The Sea Siren

Chapter One

Vivian

He's here.

I know he's here.

"Search the island!" I bellow, hearing uncontrolled rage in my voice. It's never been this anarchic. I've made it my lifes mission to suppress all of the primitive chaos within my chest. I learned how to from the best.

Aggie hovers like a bird at my side, watching as I assemble weapons onto my body, preparing myself for the siege I have just begun to wage on this small, insignificant isle.

I've traveled a long way from the Vale, hoping I'd see this day. This moment.

This revenge.

It's been four years since I climbed onto that ship as a girl, intending to follow Michel Cadieux into whatever adventures his life brought him, coaxed by his sickeningly sweet words and ability to make any woman weak in the bedroom.

He took advantage of my situation, my lack of protection.

"Eldar always hoped this day would come for you," Aggie says, passing me my blade, crusted in ruby jewels—a gift from my rescuer, a man who was more a father to me than my own flesh and blood. He is the reason I am here today, the only reason I survived Michel at all.

"He is watching over us."

"His death may not heal your wounds, Vivian."

Out of the weapons laid before me, I choose Eldar's pistol and Bastian's scimitar. "But it will bring me justice."

She grabs my nape as I pass her, ravenous for blood, one of the only people who has the courage to stop me when I'm like this. "Relish in this and return with peace of mind. You deserve to hear him scream."

She gets it.

With a nod, I leave her to man the Orion, stepping out of the Captain's quarters, into the darkened hallways leading to the spacious, magnificent deck. The buckles tracing up the leg of my boot gleam against the harsh sunlight, sending blinding rays in various directions, highlighting the impressive mahogany square rig brig I'm aboard.

My ship—once Eldar's. Captain Eldar's.

He died in my arms, leaving his most prized possession under my command. It took the crew a long time to understand why. I stare off, watching my men and women wage war upon the wealthy people of Soilles.

I've given them orders to tear apart every goddamn villa in this province until he's located, until he's dragged to my feet. It'll be even sweeter if I find him myself.

The summer wind carries rich spices and insense through the breeze, heightening my senses as I trudge off the oak gangplank onto the orange gravel. Cayenne. Sage. Firewood.

My legs, which have been idle after three months at sea, stretch in long strides until I'm sprinting as fast as my feet can manage, pushing past an old man trying to race out of his abode with a good deal of wealth in his arms.

Little does he know, my crew have no orders to strip them dry today.

I seek only one treasure on his land.

"Move," I snarl to a woman racing by me with her child. The little one isn't wise enough to understand a siege. Her eyes don't understand why I carry weapons in both my hands, why I slam every wardrobe and door in this estate until I come up dry, why I scream when I find them bare.

They're hiding behind bloomed steiolla bushes when I pass through their doors empty-handed, onto the next house... and the next... and the next.

Bastian, my other right hand, is strangling answers out of a man. A giant with arms of steel, he has the poor son-of-a-bitch suspended a damn near foot off of the ground. "You know where he is. She told me."