Escaping the Siren Prince

Open Water

By late afternoon, the sun had begun its slow descent toward the western horizon, turning the sea from bright turquoise to deeper blue. The wind had strengthened while they'd been anchored, and Petar eventually announced they were skipping one final cove because the trip back would take longer in the changing conditions.

No one complained.

Music played from speakers near the helm as they began the return journey. The Italian students had somehow persuaded the Irish women to dance with them near the stern, while the German children slept beneath towels after an entire day in the sun.

Cora stood along the port side, one hand curled around the railing.

The island was visible ahead.

Home wasn't the right word for it, but the sight still gave her an unexpected sense of relief.

The village was too distant to distinguish individual buildings, but she could see the rising shape of the island and the pale suggestion of limestone cliffs along its edge.

Another forty minutes, Cora estimated. Maybe fifty with the wind working against them, and then she would be back at the harbor.

She had spent most of the day successfully avoiding the question of what she planned to do once they returned. Now, with the island growing steadily larger in the distance, it was becoming more difficult to ignore.

Part of her wanted to find Luka Varek and demand the answers he'd refused to give her that morning. Another, considerably more rational part wanted to return to Marija's guesthouse, lock the door, and put something heavy in front of it for good measure.

Then there was the third option, the one she had been trying particularly hard not to think about.

The dream.

Luka beneath the water, his dark hair drifting around his face as though he belonged there. His features shifting into those of the man from the cove. His hand reaching for hers just before the singing began.

Cora tightened her fingers around the railing, annoyed with herself for letting the memory intrude on what had otherwise been several wonderfully normal hours.

A wave struck the hull, lifting the boat beneath her feet before dropping it again. Cora adjusted her balance automatically, barely giving the movement any thought. The water had grown rougher since they'd left the shelter of the last cove, but nothing about the conditions seemed particularly dangerous. The afternoon wind had strengthened, turning the previously calm surface choppy, and Petar had already reduced their speed for the trip back.

Another swell rolled beneath them.

Behind Cora, someone shouted, followed almost immediately by laughter. She turned to find one of the Italian students staring helplessly at a tray of empty plastic cups he'd managed to knock onto the deck. They scattered in every direction as the boat rocked, and Dario swore in Croatian while lunging after them before they could disappear overboard.

Everyone's attention shifted toward the commotion.

Cora smiled despite herself and turned slightly to watch.

The next wave hit harder.

The boat rolled unexpectedly to starboard, and Cora's hip slammed against the railing. She reached instinctively for the metal bar as her weight shifted, but her hand, damp from the spray, slipped across its surface instead of closing around it.

Her stomach lurched.

For one strange, suspended second, she felt nothing beneath her feet.

Then the Adriatic swallowed her.

The impact drove the air from her lungs. Cold water closed over her head as the momentum of the fall carried her beneath the surface, replacing the music, voices, and engine noise with the muffled roar of bubbles rushing past her ears.

Cora reacted on instinct, kicking hard and pulling herself toward the wavering light overhead. Her head broke through the surface seconds later, and she dragged in a desperate breath.

"Hey!"

She spun toward the boat.

It was already moving away.

"HEY!"

The wind caught her shout and tore it apart almost as soon as it left her mouth. Music still played from the speakers near the stern, competing with the engine and the rush of water against the hull. Everyone had been looking inward when she'd fallen, distracted by the spilled cups and sudden roll of the boat at exactly the wrong moment.

No one had seen her go over.

Cora thrust one arm above her head and waved as hard as she could.

"PETAR!"

A wave rose between them, swallowing the boat from view.

For several terrifying seconds, all Cora could see was water. When the swell finally lowered enough for the boat to reappear, the white hull looked noticeably smaller.

"PETAR! HEY!"

She screamed until her throat hurt, but no one appeared at the railing. No one turned. Nothing about the boat's course changed.

Cora started swimming after it.

She made it three strokes before years of training and fieldwork cut through the panic screaming at her to chase the only safe thing she could see.

That was stupid.

The boat was moving under engine power. She would never catch it, and exhausting herself trying would turn an already dangerous situation into a deadly one.

Cora forced herself to stop.

Panic burned through her chest, but she pushed beneath it, searching for the part of her brain that understood open water and survival rather than the part currently imagining herself disappearing into several hundred feet of Adriatic Sea.

She needed to control her breathing, conserve energy and stay buoyant. Most importantly, she needed to trust that someone on that boat was eventually going to notice she was gone.

Cora rolled onto her back and spread her arms and legs, allowing the saltwater to support as much of her weight as possible. The position felt absurdly passive when every instinct demanded that she move, scream, do something, but she knew better than to waste energy fighting the water.

She drew in a slow breath, held it briefly, then released it.

Again.

Gradually, her heart stopped trying to hammer its way out of her chest.

The island remained visible beyond her feet, and Cora focused on it.

That mattered.

She wasn't lost in open sea with no idea where land was. The boat would notice she was missing. There had been twelve passengers when they'd left that morning, a small enough group that surely someone would realize there were only eleven when they reached the harbor. Petar would turn around.

Cora lifted her head enough to find the shrinking white shape in the distance.

Any second now, someone would notice.

They had to.

She watched until her neck began to ache from holding her head above the water.

The boat continued toward the island.

Twenty minutes later, Cora could no longer see it.

The island, however, remained, and Cora decided that was going to have to be enough.

She alternated between floating on her back and using a slow, controlled survival backstroke to keep herself oriented toward shore. The urge to simply start swimming for the island was almost overwhelming, but distance over open water was deceptive. What looked manageable from the surface could easily be several miles, especially with waves constantly obscuring her view.

She had no flotation device, no phone, no shoes and nothing she could use to signal a passing vessel. All she had was a swimsuit, a pair of shorts and a body that was already beginning to register how long it had been working against the water.

So Cora treated the situation like a problem.

Conserve energy. Maintain buoyancy. Control breathing. Move only enough to keep herself oriented and prevent the current from carrying her farther away.

She could do that.

For a while, she did.

The problem was the sun.

It continued sinking toward the horizon no matter how determinedly Cora tried not to watch it. Every time she checked, the distance between the brilliant orange disk and the water seemed to have narrowed.

With it came memories she absolutely did not need.

Beaches emptying while daylight still remained. Fishing boats secured in the harbor long before dark. Parents calling children from the water. Marija's expression when she'd realized Cora had gone to the northern cove.

When sun touches sea, you come out.

"Not helpful," Cora muttered.

Her voice sounded unnervingly small surrounded by so much water.

She continued floating.

Without her phone, time became difficult to measure. Forty minutes might have passed, or an hour. Eventually, she suspected it had been longer. Her shoulders had begun to ache, and the muscles along her thighs cramped intermittently whenever she worked too hard to maintain her position against the waves.

Several times, Cora switched to a relaxed elementary backstroke, gaining what distance she could without burning through her remaining energy before rolling onto her back to rest again.

The island was still there.

She thought it might be closer, but after staring at the same darkening stretch of coastline for so long, she no longer trusted her perception. The current could have been helping her toward shore.

Or she simply wanted desperately to believe that it was.

Cora began scanning the surrounding water for boats.

Surely there would be someone. A fishing vessel returning late, another excursion boat, a private yacht heading toward the harbor. She didn't care who it was. She only needed one person to come close enough to see her.

But as afternoon faded toward evening, something happened that Cora had already witnessed from shore several times.

The water around the island emptied.

The realization settled over her slowly, bringing with it a dread far colder than the sea.

Everyone was going home.

Not because the weather was worsening.

Because the sun was setting.

No one was coming out here after dark.

Cora rolled onto her stomach and started swimming.

Conserving energy still mattered, but so did getting close enough to shore that someone might see or hear her before the remaining daylight disappeared. She settled into a controlled rhythm, relying on years of swimming during fieldwork to keep her movements efficient even as exhaustion dragged at every muscle.

Reach, pull, breathe, kick.

She counted fifty strokes before allowing herself to rest, then forced herself through another fifty.

The island refused to grow nearly as quickly as she needed it to.

When Cora looked toward the horizon again, the sun was touching the sea.

She stopped swimming.

For several seconds, she simply stared as the brilliant orange edge met the dark line of the Adriatic.

"No." The word left her on a breath.

Every warning she'd dismissed over the past several days seemed to rise at once.

Cora turned toward the island and began swimming again, faster now despite everything she knew about exhaustion.

"No, no, no."

Daylight disappeared with astonishing speed. The brilliant blue water of the afternoon deepened to navy, and the troughs between the waves turned nearly black. With the fading light went some of Cora's control, her measured breathing becoming harder to maintain as she imagined the enormous unseen world extending beneath her.

Something brushed her ankle.

Cora kicked violently and spun around, heart racing.

There was nothing there.

Only dark water.

"Stop it," she whispered, though she wasn't entirely sure whether she was speaking to herself or the ocean.

She forced herself forward again.

Her shoulders burned with every stroke, and her legs felt increasingly heavy, but when she lifted her head she could finally see tiny points of light appearing along the distant shoreline.

The harbor.

Hope surged so sharply it almost hurt.

"Come on."

She put her face back into the water and pulled harder, concentrating on those lights every time she turned to breathe. If she could see them, she could reach them. Maybe not quickly, maybe not before full darkness, but she had a direction.

One stroke.

Then another.

Her hand entered the water and pulled.

Then, something closed around her ankle.

This time, there was no mistaking it.

Cora screamed.

She barely had time to inhale before she was yanked beneath the surface.