Tales of Arilland by Alethea Kontis Read Free Book Online Page B

put it around her own neck.
    He picked her up and carried her to a place that hid her from the sky and set her somewhere softer than the deck. She liked this place and this man who now worshipped her. He had given her a gift, and now he would take care of her. If only there was a way she could tell him why she was there. She was sure he would help her. Perhaps he could see into her heart and just know.
    The man removed his shirt, and she relaxed even more. He wanted to put her at ease. By looking like her, he would make her feel like she belonged. He took off the rest of his clothes and came up beside her. He patted her head, ran his hands down her hair. He touched her breasts, her belly and her legs. Still sensitive, she brushed his hand away. He put it back. She tried to push it away again, but he was stronger. She frowned. He smiled all those flat teeth at her once more. She wondered if she might have been mistaken. He moaned, parted her knees and entered her.
    The misery she had felt before was nothing compared to this anguish. She inhaled the excruciating air and screamed a hoarse cry. She clawed at him, pushed at his weight on top of her, but she could not move him. Agony ripped her body apart again. A tingling sensation washed over her and the light in her eyes began to dim. Somewhere in that darkness, through the pain, she could feel his heartbeat. The emptiness in her cried out. He had something she needed.
    She reached up, pulled him to her, and sunk her pointed teeth deep into the skin of his neck. She drank him down, consuming his soul, filling the barren places inside her. He collapsed on top of her and still she drank, until there was nothing left.
    The door burst open and the hairy man entered. He pulled the naked man off of her. He could tell what the man had done from the blood between her legs. He could tell what she had done from the blood she now licked from her lips.
    “Siren,” he whispered.
    She gasped. In her brain there was an avalanche.
    Words flooded her, images and thoughts, smells and sounds. Knowledge. She cried out again and slapped her palms to her head. She had taken the man’s soul, and his life right along with it. She watched as the shafts of her golden hair turned deep red, filled with the captain’s blood.
    The first mate had named her. He knew what she was. She was death, the shark, the thing to be afraid of. She lured men to their graves with her beauty.
    In one swift motion he pulled the knife from his belt. She did not flinch as he approached her. There was nothing left to fear.
    The knife swept down and split the captain’s throat open, hiding the teethmarks in the cut. He stared deep into her eyes as he pulled a large ruby ring off the dead man’s finger and put it on his own. The knife, streaked with what little crimson was left in the captain’s body, he brandished at the crowd of men gathered at the door.
    “Eddie Lawless, what’s goin’ on?” the man in front asked. The men behind him whispered low, words like “magic” and “evil” and “witch” catching in her ears.
    “It’s Lawson, Cooky,” the hairy man responded. “Cap’n Lawson. An’ don’t ye forget it.”
    “Yessir,” the men mumbled. “Yessir, Cap’n.”
    “Leave me,” Lawson ordered.
    “But sir, what about Cap’n—”
    “ I am the cap’n,” he told them. “Ye can collect the carcass later. Leave me now.” He slammed the door in their faces.
    The mattress shifted under his weight as he sat down across from her. She did not want to look at him, concentrating instead on the ends of her new hair and the line across the dead man’s throat.
    Lawson shoved the body onto the floor. “Siren.”
    She looked up.
    “So. Ye can understand me then.”
    She nodded once.
    “Good.” He pulled the sheet down and wiped his knife blade with it. “Understand this. I know what ye are, what ye need and what ye do. If ye do exactly as I tell ye, I won’t kill ye.”
    If she had known how to laugh,