The Sea Siren

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Vivian

My hand settles over my blade on the vanity, my body stiff.

The man in the distorted mirror hasn't moved.

Michel.

He hasn't changed much since that day I last saw him, striding down the gangplank towards the bustling city, leaving me in a gown he'd bought to marry me in. Leaving me on that ship to endure the hardest trial I'd faced yet.

A trial that threatened all of me—my mind, my heart, my morals... my dignity.

Seeing him now, here, unscathed and smiling beyond anything, makes a mockery of my pain.

How have I failed for this long?

How has he managed to escape my fury all these years?

I release my hair slowly, feeling the braid unravel over my back. My first instinct isn't to cover myself up. It isn't to scream for help. It's to turn in my seat, to face him, feeling my heart race excitedly in my chest.

As irrational as it is, I'm not afraid of this man.

I'm glad he's here.

His hair is longer than it was when we were together, but his eyes are the same. Dark, impenetrably black. Almost no white in them to be seen. I don't know how I ever looked into them before and felt even an inkling of trust.

The corner of his mouth cocks upward. "Vivian."

It dawns on me that he's actually here—that this isn't my imagination. Not a dream. I watch his eyes drink in my features, traveling lower and my grip on my dagger tightens. This is no stranger to my body and his confident gaze expresses that.

"You're still as beautiful as people claim, even covered in filth."

I lift out of my seat, silent.

Behind him is an empty hallway, a sure enough escape if ever there was one. But I've waited too long for this moment. My lack of an answer makes his head tilt in question.

"All this time and you have nothing to say to me?"

"There is nothing to say," I say. "Only action to take."

"I suspected you'd say as much..." He steps further into the room, his own garments as filthy as my own. "I've heard rumors you've been following me for quite some time now."

"Rumors?" I choke out a laugh. "You've been on the run from me for years, Michel. Every port, the squealing townsfolk would spill the truth... that you'd run out of town with nothing but the clothes on your back whenever you heard my name."

He smiles softly as I point my blade at him.

"You have always known I'd be coming for you."

"And yet, here I am. Here we are, our roles reversed."

I stare at him, trying to make sense of those words, understand why he's coming... how he knew where I was. He is supposed to be in Port Worth.

"For what it's worth, it wasn't personal," he says, closing the door behind him.

Hate swells within me, multiplying so rapidly I don't even feel myself release the blade in his direction, watching it lodge into the door beside his head. I watch his back quiver, watch several blades of his hair cascade down to the floor freshly severed.

He turns fast, his eyes wide with shock.

So far beyond small talk, I charge across the room, grabbing my pistol from my belt.