The Hunted

by Bethany-Kris

  “Mother!”

  • • •

  Eryx

  “Mother!”

  The water bubbled and swirled in the canal, bursting with rising purple streaks that almost seemed to glow with electricity when it reached the surface.

  Blood, he knew.

  But did it belong to his mother, or one of the mermaids?

  He couldn’t be sure.

  And that fucking killed Eryx.

  But then the bubbles began to swirl, and through the murky water of the canals, he could see shimmering scales moving. Twisting and circling, making water kick up near the surface, although that was about as much as he could discern.

  His heart thumped hard in his throat, his fingernails digging deep into the soft earth of the side of the embankment. More than anything, he wanted to get in that water, but the skies raged overhead, water dumping harder than ever, and he wasn’t nearly as strong as a mermaid was in the water.

  That much, he knew.

  It would be like throwing himself to the fucking wolves. Had they been on land … if only he had a sword in his hands … But he had none of that. He was the weak one here.

  The water shifted again, changing and spreading with more purple. The shimmering a few feet below moved, and it was only his desire to find or see his mother that sent Eryx rushing to his feet. It probably wasn’t the smart thing to do, and the sea was most dangerous when the storms raged overhead, but he pushed to his feet and followed the bubbling, swirling water.

  Where was she?

  Why had she attacked the merwoman when he had been seconds away from turning the situation around?

  Oh, he knew …

  Of course, she’d want to protect him. His entire life had been about her protecting him. Like an instinct his mother couldn’t ignore, and one he shouldn’t expect her to.

  Eryx shouted for his mother over and over, chasing the moving water in the canal all the way down the orchard. He ducked the swinging branches, cold wind and icy water slapping against his bare chest even as he tried to keep from stumbling over muddy earth and the roots of the trees that stuck up everywhere.

  He was failing again.

  He would never be able to help her.

  “Mother!”

  He couldn’t keep up with the movement in the water, and by the time he reached the end, the purple streaks of blood began to spread farther out into the sea. Overhead, the clouds screamed with their rage, tunneling dangerously with what he knew would soon touch the ground and devastate everything.

  Him included.

  And yet, he still slid down the end of the embankment, his ripped pants and ruined shoes doing nothing to protect him from the cold water. Except he barely felt it at all. His own blood tasted tangy on his lips, the scratches against his chest from where his shirt had been torn off stinging against the saltwater and heavy rain. Even as the waves came higher, the water turning choppier than ever, he moved farther into it all.

  Closer to danger.

  To his mother.

  He called for her again.

  The skies answered back with its own cry.

  A warning, maybe.

  It could take him under. If the current hit him just right, or a wave … he’d be entirely fucked, drawn out to sea and unable to swim back. Not when he couldn’t breathe under the water.

  The realization was painful.

  She wouldn’t be able to breathe, either. Despite being born and raised in the sea, in her current circumstance, she wouldn’t even be able to save herself.

  Her collar … impossible to take off.

  Eryx couldn’t move.

  He just called for her—begged for his mother again. His words disappeared into treacherous water and blackened skies. His soul went with it. What remained of him that had any good left was lost with every call for his mother that went unanswered.

  Vanished like his pleas.

  As did his sanity.

  All of it.

  Gone.

  FOUR

  Arelle

  “WE HAVE TO go back!”

  Poe kept swimming ahead of Arelle. She acted as though she hadn’t heard her sister’s shout under the raging water, but Arelle knew better.

  “Poe, we have to go back for Coral!”

  Poe’s tail beat hard in the water, her fin slicing back and forth so fast that she made a slipstream for Arelle to follow. That didn’t change the fact that her sister still wasn’t answering her.

  “Poe—”

  Faster than Arelle could blink, her sister spun around. She nearly ran right into Poe, both of them straightening up as the dark water around them moved so harshly that it rocked them both on the spot. She barely noticed it at all, however, because she was more focused on the way her sister was looking at her.

  So mad.

  Teeth grinding.

  Violet eyes narrowed.

  Streaked with the purple of their kind, the blood an electric shade under the dark water. Like this, it glowed. She could reach out and try to wipe the blood off her sister’s face, but it wouldn’t do her any good. In water, their blood became almost sticky. It would take more than a swipe of a hand to wash it away.

  Another sign of their wrongs.

  A reminder that wouldn’t leave.

  “What?” Poe snapped.

  Her sister’s red hair, the same shade as her own, haloed around her shoulders in the water. It made Poe look more like the warrior her mate was than the princess she was supposed to be. After seeing what her sister had done back at the water orchard, Arelle had a right to be hesitant now.

  How easily Poe struck out with violence.

  It was shocking.

  “We have to go back for Coral,” Arelle whispered.

  Poe’s stare cut to somewhere over Arelle’s shoulder. Into the depth of the now-black sea and the water that churned dangerously even beneath the surface. It was no wonder why this time of the year scared the humans into hunkering down within buildings where the strong winds and cutting rains couldn’t touch them. If she had not grown up in these seasons, the storms might very well terrify her into seclusion as well.

  “For what? Why would we go back there?” Poe demanded.

  “Because she’s our—”

  “She’s dead.”

  Arelle’s chest ached. The water she breathed in stuttered on the inhale and hurt when it came back out. “You can’t be sure. She might not be. We should—”

  “Arelle.”

  Crying underwater could be an interesting, if not strange, experience. The tears couldn’t be seen, sure, but the whimpers and sounds could travel for miles under the water. Her chest became tighter the longer she tried to hold back the urge to let out her pain. She’d tried her very best to pretend what Poe said wasn’t the case, but she knew it was true.

  Saw it herself.

  She was right there.

  “Arelle, she is gone,” Poe said firmly.

  “But … shouldn’t we go back?” Arelle asked, her voice fainter than she wanted it to be. Against her older sisters, she’d always been the quieter one. Their personalities were so much bigger and more present than hers. Not that it mattered, because as the third sister, so far from the throne, she’d never needed to make herself known against her siblings. Sometimes, it was better to be able to fade into the background. It was a hard role to step out from, but this couldn’t be the same. It was their little sister. “We need to go back—she’s our kin. We can take her home, Poe.”

  “Go back and get her?” Poe’s laughter came out as a sharp chirp that made Arelle flinch from the viciousness of it all. “Why? She’s dead, you foolish girl. And if we go back there, what do you think the chances are that the human didn’t call for help? If we go back there, we’re only asking to die, too.”

  “So what, we just leave her there to rot?”

  “What else would you do?”

  “Go get her!”

  Even Arelle was shocked at the level of her shout. At how strong she sounded,
and the way it made Poe straighten up a little more in the water. For a long while, the two sisters simply stared at one another.

  Things were changing.

  Arelle could feel it all around them.

  More things were about to change, too.

  How could it not now?

  “If you want to go back, then fine. Be stupid, get yourself killed. I don’t care.”

  Poe’s words might have hurt, if only Arelle found them shocking. Except she didn’t because she had learned over her years that Poe really only cared for herself. If it benefitted her, then she made an effort to show concern for those around her. Otherwise, she just didn’t give a damn.

  “I will be going back to the colony—to our father. The king, Arelle. In case you forgot. You do realize what’s going to happen once he finds out we disobeyed him and went to the forbidden lands, don’t you? Only to come back without one of his children, yes? So yes, you want to be foolish and go back, then do it. But I am going home.”

  Right.

  Poe had always been the favored one, though. The daughter who could do no wrong. Even their oldest sister, Sarha, who should have taken their father’s throne, had been married off to a colony from another realm while Poe had been left here as the new heir with the benefit of picking her very own mate from a line of suitors.

  The rest of them, however?

  Well, the other sisters knew where they stood.

  “Go home,” Arelle said, finally finding the strength in her voice again, “but I am going back for Coral. Even if it is just for her body.”

  “Do what you must.”

  “And you, sister.”

  Poe nodded once, her gaze flicking behind Arelle into the darkness of the sea from which they’d swum. She didn’t even look at her sister before turning in the water and darting away. Arelle waited until she could no longer see her sister’s shimmering scales, or the glowing purple streaks of blood that would remain stained on her for days.

  Only then did Arelle turn back for Coral.

  She already knew, though, that the chances of retrieving her sister’s body was unlikely. The water had risen too much, and with the currents becoming stronger from the waves on the surface, chances were Coral’s remains had been pulled out to the sea.

  Not that it mattered.

  She had to try.

  This was her fault. She’d brought Coral along, even though she’d known the girl was too young. The very least she could do was go back for her.

  Wasn’t it?

  • • •

  Arelle didn’t make it far enough to enter the same canal of the water orchard where the attack happened because she knew that she wasn’t alone. Even if she couldn’t hear the noise coming from somewhere above the surface of the water, she would have still felt that something wasn’t quite right.

  Before she could think better of the decision, Arelle skimmed to the surface of the choppy water. Overhead, a blackened sky shifted and circled with clouds that were already creating tunnels that would be most dangerous if they reached down to the ground. Add that into the violence of the sea, ready to drag its next victim under the waves, and she could practically smell the season’s arrival with every breath she took.

  But none of that really mattered.

  Not when the form near the shore of the water orchard caught her attention, and suddenly, she was unable to look away. He stood nearly chest-deep in the dangerous water. Without a shirt or cloak, even in the darkness, the landwalker’s skin gleamed with a golden tint as the bands of muscles that made up his chest clenched with his next shout.

  “Anthia!”

  Arelle dragged in a lungful of sea-salt-infused air.

  “Mother!”

  She had wanted to cry earlier for her sister.

  He was crying.

  And that just made her so mad for reasons even she couldn’t understand. That sudden swell of rage, as risky as the sea she waded within, had her wishing she could take the landwalker’s life away from him.

  From all of them.

  If not for everything they had done to her people, this wouldn’t have happened at all.

  He shouted again.

  Arelle almost sank under the water.

  Before she could do that and get as far away from the hauntingly beautiful man on the shore who made her want to kill, and this terrible place … his gaze skimmed the surface of the sea again. His stare landed right on her. They locked eyes; there was no denying the fact he could see her just fine from her safe position where she doubted he would go.

  For a second, nothing happened.

  The wind seemed to quiet.

  She didn’t notice the water.

  And even from a good distance away, she could still hear the way he dragged in a breath that sputtered with the water crashing against his chest. If he didn’t get out of the sea soon, it would pull him under.

  Good, one part of her thought.

  And what a shame, another bit whispered.

  “I’ll kill you,” she heard him promise into the wind, “if it’s the last thing I ever do, little mermaid.”

  Her heart skipped a beat.

  And then two.

  She didn’t need to wonder …

  She could feel his threat was true.

  Arelle sank under the water.

  Let the sea Gods handle him.

  She couldn’t.

  • • •

  Arelle wished she could say that she hurried back to the colony, but in fact, she didn’t do that at all. She warred with herself, knowing there wouldn’t be any way to hide what happened or how, in the end … she would be the one blamed for her sister’s death. She considered hiding but knew that wouldn’t do any good when her father would simply send someone to search for her.

  And they would find her.

  She certainly couldn’t go back to the land. She didn’t have her own grotto to hide within, not that it would make a difference if she did, when her father’s guards could simply come inside and drag her out.

  There was no choice, really.

  She had to go back.

  Before she had even reached the long wall of twisted coral that protected her father’s palace from the rest of the colony, the merpeople had already begun to gather. They lined either side of her, separating to let her through without pause and never meeting her gaze. A few hundred—probably the entire colony of her people.

  Just a few years ago, their numbers had been much larger. Their colony, before she had been born—according to those who were willing to talk about that time—had been one of the biggest, in fact. Now, they were dwindling.

  Year by year …

  Season after season …

  They were hunted.

  And now, they had so few left.

  Today, another had died. Except it wasn’t just any mermaid, but a princess. The youngest of the royal sisters. She bet the people were asking that if they couldn’t even keep the royals safe from the landwalkers, then how would they keep the rest of them safe?

  Look at their numbers.

  Their whispers and chirps reached her ears, a few of their statements discernable enough for her to hear even though she tried to ignore them. That was impossible, honestly, and while some of what she heard felt like accusations … they were not unwarranted.

  Arelle knew that better than anyone.

  It also told her a lot about what would be waiting behind the wall of coral when she met with her father. If only because the merpeople seemed to already know that something bad had happened. Some outright said Coral’s name.

  How quickly word could spread …

  Her father’s reign as King of the Blu Sea had long been tainted with questions and more unknowns than were favorable. He’d taken the throne after the previous queen had been captured and killed … or so everyone assumed. With no heirs and no family left from her bloodline, it was left to her advisor to fill the role.

  Arelle’s father.

  Many didn’t like that the peo
ple hadn’t been given a choice. Others were angry their queen hadn’t been avenged, or even … searched for, really. The landwalker’s hunting became far more common after that, leaving very little time for the colony to revolt against their new king when what they really needed was his protection.

  Or so she had always been told.

  Arelle had the distinct feeling their people regretted that now more often than they ever had before. She couldn’t say that she blamed them.

  She didn’t try to meet their stares, either. Didn’t force any of the people in the colony to risk being seen stepping out of place on account of her. Undoubtedly, that would only earn them a punishment for their empathy or even their anger.

  At the gates leading into her father’s palace, the guards waited in their usual positions. With spears at the ready. Instead of looking directly at her as she passed by to enter, they kept their stares turned on the sea floor beneath them. She wished she could be surprised to see her personal guards waiting just beyond the gates, but she wasn’t.

  And they didn’t speak, either.

  In fact, the two men who accompanied her almost everywhere—except when she’d escaped them earlier while the court was full—didn’t even move to follow her until she had passed them by entirely. They trailed behind at an acceptable distance, and it was only then that she considered what they might also face for her decisions today.

  Arelle had never felt worse.

  The entire guard had come out to witness her shameful return, it seemed. The mermen with their weapons in hand lined the pathway leading to the palace on either side, much like the rest of the colony’s people had outside the coral wall. Until that moment, she had kept her head high … fearing what would happen next, but willing to accept it.

  As she neared the palace entrance, she finally lowered her head. The weight of her errors resting heavily on her shoulders had never been more present.

  Her father’s palace—carved from an underwater cave and the largest part of the coral reef—was usually busy no matter the time of day. There was always someone coming or going. Servants moving from here to there to do their duties. And yet on that evening, Arelle swam through silent, dark halls. She didn’t need to be told where to go.