Butcher Shop Siren

Hephach finds a siren in the back corner of a butcher shop and is immediately drawn to her. She gazes at him with large, pleading eyes. The siren is beautiful in a way that is almost uncanny, so mesmerizing in her despair that he suddenly wishes he had a talent for painting so he could immortalize the scene.

He can't paint for shit, so he does the next best thing and rescues her instead.

Except things are never quite that simple. Sirens feasts on mermaid and human flesh and he is close enough to the latter that he should worry about his safety as he brings her into his home and finds her by his bed in the middle of the night.

As his feelings for her deepens, so does his doubt for the sincerity of those emotions. Was she influencing him somehow? He can't deny that his desire for her as intense as hers is for him, their touches like burning like flames as they reached for one another. It is also impossible to ignore that she is not where she belongs and his selfishness is keeping her from freedom.

How far is he willing to go to keep her with him and how much is she willing to endure before she decides to turn on him?

~~~~~ PG Excerpt ~~~~~

“Aren't you going to use the bolt gun?” he asked. That was normally his weapon of choice as it allowed the death to be clean enough that it would not sully the meat. Some of his customers, Fatehbir had shared before, believed that fear added a certain bitter tang to the meat.

“Special request by one of the customer,” Fatehbir said and placed his phone on the other side of the cage, presumably so he could record the act.

“Is that for your other buyers?” Hephach asked.

“You've never seen me butcher a mermaid before, have you?” he grinned. “People pay good money for this shit. And this little bitch took down several of my men. I'm going to enjoy making it hurt,” he said.

He provided many reasons where Hephach had only asked for one and Fatehbir was grinning as he gave his reasons, vibrating with anticipation. It was clear that he enjoyed making his victims suffer.

“I see,” Hephach would have to deal with the phone before he dealt with the man. “I would rather my face not be featured in it,” he said.

“Oh, I've got the angle all figured out. You just stand right where you're at and I'll handle the rest, pretty boy.”

Hephach arched a brow but refused to be taunted into responding by the comment. He was far from pretty. He knew that some people found him rather intimidating, not just because of his height, but the battle scars that he had on his arms and the right side of his face. “Your other buyers not keen on witnessing the butchering?” he asked instead.

“They trust me,” he said, a jab to him again, but he didn't rise to the bait.

Hephach had dealt with the man long enough to know how little he could be trusted. He would often sell cuts of meat at his shop that should have gone bad months ago. Erlkings, for example, would really only remain fresh for a few scarce weeks before their flesh would begin to rot. But they were not very palatable to begin with, so perhaps any substitution that he made would be an improvement. “Their loss,” Hephach said without inflection.

The butcher sized him up, then visibly decided that he was joking and guffawed. “You're funny,” he said and strode past him.

The mermaid appeared to be less frightened even though imminent death was clear. She was staring at him openly again, as if she considered the butcher to be beneath her notice. The lines of her face were hard with bitter resignation.

He had seen similar expressions on the faces of the people he had killed, but very rarely. He smiled at the mermaid and saw hope flickering in the creature's eyes.