Page 69 of Hateful Prince

Gaze trailing back to the headstone, I tried to find anything I could use to connect with her. Aside from her fucking perfect tits, I found myself at odds with who she was to me. Until I read the inscription on her grave.

Beloved one true mate of Captain Caspian Hook

That fucking bitch.

“Nautica, you horny cunt, crawl out of whatever hole they dropped you in and get your slippery, bescaled, fishy ass over here right now!” I hollered, meaning the angry words with every fiber of my being.

I fell to my knees as I felt the power rush out of me. This was unlike anything I’d done before. It left me lightheaded and a little queasy.

As I caught my breath and got my bearings, I stared down at where my palms were pressed into the ground. The quiet lapping of water against the shore should’ve been soothing. Instead it seemed to grow louder and more insistent.

“Dahlia!” Tor’s shout of my name on the wind had me snapping my head up and turning to find all four of my men standing in the distance, shock on their faces.

In any other circumstance, I might have cheered a little to see the four of them joining forces like this, but their expressions were anything but happy. It was Hook’s shaking finger in the end that filled me in. Looking in the direction he was pointing, I saw what had them so frightened.

“Oh fuck no,” I gasped, shooting back and crab-walking away from the water.

Well, good news, Nautica heard me this time. Bad news, she was doing her girl from The Ring impersonation as she crawled out of the lake.

She’d once been a true beauty. Not anymore. Her eyes were a milky white, her skin a ghastly gray, and the hair, which had once been vibrant, now hung in stringy clumps with bits of scalp exposed. An entire chunk of her face had been ripped away, revealing a section of her yellowed teeth. One of her full breasts was completely gone, exposing her ribs, and I was pretty sure there was an eel or something squirming around in there. Gag.

The creepiest part of it all was the mermaid tail that began at her hips. The scales were dull and lifeless, fins tattered and riddled with holes, like something had been eating her.

She dragged herself out of the water quicker than I expected, her gaze trained on me with such hatred. As her teeth snapped, she snarled, and water slipped from her mouth.

“No. Bad mermaid. Stay.”

Asshole barked in the distance, distracting her momentarily. Long enough I could get to my feet at least. And if my knees were shaking so hard they knocked together, so what? I was still upright.

“Listen to me, Nautica,” I said with a shaky voice. I’d summoned this creature; I should be able to control it, right?

She hissed, more water bubbling up through her lips.

“You don’t have to like me, but you do have to listen to me.”

She opened her mouth as though to respond, only instead of words the eel that had been playing peekaboo in her ribcage shot out of her mouth.

“Jesus fucking Christ, you really let yourself go.”

Cain’s voice was at my ear. “I appreciate your vim and vigor, baby doll, but now is not the time to taunt the zombie.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, not all of us are the lord of the fucking underworld. Do you have any suggestions for how to handle this, or are you just going to offer critiques?”

His palm settled at the base of my spine, and a strange rush of strength pulsed through me. “Ask her what you want to know.”

“Tried that.”

Though come to think of it, maybe I hadn’t. It was hard to keep track of everything going on right now. It wasn’t every day a girl came face to face with a dead mermaid.

“Try again. I’ve got her. She won’t hurt you.”

His calm strength went a long way to soothe my frazzled nerves. Giving him a slight nod to indicate I heard and understood him, I took a deep, calming breath and then focused hard on the creature before me.

“Nautica, how did you die?”

The mermaid’s head twitched, her teeth snapping in an irritable gesture. “Cold. Alone. Painfully.” Her voice wasn’t the usual lyrical melody I’d known when she was alive. Now it was a sibilant rasp, like air blown between pieces of paper.

Well, that was about as helpful as a bologna sandwich. As in, not remotely.