Claimed by the Mer-Shifter Prince I Made Cry novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Bait and Tarp

She hides the tub from the searchers and cuts off one iron cuff; he gives her his name and says he has twelve days to reach the Drowned Gate.

"Look all you want," I said, and opened the door wide.

I was lying.

My ankle was still in the hand of a man who had a tail.

The two men stepped inside and stood very still.

They didn't look at the workbench or the nets or my father's mug.

They looked at the room.

The taller one turned his head slowly toward the blue tarp.

"What's that?" he asked.

"My dad's bait tub," I said. "Don't lift that. It's been closed up six years and it's rank."

"Bait."

"Rotten herring. You'll be smelling it till Christmas."

He took one step toward it.

The hand on my ankle tightened.

I grabbed the nearest bucket from under the workbench, the one with the old chum my father had never thrown out.

It had been sitting in the dark since the funeral.

I tripped, very naturally, and flung the whole thing across the floor in front of his boots.

The smell hit.

It was the worst thing I had ever smelled in my life, and I had cleaned rental cottages after spring break.

"Oh, no," I said. "Oh, I'm so sorry."

The tall man gagged into his sleeve.

The other one took a step back and said something I didn't catch.

"We'll check the beach," the tall man said, wiping his eyes.

He didn't blink when he said it, even though his eyes were streaming.

I didn't like that.

"Good luck," I said. "Mind the step."

They left.

I shut the door, slid the bolt and stood with my back against it until I heard the hull scrape off the slip.

Then I pulled the tarp off the tub.

The man lay with his chin barely above the waterline and his gray eyes wide open.

"They did not blink," I said.

"No," he said. "They would not."

"Who are they?"

"My uncle's guard."

"Your uncle's guard," I said, "hunts you in dry suits with a rubber boat."

"He does not like to come ashore himself."

He tried to sit up.

His arms shook, and the chain clanked against the iron edge of the tub, and he made a sound through his teeth that I felt in my stomach.

"Hold still," I said.

"The iron," he said. "It burns."

I looked at his wrists.

The skin around each cuff was black and wet, and a thin gray smoke curled up where the metal touched the water.

I went and got my father's bolt cutters off the wall.

"This is going to hurt," I said.

"Yes."

"I'm going to do it anyway."

He nodded once and put his left wrist on the edge of the tub, face turned away.

I put on my father's thick work gloves.

I set the jaws of the bolt cutters against the band and leaned.

The first cut did nothing.

The second made a crack, and the band split.

The gloves hissed.

The cuff fell into the tub, and the water around it went cloudy for a second, then clear.

He didn't scream.

He pressed his forehead against his arm and shook, and a sound came out of him so small and so low that I almost couldn't bear it.

"Done," I said. "One more."

"Not yet," he said. "Not yet, please. I cannot."

"All right."

I sat down on an overturned crate and took off the gloves.

The leather was eaten through at the palm.

"Okay," I said. "I'm Minnie. This is my dad's boathouse. I don't know what you are, and I don't know what I'm doing, so I'm going to need you to talk to me."

He lifted his head slowly.

"Soren," he said.

"Soren."

"I am what you think I am."

"I think you're a man with a fish tail."

"Close enough."

"Why were you chained to a log?"

His mouth tightened.

"Because my uncle wants my name," he said. "The court meets in twelve days, at the spring tide, at the stone arch off this point. Your people call it the Drowned Gate."

I knew it.

Everyone in Harrow Point knew it, a black arch of rock that only showed at the lowest tide of the year.

My father used to say never to take a boat near it.

"I have to stand under it at midnight," Soren said. "If I am not there, the court will declare me dead, and my uncle takes the throne."

"The throne."

"I am the king's son."

I laughed.

It was an awful laugh, high and cracked.

"You're a prince," I said. "A prince, in my dead father's bait tub, and I just threw rotten fish at your uncle's guard."

"You did it well," Soren said.

His mouth did the thing again, the almost-smile.

Then it faded.

"They will come back," he said. "They do not give up. Minnie."

It was the first time he'd said my name, and I felt it down to my knees.

"Yes?"

"If you keep me here, you will be in danger. I would understand if you wished me gone."

I looked at the cuff still locked around his other wrist, at the black burn under it, at the hands that had held my ankle like a drowning man.

Then I got up, went to the door and bolted the second lock.

"Twelve days," I said. "What do you eat?"

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend