Sacrificed to the Sea - Cari Silverwood Page 0,40

to keep it shut – to steady himself. The side of his face was on the cool glass, and his heart was thudding at him, reminding him of how he had moved down those stairs. She’d almost grabbed him.

He’d run like a fucking banshee batshit suicide machine. He laughed at himself, wiped at his eyes with finger and thumb.

To get away from her – his love, his mermaid with the pointy fucking teeth, he’d run.

“Raffaela…” he murmured as he side-eyed the top of the stairs, wondering if she would appear there, snarling.

When she didn’t, after another minute or so he heaved himself upright and wiped his mouth.

“Think, fool.”

What could he do? The Ravening did not answer to logic or science, that was obvious.

She needed to eat a human? Regular takeout wouldn’t help him here.

Because he needed to see her and to be certain she had not found some miraculous way to escape, he went to the sofa and lowered himself.

Raffaela waited for him, staring through the glass barrier that was all that stopped her from killing him. Her tail silently stirred, puffing up sand.

Her siren song should, theoretically, not reach him through the glass. It was soundproof. On the other hand, the Ravening was not science. None of this was based on factual evidence.

If he went out there again, for whatever reason, he should be as prepared as he could be.

There was only one solution to this. Two, if you counted letting her go back to the ocean.

His real solution: Find her someone she could eat.

Using her tail to stay at eye level, she bobbed in the water. The sunlight reached down through the water and cast serpentine ripples across her tail, her back, her side. It made her scintillate like a living jewel, and when she turned full circle in the water, rolling her body, the light played across her front.

She was teasing him with those. Tits. Breasts. He’d kissed those, could feel them under his hands, in his mouth.

He laughed. A fucking obvious tease that had made his dick hard in seconds.

“You want a human? I’ll find you one.”

Nothing was impossible. The latest philosophy? You can do anything you put your mind to.

The nearest town was more of a village that filled seasonally with tourists but drive past it to the next place and you found a city. Merrick knew, had known, the ins and out of the drug trade, of where the dealers hung out, who to buy from.

It was recreational for the two of them, him and Merrick – only nightclubs, not dirty alleys or looking to get a hit in the worst neighborhoods, but he knew where was good.

Knew where to look for the down and outs, for those on an OD path, those who would not be missed if they disappeared.

He went looking for them, found one the third night he tried, under a bridge, which was classic. The man was all by himself – sprawled out wearing a stench-laden coat with pee on his pants, grass in his dank fair hair. Wolfgang hauled him into the trunk and drove off, having checked to be sure there was no CCTV or anyone observing him.

He drove off with a man in his trunk – still breathing but so shallowly he was as good as dead.

When he closed the garage door – having waited for the slam and for the outside to be gone, until it was just him and this trunk with a victim in it – when he opened it, the man was goddamned dead.

“Well. Took care of that part. Now I don’t feel so guilty.” He shrugged then grabbed hold of the canvas he’d lined the trunk with. There was always a plus to everything, they said. “Wait…” he shook his finger at the guy. “Wheelbarrow.”

Dumping an entire clothed body in his pool seemed almost sacrilegious, as if this was some rite of sacrifice.

Though undressing the fucker was gross. He did it, however, there in the lit-up garage, with the fluorescent lighting adding a certain crime-scene noir to the dark deed. He undressed the guy, bundled up the clothes, decided those could go in a garbage can somewhere miles away. Then he wheelbarrowed him down the outside of the house, hosed him off, ’cause grossness…

Then he dressed in his patented siren-protective gear. Headphones with sound-deadening qualities. Bike helmet. Nose plugs – because who knew what they did to a man, really? Besides the guy still smelled.

Then he went up the little used side