Chapter 24: Chapter 24: No One is on Your Side

I wake hours later. I’m back in my rooms. In my bed.

Someone must have carried me back and laid me here on top of the blankets. I don’t know who it was, but I hope it wasn’t him. That it wasn’t Issar.

I can still smell him on me. I can still feel where his hands held me and his nails dug into me. It feels like a nightmare, like some awful trick of the gods.

How can this be happening?

I get up and my head hurts. It feels like I’ve smashed it on something, though I know I didn’t.

I walk into the bathroom and strip off. I want that dress off me. I want his stench off me. I need to be clean.

I run a bath and wash myself quickly, and for once, there is no pleasure in the water. No relief. I scrub my skin till it’s red raw. Till it feels like I might be scrubbing at the very scales beneath.

The creature in me protests, but I ignore her.

And then I dry myself and put on the most covering, most claustrophobic dress there is. I want to be covered. I want every inch of my skin, every tiny part of me hidden away.

I sit in the darkness.

A maid comes in at some point and puts a food tray down. The room is cold and she makes a fire, but I ignore its heat. I ignore its light.

And without my care, it falls to embers that lie glowing in the grate, covering the room in a red hue that reminds me of my blood.

The blood he spilled.

The blood he will spill again; I am sure of it.

I hear a tap on my door and I know who it is without looking.

I’m sitting on the couch, my legs curled up to my chest, in as close to a fetal position as I can get upright.

I meet his eyes as he walks in the door. He stops.

“What do you want?” I ask. My eyes are flashing with anger, hurt, and pure, raging fury.

“I came to see you,” Helos states as if it’s not obvious that he’s standing right there.

“What? You want another taste, to get your fill before your precious siren is gone forever?” I snarl.

He narrows his eyes at me. “What would you have me do, Kera? You want me to fight, is that it?” he says.

“I want you to not just hand me over to him. You know what he will do to me,” I cry. I’m on my feet now, my fists clenched, though I don’t remember moving an inch.

He growls. “I don’t have any choice.”

“What you? A king versus a warlord?” I scoff.

“He isn’t just a warlord,” Helos snaps. “Even you know that. This is Issar we’re talking about.”

“Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I don’t know what he is? He’s spent day after day showing me exactly what he’s capable of,” I state.

My body is shaking, shaking at the memories of what that man put me through, knowing he is going to do it again.

He is going to torture me over and over again.

And this time, it will be so much worse than before.

This time, he knows what I am.

Helos shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Kera. I can’t do it. He has an entire city being held for ransom. He will raze it to the ground if I don’t hand you over.”

I shut my eyes and look away. I don’t want to see him right now.

“You know if I could I would, but I am a king. It’s not just my life, my wants that count. I have to think of my people. I have to put their needs first and not just my own desires.”

“And what of me? Do I not even matter? Does my life not even count?” I ask, and my voice catches as I start to choke.

“You can’t expect me to sacrifice thousands of my people in a needless war.”

I know what he says is true. I know it in my heart. I know Issar would come and destroy this entire city if that’s what it takes for him to get me. He would kill thousands of innocents, and he wouldn’t think twice.

But, in this moment, I am selfish. I am so scared, so petrified, and I want, for once, someone to fight for me. Not just to possess me, not just to lock me away for their own selfish desires, but because they see me.

The ~real~ me.

The person, not the siren.

I want Helos to be this someone.

When I look at him right now, all I see is the pain and the anger and the hurt that this world has given me and all the deep, devastating disappointment of everyone in it.

“Get out,” I say quietly.

He sighs.

“Get out,” I scream, hurling something in his direction, and he leaves as it crashes into the wall behind his head.