Siren - Hazel Grace Page 0,62
the room.
“Listen, Miss, I know you have no reason to trust me, but I need to get off this ship. If you want to stay here, you’re welcome to but I’d advise against it. I’ll take you home.”
“I—you don’t—I don’t know,” she quakes.
“I’m Tobias Nathaniel,” I offer. “I don’t hurt women or auction them off. I can—”
“You’re the Prince of the Black Sea.”
I nod, feeling the rumbling of the ship. “I am, and we have to get off this vessel because my ship is about to sink it.”
That gets her to move in my direction. I give her my hand, which she takes immediately, following me outside and toward Delilah. A man abruptly stands in our way, and I waste no time, pulling out my pistol and aiming it at his forehead. Gunpowder wafts in my nose as I step over his body, but I’m halted by the woman in my clutches.
Peering over my shoulder, she’s frozen, glancing down at the man I’ve just stabbed. I forget she’s a woman who doesn’t deal with this bullshit on a daily basis, so I round the fallen man, getting her to follow another path to safety as I get her onto my ship.
“Get her something warm and some food,” I tell one of the first men I come across. “She’ll sleep in my bed.”
“I can’t,” she retorts. “I mean—thank you but—” I nod anyways, and he immediately guides her away without further questioning as she still complains and frets over my order.
“A few men are still alive on the other ship, Cap’n,” Ashton informs me while approaching my side. “Do you want prisoners?”
Readjusting my coat, I try to brush off how beautiful the woman I just saved is, how, even though we are surrounded by a thicket of danger, she still argues with my instructions.
Something Davina would do.
It’s been over a month since I’ve seen her. Every night I look up at the stars, wondering if she’s looking at the same ones. If she thinks about how different our lives are now that we’re older and everything has changed. I didn’t want them to, but she forced it.
“Kill them all,” I convey. “It’ll send a message to good ‘ole Uncle Declan.”
“He’s losing his mind in there,” Nesrine frets across the dining room table from me as I continue eating. “We need to do something before he harms himself.”
I scoff. “He won’t kill himself.”
“He might pull an arm off with the way he’s pulling on his chains.” I finally look up at her from my plate of fish and seaweed to fix her with a glare.
“What would you have me do, let him roam the island free again?”
She shrugs. “It’s not as though he can go anywhere.”
“No.”
“Davina,” she argues softly. “If he really injures himself, you’ll get no answers.”
I stab my dead fish with my fork. “Won’t get any anyways. He won’t speak, I know it. And we are running out of his men to persuade him.”
Almost all the prisoners we’ve brought onto this island are dying and not by our hands. Within hours of them being locked away, all of them became extremely ill. Some regurgitating their food, others coughing so loudly it echoed down the halls.
Each day, one or two of them die, and one by one, I’ve lost some of my leverage to make Dagen speak.
“Then what’s the point of his being alive?” Nesrine asks, leaning back in her chair and crossing her slim arms over her chest.
“There isn’t one,” I reply. “Other than the idea and pleasure of having him suffer for years to come.”
“Without his men, you have no leverage.”
“Then I guess we’ll never know, will we?” I deadpan.
Nesrine reaches over the table, extending her arm across it for me to take her hand. “This isn’t you. You don’t do vengeance.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” I snap. “Is it because I’m stuck on this island and banned from the sea that I’m not like you anymore?”
Her brows deepen. “I’m not saying that at all. It’s just that—”
“Are you done talking about this,” I sigh while dropping my fork. “Because I am, and you just ruined my meal with talks about the Viking and misplaced sympathy.”
Nesrine removes her arm and straightens her back. I know that I’m taking my anger out on my sister, but at the moment, I don’t care.
“I understand you being upset that he betrayed your trust, Davina, but we can’t find any reason why he isn’t telling the truth.”
“He stole from us. He wanted the cuff to