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)
His black brows rise. “How wet are we talking here?”
I frown. I am not sure we are discussing the same thing.
“I need to be in water, or I will dry out and die,” I tell him, my patience tried. “If you wish to hold me captive, then you’ll need to put water on me constantly, especially my tail.”
In other words, I need him to get me down from this wooden structure and put me in a bathtub or a pond if he won’t set me free in the ocean.
“How constantly?” he asks.
I nod at the bucket. “You best be filling that up soon. I’ll dry out again in a few hours. I have to be hydrated from the inside as well. I can go weeks without eating, but I need water. However, I am fine with the wine you have given me. Though I must say, I’ve had better,” I add.
He frowns, turning the bucket over in his hands. “How have you had wine?”
“That’s none of your concern,” I tell him, enjoying the flicker of annoyance in his eyes. He wants to know more about me, that’s clear as ice. It’s the one advantage I have, and I plan on using it.
I go on. “Of course, if keeping me wet seems to be getting in the way of your plans to keep me alive so you can drink my blood, I have a solution for you.”
He folds his arms across his chest, and I can’t help but admire the way his muscles bunch. Pity he’s such a malicious brute. “And what might that be?”
“You said you have magic. Use that magic on me. Turn me into a human. Give me legs.”
He blinks at me for a moment and then chuckles, giving his head a shake. “Give you legs? Just like that? I’m not sure you know how magic works.”
“I know very well how it works,” I tell him with a raise of my chin. “We do have sea witches. You think I haven’t seen what they can do?”
You think I haven’t been searching for a sea witch for the last eleven years so she can do to me what she did to my sister?
“Sea witches,” he says with a slow nod. “So, what have you seen them do?”
I don’t want to tell him about Maren. I feel like giving him personal information might be like giving him a weapon.
“I know a Syren who wanted legs instead of a tail,” I say carefully. “She wanted to become a human, to walk and live on land. The sea witch was able to do that for her.”
He frowns. “And you saw this happen with your own eyes?”
I shake my head. “No. But it happened all the same.”
A look of disbelief comes over him. He starts to pace slowly in front of me, hands behind his back. “Tell me, then… What is your name, anyway? Or should I just call you little fish?”
I press my lips together. I’m not about to tell him my name, and being called a fish isn’t an insult where I’m from.
“Little fish it is,” he says, and though his face is ever so serious, I catch a look of delight in his eyes. “So tell me: why should I use my magic to give you legs? What would I get out of that? If I were to make you a human, surely you would lose all the special properties in your blood, the very thing I crave.”
“How do you know that would happen?” I ask him. “All you need to give me are legs. I can keep my gills. I can keep my ability to breathe underwater. I can keep my long life. You don’t need to change my blood.”
He studies me for a moment. “Why do you want legs?”
“Would it not be easier for you to manage me? You can’t keep me in this room forever. Eventually, someone will discover me. You said so yourself: my screams would bring attention. Therefore, that means there is an audience to be had. If I had legs, you could pass me off as perhaps some woman who has been shipwrecked.”
“Yes,” he says slowly. “I could do that, though I would need to figure out a way to keep you from escaping, from talking to the villagers. You wouldn’t be any freer than you are now. So I want you to answer the question: why do you want legs? What is in it for you?”
“I suppose I get to experience something new before I die,” I tell him. It’s the partial truth.
“Speaking of death, you don’t seem to fear it,” he says, taking a tentative step forward, his gaze searching my face. I can’t tell if he’s afraid to come closer because of me…or because of himself.
“I fear death,” I admit quietly. If I didn’t confess it, I have no doubt he would try and make me fear it in torturous ways.