your blood before I take more again.”
He pauses, seeming to think. “Then again, I did just watch you eat a part of my hand.” He lifts the one I bit, which is still bloody and missing a chunk of flesh. “Perhaps I should eat a piece of you to keep it even.”
I swallow hard.
“I could start with your nose,” he says. “It seems so sweet and delicate, too much for such a vicious animal. Or perhaps I’ll take a bite out of those plump lips of yours. Or chew on these decadent tits.”
In any other circumstance, I would feel disgusted, and yet I can feel heat flare on my cheeks. “You have a filthy mouth for a holy man.”
He seems surprised by my comment. “I suppose only a filthy creature like yourself could bring it out of me.”
I glare at him. “You say I need to heal. I’ll heal faster if you keep me wet.”