Chapter 1
I open my eyes to find myself surrounded by the sea.
Waves crashing, wrestling for control, the sound thrashing in my ears.
Pulling me under, wrapping my body in an ice-cold, deadly embrace.
I jump, gasping, fighting to fill my lungs with even a morsel of air.
That is when I realize my skin is dry and my blood warm.
I am huddled in a mass of silent blankets, a fort of goose-feather pillows and plush quilts.
The four walls around me are glass. The floorboards are crystal, too, but tinted black so that I cannot see what lurks underneath.
Heaven knows what watches me. No cousin to the creek cottage.
And the water comes from all directions, humming a chantey that’s all its own.
This is a submarine of sorts, then. An underwater ship nestled in the sea.
My exhale of relief is short-lived. I look for an exit, some way of getting out, and find none. No rowboat or sailboat tethered to my sanctuary. How in the devil’s name did I get here?
And more importantly, how will I escape?
The events of the previous day replay in my mind like a three-act opera.
My foolish decision to break into the creek cottage.
The force that compelled me to touch that horn, to stow it away under my cloak, to slip its beak between my lips.
And the stranger who came for me. Who took me. Claimed me as his.
Take my wife. She is of little use to me.
Bastard.
My recollection of the evening’s events ends soon after that.
Did I faint from the shock? Or did the stranger knock me out cold?
Somehow, the mere thought sits upon a lump in my throat.
I remember his eyes, dancing like sunrays at dawn.
I recall his lips at the nape of my neck, his hands on my abdomen.
And now the stranger has imprisoned me in some kind of glass box in the middle of sea, levitating in an in-between place.
I’m far enough below the waves that I can no longer see the sky, but far enough from the bottom of the ocean that I cannot rake my fingers through the sand.
It is as if time does not exist here. Wherever “here” may be.
Where has he gone?
Did he bring me to this place?
As if my thoughts alone have summoned him, I hear a latch sliding free beneath the tinted floorboards of the glass sleeping chamber, and then a panel opens, and the stranger lifts himself up and into the room.
There appears to be a shallow pool, a wading room, hidden below my feet.
He drinks me in slowly, as if checking to make sure all of my parts remain unbruised, unbroken.
“You are awake,” he says.
He, too, is dry, no sign of the tides except for the moisture that drips from his dark locks.
Odd.
“From where have you come?” My voice rings truer than my heart. “Is there a house below this hollow box? A glass castle buried deep beneath the sea? A coffin?”
He cocks his head, the corners of his mouth curling up with amusement.
“So many questions,” he muses.
“By what method did we arrive? I do not see a boat or ship.”
“We had no need for one.”
My eyes narrow. “Do not mock me. I know not how to swim.”
“Oh, but I do, little minnow.” He lowers his voice to a whisper. “All too well.”
Frustrated, I throw up my hands. The chamber has no mirrors—no furniture at all, in fact, with the exception of the pile of plush bedding—so I am unable to lock eyes with my own reflection.
But I catch a glimpse of myself in the glass.
My hair is wild, curling every which way.
My dress is torn at the leg, revealing an unseemly sliver of flesh.
The stranger follows my gaze, and his own darkens.
“I do not have a change of clothes,” I tell him.
His eyes lift to meet mine. “If you prefer, you may remove your clothes and go without.”
A shyness takes over my composure. Uneasy, I cross my arms in front of my chest.
“Do you mean to keep me imprisoned here forever?”
His brows shoot upward. “You followed me here by choice. You are no prisoner.”
“Sir, I do believe—”
“Ryke.”
The name catches me off guard. “What?”
“Ryke,” he repeats, running a hand through his hair, his expression almost sheepish. Embarrassed. “My name is Ryke.”
I pause for a moment, getting my bearings. “Merriah.”
“Tell me, Merriah. What possessed you to attempt to steal my conch?”
Blood rushes to my ears as I remember that feeling. The strong pull, the siren call of fate, urging me to declare the horn my own, to devour the noise whole.
“I am quite unsure,” I confess. “I felt drawn to it. As if phantom hands had reached inside of my body, hooked my chest with an anchor, and tugged.”
He looks up, alarmed. “A pull? Of this you are certain?”
“I do not see why I should have to answer your nagging queries when you refuse to address my own.”
The stranger—Ryke—chuckles. “Fair enough, my minnow. We are at my home, my true home, at the bottom of the sea. Here you are no prisoner but a most cherished guest. You may come and go as you please. Say the word, and I shall deliver you back to the rock-strewn shores.”
My breath hitches as I take in his candid words.
“You missed a question, Sir Ryke,” I say.
“You have not confessed how you delivered me to your glacial haven. This room lacks windows and doors. I see no floating tavern. We are trapped, you and me. Here, I am but a bird in a glass cage. And yet, you ascend from below.”
He nods once. “I told you already: we swam. Well, I swam. You slept.”
I nearly let out an imprudent sound. “And how, pray tell, did we move against the current, our heads beneath the surface, for so long? I have looked toward the coast. We must be miles from shore.”
Ryke smiles then, a warm, glowing grin that bathes me in light and sends sparks through every ash and ember in my body, toward my very soul.
Against my better judgment, I return the look with a smile of my own. “You will not tell me, then?”
A shake of his head. A smirk of his lips.
“No,” he says. “But I can show you.”
Ryke leans down to open the trap door.
I watch in horror as he dives headfirst into the ravenous current of the sea.
And nearly hits me with his tail.