Page 69 of Song of Lorelei
But in time?
Dozens of gouges and slash marks scarred the bow. The mermen had torn into the boat, prying apart steel to create a gaping hole in a feat of alarming supernatural strength.
Nireed signed, “Get them out,” and dove down to join their kin.
Beneath the surface, Lorelei saw familiar faces—Undine, Aersila, Delphine, Melusina, Aquilus—and many, many others, all pushing up on the boat’s hulking, water-laden mass. Judging by the sheer numbers, most of the healthy merfolk community had come, straining against the weight, trying to keep her man and his crew alive.
They were only thing keeping Dawn Chaser afloat. And they would tire fast.
She zipped through the water toward the gash in the hull. She had to get Killian and the others out now. It didn’t appear that they did much patching, which should have been their number one priority. The fact that they didn’t probably meant something had gone terribly wrong. Like they got flooded out and trapped.
Or a section of the boat’s interior collapsed…
Whatever the problem was she would have to face it alone. None of her kin below could be spared to come along. She maneuvered through the opening, careful not to scrape skin or scale against the rough, jagged edges.
That’s when she smelled it.
Something sick and feral and distinctly male. What she didn’t smell was blood. Thank God for that. Blood meant she was too late, a thought she banished quickly. The situation was too dire to fall down a rabbit hole and waste time contemplating what-ifs. She dimmed her bioluminescent light and forced her nerves under control, slowing her heartrate. Fear and panic were beacons to a predator.
She would know, after all.
There wasn’t anything she could do about her natural scent, no muck or shark hide to mask it, but she pressed on, head on swivel with a harpoon gripped tightly in her hands. She drifted through the sunken, narrow hallway of the bottommost deck toward the half-submerged stairwell, barely twitching a muscle to propel herself forward. The way was lit by the faint yellow glow of egress light strips running parallel to the walls.
When she reached the stairs, which led to Killian’s cabin and the crew’s quarters, she slowly shifted into her human form, readjusting her customized wet suit and shark armor to cover her lower half. Showing up half naked to a rescue wouldn’t exactly inspire trust in a group of people she’d only interacted with a few times.
She ascended with feather light steps to mid-deck. Bracing herself against the narrow walls, she crept up the slant of the hallway. She silently checked Killian’s cabin, the crew’s quarters, the head. The galley. Nothing.
They must have been on the level she’d just come from, but in the aft section of the boat not yet underwater. Where the merman stalked. Shit. She had hoped to avoid him.
Taking the aft set of stairs, she descended once more.
Judging by the loud crash coming from the freezer hold—splintered crate and spilled ice—the merman was preoccupying himself with the fish there, which explained why he hadn’t scented or heard her yet. And why Killian and his crew, if somewhere nearby, were overlooked. The frigid temperatures, stench of dead fish, and the constant hum of the industrial refrigeration unit, kept running by an auxiliary generator, would dull his senses, overpowering anything beyond that enclosed space. If this asshole hadn’t ripped the door half off its hinges, she would’ve shut him in and been done with it. But nothing was ever that easy.
She slinked down the stairs, leaning against the railing to maintain balance in the boat’s tipped state, and at the bottom, pressed her ear to the engine room door, listening.
Please be in here.
A quiet cough. Some murmuring and rustling.
To free up both her hands, she strapped her harpoon to her back, careful not to smack it off anything.
It was a long shot, but she slowly twisted the door handle. Barely budged. Locked from the inside. She eased it back up quietly, not even a soft click. How was she going to get them to open the door without alerting the merman? If there was a larger gap between door and floor, she could have gotten writing implements from Killian’s cabin and shoved a message to them underneath.
She drummed her fingers against her lips. She could quietly sing. And she could match the hum of the refrigeration unit, so the sound didn’t seem all that out of place. It would be a risk, but maybe her song didn’t even need to register in the human ear, something mystical and inexplicable at work that drew Killian to her.
Two years of hindsight and theorizing dredged a revelation she knew to be true deep in her soul. On that dreary, early morning they met, cast adrift upon the open ocean, Lorelei had summoned Killian to her with her frightened, terrible singing. No one should have been able to find her so quickly. But Killian did. He always did.
It was dangerous, but she had to try. If she didn’t, the whole crew would drown.
If the merman came for her, so be it. She would fight him off tooth and claw until her last breath.
Lorelei leaned against the door, hands and cheek pressed up against the wood. Low and soft she hummed for Killian, more feeling than words or sound. A language shared just between the two of them, one only Killian had ever been able to understand.
Come to me, love. Let me save you.
Muffled whispering kicked up at once, different voices all jumbled together.
“You hear that buzzing?”