I hoped that was true, yet Aric’s words about my Master’s darker urges, whatever those might be, lurked on the edges of my mind, making me almost fear seeing Kyros again. I hadn’t been human long, and the possibilities of what he might yet do with me hadn’t sunk in. At least not until I’d seen what was hidden beneath the castle.
A few moments later, Aric arrived, his pants still halfway about his legs, his ruddy little cock at full, unimpressive mast protruding obscenely toward us. There was a bottle in his hand.
“Wine just arrived!” he shouted, swinging the bottle out and sloshing some of its dark red contents out onto the floor. It made me think of blood and violence, and I shrank back farther from him, holding the blanket tight around me.
His eyes seemed to zero in on my movement like a shark and for a minute we were the only ones in the room. “Pretty little mermaid. Why did you run? I wanted to play. I had good games for us. I’m sure the Master will be happy to share his whore.” Tears gathered in my eyes because I was cornered with nowhere to go.
It was at that moment that Estella started beating him on the head with a big wooden spoon. Of course. I wasn’t alone this time. Panic made me forget.
“Ow, woman!”
The violence sobered him enough to pull his pants back up and fasten them. Estella’s glare was fierce and protective, and I didn’t feel so alone and hated here. The other kitchen staff armed themselves with utensils and cookware and stood in front of me.
“Crazy whores, the lot of you!” Aric said, sloshing more wine onto the floor. “I only came to share the happy news that the wine was here and finish business with the mermaid.”
I realized now why it had taken me so long to realize he was drunk. He didn’t slur his words. Who knew how long he’d been drinking or how much he’d had. He seemed able to hold his liquor more than most.
It was at that moment that Kyros showed up.
At first I didn’t know what had happened. The room went deathly quiet and still. Then I peered around the hip of the woman standing directly in front of me.
Kyros took the bottle of wine from the fisherman’s hand and smashed it against the wall. Everyone, including me, jumped.
“Someone had better explain what is going on this instant.” I’d never heard his voice so sharp. He stood taller than Aric, broader, and far more imposing. And if not for the words still spinning in my brain about his desires, I might have been relieved to see him. Now I wasn’t sure what to feel.
The kitchen workers were all clustered in a group, blocking me from his view. He moved them aside one by one until there was no obstruction between us.
“Nerina?”
“Yes, Master?” I’d been the victim, but I was so afraid he was going to hurt me. His loud voice and the smashing of the wine bottle as well as my uncertainty over whether I was even allowed to roam his house without permission had a tight knot forming in my stomach. I cringed away from him.
He looked around at the others in the room. “What’s happened here?”
When the others remained silent, he took the blanket off me, as if it was necessary to prove his suspicion. His eyes darkened and narrowed. He was staring at me when he bellowed, “Aric!”
I closed my eyes against him. His anger didn’t seem directed at me, at least not for the moment, still I couldn’t look in his eyes when they were so dark. The fact that they could get like that at all was more than I could presently cope with. Feeling his stare on me, I grabbed the fabric of my clothing and held it together because it made me feel ashamed for Kyros to know what had almost happened downstairs.
On some level I knew it wasn’t my fault, on another, I’d been somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be, so it was easy to blame myself. I was afraid that once Kyros extracted the truth from me—and I knew he would—that he too would lay the blame at my feet, and then that malevolent gaze would be directed at me.
My breath came more shallowly, and I hunched my shoulders, my whole body turning in on itself like a turtle going into his shell. I wasn’t able to relax and open my eyes until I heard his footsteps move away from me.
He gripped the fisherman by his collar and raised him off the ground. “What. Did. You. Do?” He practically hissed when he spoke.
“She asked for it. She begged me for it.”
For one insane moment I feared Kyros would believe him. After all, they all knew the legends of mermaids and their supposed seductive powers, luring men to their deaths. There was real reason to fear my Master could be taken by such a lie.
Kyros set the man down on his feet then hauled back and punched him. Aric stumbled a bit and grabbed for the wall to hold himself upright. He laughed.
“You will stay the hell away from Nerina. Am I being clear?”
“You’ve shared other sluts you’ve bedded. Why not this one? She used her magic on me. She’ll use it again. You can’t trust the sea witch. I won’t be held responsible for what I do next time I see her unattended.” Aric’s gaze shifted to me, showing me the full lewdness of his intent at our next encounter.
Kyros let out a guttural shout that sounded like some sort of war cry. His large hands reached out, gripped Aric’s head firmly, and wrenched and twisted. The crack was so loud it filled the whole space of the kitchen. It had been too fast for the fisherman to react, and he slumped to the floor, dead.
My Master still stared at the fisherman as if he might somehow magically reknit bone and get up. “Estella,” Kyros said without taking his eyes off the corpse, “that’s been a long time coming for him. Get rid of the body.”
Then he turned back to me and everything inside me screamed to run. He seemed electrified, taken with an intense blood lust, not even seeing me properly, his rage was so great. Was that rage now directed at me? Did he believe the sea witch garbage?
“Master, please, I didn’t … ”
“Don’t speak, Nerina.”
I shut my mouth as he advanced. Estella and the kitchen staff were already acting on the Master’s orders. Estella, being the substantial woman that she was, moved behind Aric’s body and hefted him up, gripping under his arms. Two other women helped, each picking up one of his legs. Then they made their way down the hall.
I shuddered, thinking that perhaps they’d had to dispose of a body at a previous point in their work history, so coordinated was their action. As if they knew exactly where to go and what to do. No one was standing in front of me and guarding me now, although I desperately wished for that protection. Even if Aric had still been alive, he now felt like the least of my problems.
I was surprised when Kyros hauled me up to stand. His grip wasn’t nearly as harsh as the anger that still radiated from his features. It was as if he were intentionally being gentler, controlling the force with which he touched me. I hoped that was a good sign as he led me out of the kitchen and down the hallway away from Estella and the other women.
Even as I was trying to convince myself he wasn’t upset with me, my fear mounted. When we reached the main hall, my anxiety had reached its peak. I could still feel the anger coming off him. Seeing and hearing his violence and rage acted out against another made me fear what would become of me if I stayed with him. Aric’s words about my Master’s darker urges and his insinuation that Kyros had tortured women downstairs was the final deciding factor.
His grip on me was still gentle, gentle enough to break free. So I pulled away and bolted for the door.
Once outside the castle, I ran down the grassy hill, disoriented for a moment by the hazy red clouds all around me. They were thicker than normal and it made navigating more difficult as I could only see a few feet in front of me. But I could smell the sea, and my instincts told me which way to go to get home. I fell a couple of times. Running was still so new, but my need to get away from the castle aided me.
I knew I couldn’t live in the sea anymore. I knew I couldn’t survive out there, but I couldn’t survive here either, and I was sure what lie waiting for me in the ocean would be quic
ker and less traumatic than whatever my Master’s plans for me.
My greatest fear was not being able to get there in time, but with the haze of clouds, Kyros wouldn’t be able to move overly fast, either. And he might not be able to find the water as quickly by instinct alone.
As my feet hit the beach and I got closer to the water, the haze started to clear enough so that I could see much farther ahead of me. I could see the waves now lapping the shore. Home. I didn’t even care that the sea would ultimately kill me. I just wanted to end it and escape the human’s wrath. Even if he wasn’t angry with me, if what Aric said was true, and hadn’t just been meant to scare me, then eventually Kyros would hurt me. And somehow I knew he’d drag it out a long time.
I didn’t want to think he’d do something like that after the kindness and patience he’d shown me, but after watching him kill a man in front of me, I could no longer sugarcoat his ferocity.
The fishermen were all down the beach, quite some distance from me, so I felt safe to take the toga off.
The water was comforting as I stepped into it. I looked behind me to see Kyros getting closer. He didn’t run, just walked at a steady pace as if he had all the time in the world. He must have thought I was trapped with nowhere to go and that he could therefore take his time.
“Nerina!”
I turned away from his voice and dove into the water. I would swim until I couldn’t go any further and then I would let the sea take me under, back to my family where I belonged. As the water rushed around my moving form, I started to think that perhaps I could swim far enough before tiring to make it. Maybe I could swim around to another side of Meropis and escape him that way. The idea of being alone in another foreign place, with nothing but more human threats to look forward to, was equally unpleasant. No, it was better to just go home.
I’d gotten maybe a mile out when I could hear him gaining on me, another frantic disturbance in the water. When his arms finally wrapped around me, I struggled, kicking out at him.
“You’ll take us both down. Stop it!” he shouted, his voice just as hard-edged and angry as it had been in the kitchen.
“Good! Go away. Leave me alone.”
His arm went around my neck, pressing, tightening. I struggled harder but then everything went dark.
I was surprised to wake up in Kyros’ bedroom, and at first I thought it was a final dream before death. I’d thought his intent was to kill me, as if he couldn’t give the sea that one victory; it had to be him. But he’d only meant to render me unconscious so I wouldn’t fight him as he took us both back to the shore.
I found myself wrapped in a towel, a sudden chill sweeping over me.
“Here, drink this.” He held out a mug of something hot and dark-colored, with steam rising off it. Some type of tea.
I took it, half-afraid it was poisoned, but then the logical side of my brain kicked in. If he’d wanted to kill me he could have just done it out in the ocean. There was no need to go to the trouble of bringing me back. And with the violence I knew he was capable of, there was no point in more civilized forms of murder.
As I drank the warm liquid, he reached out to brush the damp hair off my face with his fingertips. I jerked back, and he sighed.
“I’m not going to hurt you. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
I’d done everything wrong, and we both knew it. I’d wandered all over his castle and gone somewhere I’d known I shouldn’t. I’d run from him, fought him. I didn’t believe it when he said I’d done nothing wrong and he wasn’t going to hurt me. I just couldn’t figure out why he was playing it this way. What was the benefit to him?
“Why did you run from me?”
I took another sip of the tea, trying to put off answering as long as possible. When the look on his face reached maximum impatience, I set the cup on the table beside the bed. “You killed a man, and you were still angry when you turned back to me. I was afraid.”
“I was upset someone almost hurt you. It wasn’t directed at you.”
“That wasn’t how it felt. Besides, it’s enough that you showed that kind of anger to anyone. It means you have it inside you. How can I ever feel safe knowing that’s coiled and waiting to strike?” Mermen weren’t like that. They weren’t angry or violent to anyone. We were a peaceful race. The scene in the kitchen and in the dungeon before only confirmed that I was now among barbarians and could never feel safe again.
He nodded and watched me for another minute. The formality between us had been abandoned for the moment in light of the morning’s happenings.
“I would never harm you, Nerina. You have to know that by now. What’s really going on?”
I could have explained the nature of my people to him, but it would have fallen on deaf ears. Besides, he was right. It wasn’t really all about what happened in the kitchen. He’d killed a man, but he’d also removed a threat from me. I looked down at the floor, unable to meet his intense stare.
“I saw what’s downstairs.”
I expected anger, then pain, but it didn’t come. Instead, he merely said, “I see,” his voice mild and noncommittal. “And what did you think about what you saw in the dungeon?”
Dungeon. I didn’t like the word, but it seemed to fit the dark, damp place. The contraptions, the cages, the strips of leather I somehow knew were meant to hurt people, and I couldn’t understand why. I’d thought perhaps they were for dangerous enemies until Aric had filled my mind with a far worse scenario.
“Aric said you had dark desires and wondered if you took me down there a lot. Did you intend to take me down there?” I chanced a look up at his face, desperately hoping to find some kindness in his eyes.
The kindness was there, but it didn’t go with his answer. “Yes. And I still do.”
I shook my head furiously. “No! Please.”
“Yes.” He moved closer to me and a panic filled my chest because I couldn’t get up and away from him quickly enough, and anyway I knew he was faster than me and stronger than me, even with my new legs. I couldn’t get away from whatever he intended to do, because I knew this time he wouldn’t be foolish enough to loosen his grip.
I whimpered as his hand cupped my cheek. “Why didn’t you just let me die in the sea? Are you going to hurt me because of what Aric said about me? I’m not a witch. I don’t have any special powers.”
“I know that. It’s not because of Aric.”
“Then why?” I’d thought I’d managed to find some reference point to understand humans and their strange ways, but this was beyond what I was capable of processing. There had to be something very wrong with him. It made the prospect of never getting away more dangerous than I’d ever feared.
“Nerina, there are many different types of pleasure. Some types look like pain to the untrained eye. I’ll show you.”
I couldn’t accept what he was telling me, what he was implying that he intended to do with me. I thought perhaps it would just be a matter of discussion for now, that I’d still have time to talk him out of it since I’d just been dragged out of the sea unconscious. But he had other plans. Before I could react, he picked me up, still wrapped in the towel, and carried me down the main steps.
“No, please, Master. You can’t. Please. I’ll be good. I won’t ever disobey you again.”
“It’s not about obedience or disobedience. I’m not going to punish you for anything that happened today. You were the victim, and you were scared. I understand that. I just want to show you that there is nothing to fear from me in the dungeon. If I awakened your body once to something you didn’t think you could experience and want, I can awaken it again.”
I’d gone still in his arms, my head resting in the crook of his neck. I didn’t struggle against him, even though I wanted to. I still felt too weak and exhausted from everything that had already happened today. My pulse ratcheted up again to an unnatural pace as he carried me down the spiraling stairs to the dungeon.
The lights were still on from before.
He didn’t put me down until he picked the contraption he wanted me on. “We’ll stick with simple, this time,” he said. I wasn’t sure if simple would hurt more or less.
I didn’t resist him when he helped me straddle a bench and lay forward over it. I was afraid whatever he was about to do would be much worse if I fought him. He took my wrists and then my ankles, each in turn, fastening them down in heavy metal. The sound of the locks clicking in place leeched the last bit of hope out of me.
Even without him touching me, I was immobile. Naked, spread out, tied down. Completely helpless, leaving his hands free to bring whatever torture on me he so desired.
“Shhhhh,” he said. “You’re okay. Everything is okay here.” My body trembled under his touch as he stroked my back. “I’m just going to use the flogger on you today. Something light and easy. I’ll work you up very slowly over time. There is nothing to fear here.”
It didn’t matter how many times he said it, I didn’t believe it. He couldn’t change reality and pain with only words. He moved away from me then, over to the nearest wall, and selected an instrument with a leather handle and several long leather pieces attached to it. I cringed and closed my eyes.
He made his way back over to me. I jumped, then settled when his hand stroked over my back again. “While I was out this morning, I dropped several messages in the ocean for your people. I’ll keep trying until I get some kind of response. My intent isn’t to keep you from ever seeing your family again.” He swept my hair to the side out of his way. “We’ll find some way for you to visit them. Maybe we’ll take a boat out once we’ve established contact.”
A tear slid down my cheek and dropped onto the stone floor. “Thank you, Master.” I didn’t understand how someone who could be so kind to me could have this in him. I was tempted to beg him again, thinking maybe I could reach him and gain mercy, but before I could open my mouth, the flogger came down on my back.
It was just once, then a long pause, as if he were letting me assemble the sensations and turn them over in my mind. I needed that processing time. Going from someone who was uncomfortable with simple human touch to being initiated into pain as a purported pleasurable activity was a big leap.