Blood of the Sirens by Raven Storm

Author:Raven Storm [Storm, Raven]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-12-20T00:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

Jesse

I must have passed out when I hit the water. All I remembered was having the air knocked from my chest when my body met the ocean hard. It was as if I’d slammed into a cement wall. The cuts all over my body stung like hell from the salt, a fresh agony I had never contemplated before. And it was freezing.

And dark! I couldn’t see! Was I blind?

Focus on not being dead, first.

I was on land somewhere, and I wasn’t blind. It took a moment to come into focus, but I was surrounded by oddly glowing walls. The more my eyes adjusted, the lower my jaw dropped.

A cave? No, not a cave, a mausoleum! Every inch of rock wall around me was covered by a mosaic of glass, glinting around me in sheens of green, blue, and white. The scenes depicted mermen, which I thought was strange. Where were the mermaids?

The work was beautiful, the subtle shading of the different hued blues and whites forming realistic waves that bordered the top of the cave walls. More works of art surrounded me: chairs made of bone and sea shells, tables, and drinking cups. It was like an artist had closed their gallery and everything had been shoved here for storage. Nonetheless, It felt wrong to have so many beautiful pieces just sitting here in the almost dark.

The next thing I noticed was the sharp, stinging sensation in my feet. I jerked, nearly kicking Merrick in the face.

“MERRICK!”

With a soft splash he rolled into the water, coming back to the edge toward me with only his upper body visible.

“There was glass in your feet. I was seeing to it,” he offered warily, eyes darting from my feet to my face.

Oh. I sat up slowly, noting the large cast of clear gooey stuff down my arms and legs. More of that neat jellyfish stuff, then.

Merrick must have been busy with me.

I closed my eyes, trying to breathe through the flash of panic that came from being stalked in the past. Was I some kind of weirdo who attracted perverts like moths to a flame? I squashed the small whimper that was bubbling up in my throat. Merrick wasn’t like that. He was kind. Respectful. And he had apparently saved me from drowning.

To distract myself from my racing thoughts, I peeled back a layer of the jellyfish bandage on my leg, relieved when there was barely a mark left behind. A small pile of it accumulated by my side as I ripped it all off. I tried not to remember how it had looked, dripping blood everywhere.

“Thank you,” I said softly, knowing Merrick had brought me here and tended to my wounds.

Fuck, it was cold. Goosebumps broke out along my skin and I shivered, trying to curl into a ball and rub myself vigorously to generate heat. My ass was going to go numb in a minute from the ice cold rock underneath me.

Merrick turned and presented me with his back. “Do you mind? I think there is enough left.

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