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“Where was it?” Luke asked instead. “The tank they took you to?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then how did you make it back to the ocean?”

Syrus scowled at the question. “I don’t know. I collapsed at some point, out in your forests. I believe I received help.”

“From who?”

Syrus’s scowl shifted into a smirk that Luke was nowhere near in the mood for. “Luke. I don’t know.”

“Well, we need to get you back.”

There was an immediate change in the room, tension growing thick in the air, visible in Syrus’s twisted frame. Luke could practically see his hackles rising. Clearly, Syrus had misunderstood Luke’s statement, and his reaction said more than his words had about just how terrifying his time in that tank had been.

“To the ocean,” Luke hastened to clarify. “We need to get you back to the ocean.”

No matter how alarming Syrus’s appearance was, Luke would never send him back to the horrors he’d described in captivity.

“If you take me back in my current state, I’ll die.”

Of all the things Luke didn’t want to hear. He dropped his head into his hands, pressing his fingers hard into his closed eyes. “I can’t— Listen, I have a son.”

“I would never harm your child. Never. Spawn are precious. Vital.”

Syrus’s words had the ring of truth. Luke didn’t know how he could tell—he just could. Whatever those sharp teeth were for, they weren’t for human children.

Or Luke was just an easy mark after all.

Are you willing to take that risk with Colby?

Luke tried to focus on the immediate issue. “I still can’t just…give you my blood.”

“And how will you take me to the ocean as I am?”

That was a good fucking question. Syrus was huge. Without his damaged feet to help Luke along, there was no way in hell Luke could carry him on his own. He would need three or four guys just to attempt it, and who exactly was he supposed to call about a merman relocation?

When the pressure against his eyelids didn’t help, Luke tugged at his hair, hoping the sharp prick of pain would help dislodge some sort of plan from his brain.

It didn’t.

“Why me?”

Luke had been asking the goddamn universe, but Syrus answered him anyway. “Because you were kind and trusting. You should be more discerning.”

And now Luke was being admonished by the very same merman he’d rescued. He tugged harder at his strands. “I couldn’t leave a stranger there to die.”

“I know.” At some point, Syrus’s voice had dropped in register to a low, soothing croon. “It’ll be all right, Luke. I’ll protect you.”

“From what?” Those razor-sharp fucking teeth?

“From everything.”

He sounded so sincere, and the offer made no sense anyway, but Luke was still tempted to ask how Syrus would manage it when he’d been captured and tortured only a few weeks ago.

But that was unfair. Syrus had been ambushed, drugged, and mutilated. Luke wasn’t going to throw that back in his face.

So what were Luke’s options? Let Syrus languish on his guest bed with a tail until he…what, starved? Dried out? Or give him blood, kick him the hell out, and hope he didn’t wreak havoc in the town Luke loved? Or did Luke really have the heart to banish him to the ocean to die?