A Ship of Bones & Teeth

by Karina Halle

I feel my teeth sharpen in my mouth, look down to see my fingernails extending and curving, growing into hard claws, feel strength building in the marrow of my bones, giving me power I hadn’t felt since I was sixteen. Aerik makes a sound of horror and surprise and my gaze shoots to him, pinning him in place. I growl at him, baring my razor teeth, and before I know what I’m doing, I’m jumping out of the tank and landing right in front of the cell. “From this moment forth, I will never have to listen to you again,” I grind out, my voice sounding less human, more monster. More Syren. His mouth opens to say something but I cut him off. Forever. My arm shoots out through the bars with my claws extended and I pierce his skin with them, reaching through muscle and fat and bone until I feel his beating heart under my palm. I snarl and close my hand around his heart and pull it back out of his chest and through the bars. While he’s still looking at me, while he’s still alive for just a few more seconds, I take his still beating heart and shove part of it in my mouth, biting down with needle sharp teeth as ravenous, monstrous hunger takes over. I make sure it’s the last thing he sees.

Her eyes meet mine and narrow. Though they were always an ever-changing brilliant shade of blue before, now they positively glow like there’s a light shining from behind them.

“You are a stunning abyss of a creature,” I tell her. “One that I could spend eons swimming in and never get to the bottom of.”

“What about how I behave?” she says, her throat moving against my hand as she speaks. The vibration gets under my skin, making my cock harder than ever. What is she doing to me? Is this part of her spell?

Her back. I squint to see various lines and scars running over her back. But these aren’t from growth spurts or from having supernatural origins. They’re from being flogged. A low grumble sounds in my chest like a warning. “Do I need to ask who did this to you?” I manage to say. “I’ve taken care of it,” she says coldly and there’s nothing more to say. The prince she married, the prince who ridiculed her and beat her throughout her marriage, is now dead, and at her hands. Literally.

“Darling, your body would bring any man to their knees where they would be in the right position to worship you. It’s a body carved by god yet meant for sin, and it would become anyone’s salvation.”

God Almighty, she is the moon and I am the tides. I feel my resolve begin to slip away as her eyes pull me in.

With my breath still ragged and my heartrate returning to normal, I tuck my spent cock back into my breeches and remove my fingers. She lifts her head up to stare at me through sated eyes and I lock eyes with her as I slide my fingers along my lips, tasting her sweetness, letting it coat my tongue. Then I lower my head and lick up the seed I spilled on her body before it can drip to the floor, the two flavors mingling, the taste of what our union would be. One could get addicted to it.

I lead her and the rest of the crew down to the hold and over to the room where Maren is locked up. Only to find Page John unconscious on the ground, half-naked, and the chains empty. Maren is gone.

I ignore that voice. I had a plan and it didn’t exactly unfurl as I had hoped. Part of me thought that perhaps I could seduce the captain into letting me go. The other part of me wanted to seduce the captain, but for my own pleasure. The moment I felt the Syren energy flow through me I knew my blood was changing, the moment I ate Aerik’s heart the urges I had were inevitable.

“My little monster has come out to play again,” I say, grinning up at her. “Don’t you know this only excites me?”

“I could eat you right here.” “So could I,” I counter. “Only I’d make it worth your while.”

Some might say he speaks straight from the devil, but I’m discovering I like what the devil has to say.

But Ramsay…he’s lapping me up like he loves the taste of sin, the flat of his tongue firm and slick, the sensations becoming too much to handle. And yet I must watch. I lift my head to see him between my legs and, dear lord, he’s looking up at me now, those stormy eyes staring right at my soul while his tongue tastes, savors me, me over and over again. It’s so jarringly intimate, this connection that now simmers between us, my submission into his mouth and hands and anything else he wants to use to take me over the edge.

“Now you have no reason to keep fighting me.” All the wonderful, blissful feelings I had moments earlier abruptly fade away. “Yes, I do,” I say, my voice hard. “Still?” he asks with wide eyes, indignant. “Why?” I pause, feeling venom in my veins again. “You killed my sister.”

“As you’ve noticed, we don’t need to breathe all that much. We’ll grow weak without blood, and it would be pure torture for our bodies, but going without won’t kill us. The only way you can is if you remove our heads or hearts, light us on fire, or blow us to smithereens. Other than that, though,” I cluck my tongue against my teeth and grin at her, “we’re immortal.” Her brows go up, eyes wide as blue moons. “You mean you’ll live forever?” I lift a shoulder. “That’s what they say.”

“Finally, a lady to join us for eternity in our curse,” says the other one. “Though she is a rather strange looking lady, isn’t she?” “Her teeth are so pointy. Her nails too. Perhaps she’s French,” one jokes in his British accent.

My spit lands on his forehead, a sliver of fish bone in it. He grunts and reaches up with his other hand, wiping it away. “Do it again,” he whispers, eyes dancing darkly. “This time in my mouth, please.” He opens his mouth, showing me his tongue, wanting it.

“I’ve never had an addiction before,” he says hoarsely. “But I think you’ll be mine.”

“Do your worst. I will not fight back.” I swallow hard, having a hard time thinking. “I know you want to. I know you’ve been saving that urge, waiting until you can use it on me. I know your monstrous side will win in this case, because there’s no way it can’t win. I deserve your wrath, Maren. I deserve it, as do so many people who have tried to put you in a cage. People who have hurt you and overlooked you and ignored you. People who tried to make you into something you weren’t. People who used fear to control you. Perhaps you can’t hurt them all, perhaps you’ve already destroyed the one who hurt you the most, but you can hurt me. And I’ve hurt you, too.”

I crawl over to the broken glass from the porthole, picking up a jagged edge. Wind whistles in through the shattered window as I turn the shard of glass over in my hands. Once upon a time I thought this would be my way out, because I couldn’t live with my regrets. Now I have another regret to add to the pile. Then the door opens. I hold my breath as Ramsay appears. Before I have a chance to take him in, he rushes over to me in a blur of speed and plucks the jagged glass from my hands, grabbing me at the wrists, my hands upturned. He stares down at them, brows furrowed, perhaps worried I’d hurt myself.

“What were you doing?” he whispers harshly, his gaze pinning me in place. I just shake my head, tears welling in the back of my throat. “You’re okay,” I say. “Your face…” He manages a stiff smile. “I told you I would be fine. The question is, are you?”

“You thought I was going to jump?” she asks, her gaze resting on my lips for a moment. I give her a small smile but it doesn’t feel very assuring. “I saw you with that shard of glass the other day and I…I guess I’m thinking of the way we met.” “When I punched you in the face.” “When I rescued you.” She looks away with a wry smile. “You did not rescue me.” “You were drowning,” I remind her, my grip tightening around her waist, one of my hands splayed at her back and keeping her pressed against me, as if letting her go now would result in letting her go forever. “You were drowning and you weren’t trying to fight it,” I add. “And I don’t blame you for it. All the abuse you’ve had to endure, the regrets that still poison you.

“Then perhaps the both of us are mad, if madness and monsters are one of the same,” I murmur. “But we can be mad together. We can drown in our madness together.”

“Like you’re the moon and I’m the tides, and every thought, every need, every want, is drawn to you, Maren.” I laugh to myself. “You’re right, this is madness and I’m drowning and I don’t give a damn.”

You won’t be marooned now. Now you’re going to eat your own cock before I chop your head off. The taste of your own shortcomings is the last thing you’ll know.”

I hear the tear of fabric, the swift cut of Ramsay’s knife, then Sterling’s ear-splitting scream. His scream seems to go on forever until it suddenly becomes muffled and I know Ramsay is doing exactly what he said he would. I lift my head, peeking around the bosun’s arms enough to see blood everywhere and Sterling attempting to spit out his own severed shaft that has been stuffed mercilessly inside his mouth.