Chapter 1 – Keto #2
A second later, she shifts. Her legs disappear, replaced by her snake-half.
I see the men’s eyes widen. I know what they’re thinking—they’ve found another fantastical being to capture. If only their greed didn’t cloud their fear.
She makes a sound, a small hiss under her breath, and leaps. Instantly, she comes crashing into the leader. Her fangs have elongated, her scales blossoming on her skin.
One man shoots his harpoon. She easily avoids it, using the leader as her shield. The harpoon goes through his chest, and out the other side. His mouth opens, and blood pours out.
Another man shoots. She uses the body again, and a second harpoon goes through his shoulder.
Shit!
I can’t wait any longer. She’s good, but there are too many of them and only one of her.
Calling to the waves, I bring them high over my head behind me and send them crashing into the man closest to the shore. He screams and falls as the water drags him back. I sense him struggling beneath the water, but I ignore him.
I lift the waves again. The second man leaps out of the way, but I send my water after him. It claws into him like a hand, and drags him back into the ocean with his friend.
Four men remain.
Lamia leaps onto one of them, and her eyes are wild. She uses her fangs to tear out his throat and then sinks her teeth into the mess, feasting on his blood. I look away to the remaining men. One of them has leveled his harpoon at her.
My muscles tense and my hydra explodes out of the water, chomping the man in one bite.
The little hyrdra, Haskul, is beautiful as he throws back his head and eats the man.
Another dragon head explodes from the water, and he feasts on another of our attackers.
Before the other man can escape, my hydra sends its tail into him.
He goes flying, hits the trunk of a tree with a sickening sound, and lies unmoving on the sand.
She warned them that they’d die here. If only they had listened. I shake my head. I feel a little bad about their gruesome deaths, but it’s also nice to know they won’t be hunting me again anytime soon. Or any other innocent creatures.
One of the hydra’s heads turn to me. I move to Haskul, and he leans his massive snout down. Similar to a dragon, his blue-scaled flesh shimmers like diamonds. I pet him gently as he purrs.
Another dragon head nudges me from behind. I laugh and turn around to pet him too. My two-headed hydra is sweet. He's still little more than a child, but he's dangerous when angered. Luckily for me, he's one of the many beasts who sees me as its mother—the mother of all sea monsters.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Then my thoughts stray to how these hunters got here. “Can you search for any boats in the area? Or more humans who smell like these? If you find them, you have my permission to kill them and destroy what you find.”
The hydra rubs against me one last time, then slips back into the waves.
Turning, I look back at Lamia. She’s feeding on the dead men, drinking their blood. Her face and chest are covered in the scarlet liquid, and her eyes are wild. Her fangs pierce their skin deeply, and her jaw is wide.
My heart squeezes. It’s been so long since she killed last, since she gave into her desire for blood. And I’m the one who brought this to her door.
Fucking hell. She deserves better.
“Lamia.” I start toward her.
She looks back, blood running down her chin. “Leave! Now!”
I shake my head. “It’s okay!”
“Leave!” she shouts. “You aren’t safe here! I can’t control myself.”
I freeze, my emotions warring within me. “I’m not afraid of you.”
Sadness fills her eyes. “I’m afraid of me... please.”
I can’t seem to walk away from her, but I also don’t step forward. She’s my friend. I’m not afraid of her, but I also know what it feels like to see myself as a monster, to want to be left alone.
“This was my fault,” I tell her. “If I had known the men were still hunting me—“
“It’s not your fault.” Her voice is soft. “This is what I am. What I’ll always be, no matter how hard I fight it.”
“No, Lamia—“
“Yes,” she says. “Now go, please.”
I step backward until my feet hit the water, but I look at her one last time, covered in blood, tears sliding down her cheeks. “I’m not afraid of you. You hurt those men to protect me. Not because you’re dangerous.”
“Keto—“
“I love you,” I say. “I’m going to check on the hunters’ boat and make sure they’re gone and we’re safe. Okay? Then, I’ll be back.”
After a long moment, she nods.
I turn and leap back into the water, my feet shifting into a tail.
When I reach the other side of the island, I rise above the water and instantly spot the little boat…
or what’s left of it. My hydra has torn it to pieces, leaving wreckage floating in the water around it. I smell blood in the water.
Any mermaid hunter who survived our first two battles didn’t survive this one.
I turn to head back to Lamia, before she completely spirals out of control.
Suddenly, the metal collar around my neck tightens.
I claw at it, trying to breathe. I struggle beneath the waves, clawing harder and harder on instinct.
My vision blackens, and my thoughts slur together.
When I think all is lost, the collar loosens.
I breathe, sucking in and out rapidly until my vision slowly returns.
I’m glad I’m in the ocean. Glad to know that my tears are blending into the water.
My brother has called again. Like the slave I am, I have no choice but to go.
Or else next time he might not stop until I’m dead.
Tremors wrack my body as I think of what death is like for an immortal goddess.
I think back to the last time I died. I woke in the Underworld, reliving each moment of my death, remembering the excruciating moment my head was severed from my body.
The memories didn't stop the whole time I made the climb up from Hades’ dark realm back to the world of the living.
It’s like a nightmare that won’t end, because the second I emerge from the Underworld, I’m still my brother’s slave. Only, in the time I was gone, he killed as many of my creatures as possible, without me there to protect them.
All of it was to teach me a lesson, a lesson I’ve never forgotten.
One day, even if I continue to obey him, he won’t stop. He’ll kill me, and there’s nothing I can do to stop him. I’ll experience death again. Knowing that haunts me whether I’m awake or asleep.
So, I must go. I must obey him.
I try to turn back around, to tell Lamia so she won’t think I abandoned her. But as I try to swim in the opposite direction from my brother, the collar tightens again. I go as far as I can until I can’t breathe. More tears slide down my cheeks as I swim away from Lamia.
The collar finally loosens. I look back at the island. I can’t see her.
This will destroy her. She’ll think I left because of what she is and what she did. I know how that feels… it’s awful, like a tearing in your heart that doesn’t seem to stop.
I’ll make it up to her, when I’ve done whatever awful thing my brother wants me to do now.
I can’t remain any longer, wishing things were different.
Rushing through the water, I swim past my sweet hydra. One day my brother will end my life, but if I can help it, that day won’t be today.
I just have to be fast enough.