Chapter 1 – Keto
KETO
Iswim through the waves, my tail leaving a trail of blood behind me. With each movement, pain radiates through my entire body. My teeth chatter, and my stomach turns. I look back one last time, but my enemies are long gone.
But I didn’t kill them all. Right? Of course not…
That’s the thing about mermaid hunters. They’re like cockroaches.
Every time you step on one, ten others come crawling out.
If I could swim until I could reach a mermaid healer, I would, but I’m not sure how much longer I have before I pass out.
I know a safe place up ahead, if only I can reach it. Lucky for me.
My lips curl into a pained smile. Yeah, right, I’m super lucky. The luckiest bleeding mermaid-slave in the sea.
I spot the island up ahead that I've been trying to reach. I swim around to the other side and come closer until I reach the sandy bottom of the shore where I know she’ll see me.
Using my elbows, I climb toward the island like a dying creature.
For a second, my head surfaces, and I just lay, propping my top half out of the water, breathing deeply.
My arms shake and my body aches, but none of it matters. Because I survived… without being trapped in a cage. Again.
I shudder. That’s the best I can hope for.
At least I took down a few of the bastards in the process.
Yeah, most of the other mermaids are smarter than I am. They stay in our cities far beneath the surface of the water where they have lives, friends, and families. More than that, they’re far from the humans who obsess over their existence.
But me? I’m despised and feared by my own kind. They want nothing to do with me, and so I spend far too much of my time close to the surface of the human world.
And unlike most mermaids, I’ve developed a fondness for breezes, sunshine, and the feeling of warm sand beneath my skin. I still avoid humans whenever possible, but I like sunning myself on desolate islands, eating the fruit from the trees, and experiencing surface weather.
If only this world was as safe as it is beautiful and strange.
Closing my eyes, I will my fins to shift and my legs to appear.
The agony that comes from my injured tail makes my vision go black for too long.
The brightness of the sun burns through the darkness, and I open my eyes, wincing.
My face is partially covered in sand. I'm lying on the shore, my body partially submerged.
I need to climb out. I need to get help.
“Keto!”
Tilting my head, I see Lamia emerge from beneath the shadows of the thick trees on the otherwise barren island. The lower-half of her body is that of a serpent, bright green and scaled. She slithers rapidly across the sand and her serpent-half shifts into legs as she kneels down at my side.
“What have they done to you now?” Her voice wavers with unshed tears.
She pulls my head onto her knees. And her face hovers above mine. As always, I’m overtaken by her beauty. She has black hair down to her waist, and her pale green eyes shine in contrast. “Who was it this time?” she asks.
I shift, wincing in pain at the movement. “Mermaid hunters.”
“Fuck,” she mutters.
“Sometimes I wish I could just hide like you do.”
The second the words leave my mouth, I want to turn back time. A flash of hurt comes over her face. I know what she’s thinking. She wishes she could leave. She wants to know that she won’t hurt anyone, but she can’t be sure. And she refuses to ever kill again.
So she’s here, a willing prisoner, left with nothing but the memories of her dead children. Meanwhile, I’m the jerk who complained about my freedom.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
She gives a sad smile. “It’s okay. I’m just glad you could reach me.”
Her gaze moves to my legs, and her eyes widen.
“Harpoon,” I tell her, as if she can’t already tell from the massive, bleeding wound.
She sets my head back gently on the shore and slips down into the water. Lifting my injured leg, she studies the wound, while I try my best not to scream in pain. My fingers claw into the sand, and I bite my lip until I taste blood.
“I can heal it,” she whispers.
Placing her hands on both sides of my injury, she closes her eyes. First, I feel the familiar tingle, but then the burning comes. I whimper as tears slip down my face. I sense my bones knitting back together, my muscles healing, and my skin closing.
At last, she sags over me. My leg still hurts, but not nearly as badly.
I sit up and help her sit up too, with an arm around her shoulders.
For a minute we both remain still, staring out at the sunrise.
“Why can’t they just leave you alone?” she asks, her soft voice filled with anger.
“They’re assholes.”
She laughs, and I treasure the sound as something priceless and rare. “Yeah, they are.”
“But they’re still better than my brother.”
She sits up more steadily, and I drop my arm from around her. Her gaze moves to the collar around my neck, and the weight of the metal seems to grow heavier.
“Now that’s one person I wouldn’t mind killing.”
I grin at her, glad to hear her joking. I must have caught her on a good day. “You and me both.”
Something subtle changes in the water. Perhaps the temperature? Or the speed of the waves?
I turn to Lamia. “Something’s wrong.”
She frowns. “What?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She whirls around just as men emerge from the shadows of her trees. The hunters! The ones who survived!
My heart races.
The leader smiles. Each man holds an automatic harpoon.
“Come on then, mermaid, don’t make us kill your friend.” His finger twitches on the trigger of his weapon.
Lamia stands, and the men’s eyes sweep over her tiny dress in a way that sends the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.
“Leave my island, now!” she orders.
I stand slowly, favoring my injured leg. The men’s eyes sweep over my naked flesh in that way that makes me uneasy.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” the leader says, “but someone will pay a very generous price for your little freak. I’m just not willing to give that money up.”
“You’re going to die here,” Lamia says, her voice soft and sad.
He laughs. “Excuse me if I’m not afraid.”
“Lamia,” I whisper.
If we back up slowly and stay in the water, I’ll call my creatures. They’ll tear these men to pieces, and we’ll be safe. I'm ready, but before I can act, I realize that it's already too late. I can see it in her eyes. Lamia has already decided that they’ll die by her hands.
I don’t want her to do it. She hates killing. It hurts her in a profound way.
These men just aren’t worth it.
I grab her arm and haul her one step back into the water.
Instantly, I feel my connection to the sea like something powerful and tangible.
It spreads out through the cold waters in all directions.
A deep awareness of the sea creatures makes tingles spread along my skin.
Not far, one of my beasts lurk. I nudge his mind, and his eyes spring open.
He begins swimming toward me in a flurry of movement. Soon, he’ll be here. And he’ll rip these humans to shreds.
The men are closing in around us. They think they’re being subtle, but they’re not.
I count seven of them, all dressed in simple, modern human clothing. They carry their automatic harpoons confidently, as if their weapons will protect them from me.
They’ve seen what I can do, how I can control the waters and the sea creatures, but they think I’m powerless on this island. They’ll see how wrong they are soon.
“I’m not some mindless beast, some creature to be hunted,” I tell them. “Capturing me is the same as any human woman—it's kidnapping. Do you guys really feel good about that?”
The leader smirks. “I’ll feel good when I look in my bank account. That’s all that really matters.”
Lamia takes a step closer to them, shrugging away from me when I try to pull her back to my side. “So, it’s all about the money to you?” she asks.
The man smiles. “No, sweetheart. It isn’t.
When I think about what they're going to do to her, I get hard as stone.
The idea of them pulling her apart piece by piece until they know what she is gets me every time.
The thought of her tail lying like a piece of fish on a table, the idea of her heart, eyes, and brain dissected like a monkey—that's why I do this. The money is just a perk.”
Images flash across my eyes. I remember the tiny cage so small I could barely move, the little tools used to rip scales from my flesh. I'll never forget the needles filled with substances that burned their way through my body.
Memories of the one and only time I was caught.
I’m breathing hard. It’s nearly impossible to focus on the situation before me. I want to cry, to slip beneath the waters and hide until I can’t remember, until my memories can’t hurt me anymore.
Instead, I tighten my hands into fists and glare. My memories might hurt, but not as badly as being caught again.
Lamia slides closer and closer to them. Their weapons jerk from me to her. They look uneasy. And I can imagine they’re wondering why she isn’t afraid… why she’s heading right for them.
I hope they don’t realize the truth before my creature can reach me.
Come on, I urge the little hydra. I need you.
His purr of acknowledgment moves through my mind. He’s close. So close. But not close enough.
Lamia continues her trek toward them until she’s just ten feet away from the leader.
Oh fuck, this is not going to end well.
The man smiles at her, and again his gaze moves over her in a creepy way. “Either you’re not very smart, or you’re terribly brave. Either way, I get the feeling no one will miss you if you disappear. Maybe my men and I will simply take you with us… for entertainment.”
I frown. What does that mean?
But Lamia seems to understand. Every muscle in her body tenses. And I know what’s going to happen before it does.
She’ll kill again. It’ll be all my fault.
“Lamia, I got it,” I call, desperate to stop her even though I know it’s too late.