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Even Alba wasn’t innocent—even his own hands cannibalized a part of those poor creatures. How many merrow had been used to fill the lighthouse basin that he scraped chunks from every night to light the wick and smooth the gears?
The nature of sailing in the north, where there was no way to know how thick the ice grew, whether a ship would be able to pierce through it; never knowing if one would end up stranded and starving in the freezing cold, forced to find food where it fell. Where it fell and closed its eyes to sleep and never opened them again, to be cut into pieces and boiled in salted water and choked down by mouths desperate to live. Forced to find food, to choke down the meat of a man he’d bunked alongside, only then understanding that what happened to his own father wasn’t an act of depravity so much as
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the words caught when he saw the faint flicker of tears in Eridanys’ eyes. Barely visible in the low light of Moon Harbor; shining like specks of snow on his lashes. Alba hated himself for not knowing what to say. Not knowing anything to say, not even a whisper, a sound of acknowledgement or apology. All he could do was put his arms out, pulling Eridanys into an embrace. It felt so small, so pitiful, but Alba held him tightly even in the silence, hoping it would be enough. Eridanys leaned into him; he exhaled a chilly breath into Alba’s hair, embracing him back. Holding him for a long time,
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“Don’t you dare drown me,” he threatened into Eridanys’ ear. “I’ll haunt you for every day you’re still alive.” “Promise?”
A pack of merrow in the sea; peeking out from beneath the surface; offering a handful of shells to a human on the docks; intermingling, merrow in the water and humans on the shore, hands held in a circle; an abundance of fish brought by the permanent residence of them in the harbor, where humans could fish and eat with plenty; a human and a merrow intertwined with one another on an altar as a circle of onlookers smiled and raised their hands in celebration; a funeral procession that ended at the edge of the water beneath a full moon, where the deceased was tossed into the waves and reborn with
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Alba couldn’t resist reaching out to touch his tail, not expecting the siren to startle like a cat. A flurry of bubbles erupted from Alba’s mouth as he burst out laughing, having to throw out his arms and kick back to the surface again to cough and catch his breath.
He turned, meeting Eridanys’ eyes. Even in such low light, the siren glowed like the moon herself; brighter than the mosaic, more stunning than even the goddess depicted there. It left Alba breathless, even more than the water that refused him air. And such a beautiful, breathtaking thing—was looking right back at him, as if there was a chance in the world Eridanys could ever think the same of someone like Albatross Marsh.
I’ll finally have somethin’ other than sailing to talk to her about when I see her again. Not so much stories about people circlin’ and watching a merrow and a human mate, let alone how I ended up doing the same thing, but different, but—um,
“You didn’t tell the townspeople to use your kin’s body parts for earrings and fishin’ nets?” Another smirk, once again to Alba’s relief. “I did not. I don’t think I would have been that creative.”
“I’m sorry your last partner did not treat you well.” “Don’t be,” the siren muttered, reaching up to touch the side of Alba’s face with his hands. “I much prefer my new partner, anyway. He’s much more submissive. Both on his feet and on his back. His blood was warm and sweet, too, as a virgin.” “Oh, stop it,” Alba groaned, knocking Eridanys’ hands away and making him laugh. “Virgins do not have blood any different from anyone else.”
“I’m sure the townspeople knew of this place, not unlike many of our other secrets, but at least while I was here, very few were allowed inside to bathe and fuck one another.” “Oh—did they?” “Fuck each other? Constantly. These walls used to ring out with the sounds of merrow-human orgies at almost all hours of the day.” Alba’s ears burned again. “Oh,” he whispered. “Sounds fun.”
Alba didn’t like the little pang of jealousy that struck him again, not wanting to think about his siren pleasuring or being pleasured by anyone else—but he pushed the thoughts away as quickly as they came.
“They would have all liked you very much, you know,” Eridanys went on, as if he knew. “The way you sound. The way you taste. Whimpering and writhing under the hands and mouths of a dozen other merrow, I wonder how long you would have been able to stand it before begging for mercy…” “And you would’ve let them?” Alba snapped back, blood turning his cheeks red as he pulled on Eridanys’ hair. “You would’ve been fine with that? I don’t believe it.” “Hmm,” he considered, chuckling with every tug of his hair. “I would have. But only once.” “What?” “To give them a taste. So they always thought about
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It was a grueling, miserably slow task, enough that he had to stop and catch his breath more than once. Each time, Eridanys’ hands lifted to clutch him around the waist and support him upright, and Alba’s heart raced with determination to keep his siren out of harm’s way.
Four men stepped from the shadowy passageway at the end of the cavern. Alba recognized them all to be people from the town—but the one at the front he knew best of all. Eugene Michaels, with his cotton hat and a cigarette hanging from his mouth.
“Knew the marks on that wickie were merrow-stains, too, goddamnit. Actin’ like he didn’t know nothin’ about them in this harbor. Goddamn lyin’ Warren sailors.”
“I would have still put my eyes on you and failed to ever look away again. I would have still made you mine any time I spotted you. From any shore.”
“I don’t think she would’ve let it be that easy.” “I would have charmed her into letting me have you.”
I didn’t intend on staying with you long at first—” “You also thought about killin’ me.” “I did. But not anymore.” “You care for me enough to not want to kill me?” “Yes. So I suggest you stop arguing before I change my mind.”
He swished the alcohol in the bottle in offering, and Eridanys opened his mouth, allowing a string of the amber liquid to be poured over his tongue. It made Alba smile bigger, made his insides twirl and itch with the sight. Lips wet, liquid dripping down his chin. Glancing over his shoulder, there was no one on the street behind him—and Alba couldn’t stop himself from sitting forward, hooking a hand under the back of Eridanys’ head, and pulling him into a kiss. Tasting the whiskey and salt on his lips, his tongue, wishing he could have a moment longer to enjoy it. But even a little drunk, he
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“Will you help me row back to the lighthouse? I think I want to like you a little more.” Eridanys gazed up at him for a moment longer, before smiling and diving back into the water. Alba laughed, stumbling to his feet, then to where his stolen dingy was tied off. Tripping into it with another cry of amusement, the boat pulled away from the dock without him ever having to touch the oars. Something had already taken hold of the rope to tow him where they could be alone on the lighthouse rocks.
“You want them to watch? To ask themselves—how long their wickie has had a strange man locked away in his house to fuck as he pleases?” Alba pulled at Eridanys’ hair as the weight of the tail rubbed between his legs, biting his lip before sitting up and turning his body, catching Eridanys off guard and rolling him onto his back. Straddling the siren’s waist, Alba stared down at him through half-lidded eyes, already flushed. “No,” he said. “Not a man. A siren. Like this—I said I wanted it just like this.”
He took Eridanys’ hands, pinning them into the grass over his head and breathing heavily. “Can I keep going?” he said. “Doing whatever I like.” Eridanys smiled hungrily, licking his lips. “I think I like being used by needy sailors like you, after all.”
He focused on the present, on the moment, on how much more he wanted so badly, searching for his discarded pants and using them to tie Eridanys’ wrists together over his head, all while the siren purred with each touch. Sitting back on Eridanys’ stomach, Alba took in the sight of him, like drinking in a tall glass of sparkling wine. Face flushed, mouth and chin wet from where it’d tongued every inch between Alba’s legs. Eyes sharp and directed right at him, like an animal playing along, knowing full well it could break free and do whatever it wished whenever it wanted.
He licked the divot of his navel, before trailing kisses across where soft skin met shimmering scales, watching Eridanys’ expression change as he dipped his tongue into the erogenous slit surrounded by the scales like diamond coins. Tasting salt and mint, holding either side of the base of the man’s tail while sinking his tongue deeper inside and tasting the pre-cum dripping from the growing lengths inside.
It made Alba sink lower, taking the hard, ribbed cock all the way to the back of his throat until it nearly choked him, swallowing against it, letting his throat flex around the tip as Eridanys bit back another moan. “That’s it,” Eridanys exhaled in a rough breath, and Alba lifted his eyes to find the siren smiling indescribably at him. Thrilled but nerve-wracked. “You like how I taste, don’t you, sailor?”
“And you like how I use my mouth, don’t you?” Eridanys’s smile twitched like he almost burst out laughing, throwing his head back again and bending an arm over his face. “God—Neptune save me, I will gut any man who ever lays a hand on what’s mine.”
“Cum for me,” he whispered, making Alba shiver. “I want you to cum for me, Albatross, my prince of the sea.” Alba groaned, but his breath continued to hitch until his arms wound around the back of Eridanys’ neck and he cried out with every new thrust. Stimulating him sharper and deeper, making him tighten and release. Eridanys held him in return, quickening his pace, pressing as deeply as he could, teeth trailing over the skin of Alba’s shoulder. “You feel so good, Alba—” he said between gasps, words spilling out like he never expected them. “I want to be the only one—who ever says your name,
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“God—god—How could the sea ever let a demon like you onto the shore with the rest of us…” Alba shuddered, wrapping his arms back around Eridanys’ body. Eridanys chuckled under his breath, holding Alba with continued, surprising carefulness, brushing hair from his damp forehead. “She didn’t let me go without a fight, as a matter of fact,” he answered. “And she will be very envious to learn I have given myself to a sailor who can use me whenever he likes.” He kissed the center of Alba’s chest. “However he likes.” “Oh,” Alba sighed. “How did I get so lucky?”
“Can’t we—use one another equally? Own one another equally?” “Can we?”
It was strange not having Eridanys alongside him after so many days in such close proximity. Especially after how easy it’d become to touch him, kiss him, as natural as ice melting into water; how it felt to sleep in his arms in a shared bed, warm and safe and exhausted as a chilly tongue licked drops of sweat from his temple and the side of his neck depending on how they got there. How Eridanys wanted to taste every one of Alba’s breaths whenever their mouths connected, to steal every one of his heartbeats even once they were finished.
He wondered what they thought about losing their leader to that very same creature—despite it never being confirmed. Alba was sure there were whispers. A stormy sea might kill a man, smashing him against rocks until he was beyond recognition—but even the sea wouldn’t do to someone what Alba had done with the copper pot.
Alba was tired of rituals, sacred sites, merrow magic, symbolism. He was tired of all of it.
“I do not think… they deserved to suffer like this. I never wished them peace, or happiness, but—I never wished them pain, either.
Looking back at Alba again, Eridanys surprised him with another calm smile. “I never expected to find that peace in the companionship of a wickie, instead.” Alba rolled his eyes, but pulled Eridanys into him.
“What if I can’t reach a shore to call from?” Alba asked. He didn’t mean for it to sound so frightened, hating himself. Hating how he’d felt like nothing but a pathetic, whimpering child for days, made weak by the world after so many years hardened into something that could withstand it. As if meeting Eridanys was his final undoing. “Then I will beseech the sea to rise high enough for me to reach you,” Eridanys said without hesitation. “And I think she would listen.”
Alba slept sweetly wrapped in Eridanys’ arms among the moss and trees and incoming lapping waves of the tide; where the chill could never find him, even without blankets. Where discomfort was far from him, even without the comforts of a bed. He was warmed by the trailing remains of the man’s hands and mouth and body pressed against him until he was moaning and gasping; comforted into a deep sleep by the mere proximity of him with eyes closed and arms pulled into his body. Safe in Eridanys’ arms. Safe in the arms of his merrow-siren love.
Josiah knew what he was doing, calling that ship in. Alba hoped to express his amusement to the man sooner rather than later.
When he finally pulled away again, Alba was nearly disoriented, closing his eyes as Eridanys pressed their foreheads together. “My sea prince,” the siren finally whispered hoarsely. “My caller of the shore. I thought just of you to keep my sanity.”
When frustrated tears finally broke over his lashes, he attempted to squeeze them away, but Eridanys noticed. He sighed, using his thumbs to wipe them from Alba’s cheeks before they could drip all the way down. “There’s enough salt in the sea,” he whispered. “Don’t add to it with tears, Albatross.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do? I can’t help you—I can’t even help myself. I don’t know what in god’s name I’m supposed to do now... I couldn’t save my mother, I couldn’t save myself—and now I can’t even save you, after only just getting you. After just finding somethin’ else to live for.”
“You’ll get your revenge on the Warren family right along with me,” he reiterated. “We’ll enjoy the taste of him together.” “We will.” Eridanys continued smiling. “Won’t waste… a single piece.”
But there was one thing he did see—in the light of the single lantern, the altar was soaked a deep plum-red from long-spilled blood, proof of the previous wickies cut open before being tossed into the waiting waves lapping right up against the base of it. Previous wickies, including Alba’s own mother. It was enough to make his knees weak, falling to one of them just to be yanked back upright again.
He wanted the burn of woodsmoke in his lungs; he wanted it to burn his eyes and nose and throat and chest—he wanted to burn all over. He wanted to glow like flames, like the blinding light of a lighthouse lantern, so they would all see him coming.
Only fire, only fire, like traveling preachers used to call out on the street as he and his mother hurriedly passed by. Alba had been baptized by them as a baby, promised fire and brimstone if he didn’t worship their book—but god had never done anything to save him from the devil that came calling when he was thirteen. He didn’t need god where even salt couldn’t cleanse wickedness—he would bring his own fire. He would take care of the devil, himself, with the flames of cast-off souls and a shotgun in his hand.
“What happened to it?” he finally asked, memories hazy, but clear enough to know exactly how the high tide rose to collect him. “What happened to the town?” Eridanys nodded his head toward the window. “Take a look for yourself, sailor. See all that’s left.”
Flooding the harbor for as far as he could see, lazy pearl-white jellyfish swayed with the tide. Bumping unawares into one another, sometimes tangling tentacles or getting snagged on the rocks. When Eridanys scoffed and stepped forward to pinch one and throw it back out into open water, Alba had to fight the instinct to grab and stop him. “Didn’t it sting you?” he asked, grabbing the man’s hand in concern. Eridanys just wrinkled his nose. “It did. Not very grateful, are we!” he shouted, making Alba raise an eyebrow.
“You know how humans believe lost sailors become seabirds to fly back home? Merrow believe the same—but jellyfish. Worthless, brainless jellyfish…” “Then…!” Alba grinned, before laughing. “That means all your kin were washed out to sea after all.” “Suppose so.”
Alba smiled back, taking Eridanys’ hand and squeezing it. He offered one last glance back to the seabird who’d stolen it at first, chuckling as it continued dancing with its partner between nuzzling and tapping beaks. Touching the pin in his hair again, the smile faded slightly as his heart skipped a beat. You know how humans believe sailors lost at sea become birds to fly back home?
