The Hunted

by Bethany-Kris

  Besides, there was nothing her sister could do alone out in the sea. At least, Arelle might be able to convince her sister to come back and then perhaps they could plan something. But even that was all left up to chance.

  She didn’t even think the Gods were helping them now.

  Arelle continued following her sister farther beyond the islands until she could no longer hear the shouts of the guards behind her, and the sea floor became shallower than it was by the islands. Although, it was still deep enough for a ship. Another bad sign.

  Poe slowed enough for Arelle to catch up.

  “We have to go back,” she said, coming up behind a trembling Poe.

  “I can’t.”

  “Poe—”

  She reached out to touch her sister’s arm, wanting to at least give her some sense of comfort. The two didn’t have to be as close as they once were for Arelle to recognize Poe’s pain and appreciate it for what it was.

  “Don’t,” her sister mumbled, spinning in the water away from her reach. “Just don’t … they don’t care, Arelle, because it’s not their mate. But if it were … if it were, they’d want to move the land and seas to get their mate back, too.”

  “I know. I do know that, Poe.”

  The bonds were like that.

  Unforgiving.

  Final.

  It’s what scared her the most.

  “It’s been two weeks,” Poe hissed, “and he doesn’t call for me as much as he used to, Arelle.”

  She frowned at that. “I don’t understand.”

  “No, because you’re not mated.”

  But she did know.

  Mates had a call.

  They could hear it across the seas.

  “We have to go back where it’s safe,” Arelle said, glancing back over her shoulder through the darkness of the water. She still had a good range of view, though, and it was enough to tell her the guards had stayed behind. “We’ve come too far. What if a ship—”

  “Listen.”

  Arelle did.

  At first, she heard nothing.

  “There’s nothing there.”

  Poe shook her head, turning west. “There is … I hear it.”

  It took another second before Arelle heard the call, too. As faint as it was, even she couldn’t deny that it was absolutely a call from one of their kind. Distinct in the tone, the high notes pierced through the water to travel to their spot.

  “It’s a bit that way,” Poe said, “we have to go after it. It might be—”

  “Poe, it’s not Tak. You’d know if it was Tak.”

  And she would.

  Without question.

  “But what if it could take me to him?”

  Hysteria, she thought.

  That’s all this was.

  Her sister’s desperation was acting out in dangerous ways. This couldn’t possibly lead them anywhere good, but who was she to tell her sister to stop when Arelle knew this was all instinct for Poe at this point?

  She couldn’t.

  Still, she had to try …

  “You can’t chase every sound in this sea, Poe!”

  “But I can chase this one.”

  Poe darted toward the surface of the water before Arelle could say another thing. Every smart piece of her knew this was a bad idea, and yet she couldn’t stop the protective nature that seemed ingrained in her very being. The part of her that wanted nothing more than to protect her own kind. Because they were hers.

  She only took solace in the fact that the day had been rather dreary, with the promise of an oncoming storm. The humans weren’t particularly foolish and didn’t tend to take the ships out to hunt if they believed a storm would arrive when they were out at sea.

  But that wasn’t a promise. It wasn’t a guarantee they were safe.

  “Poe, it could be a trap!”

  Hadn’t their father’s scouts warned of that? The landwalkers were using catches to draw out more merpeople.

  Her sister didn’t act as though she’d heard her. Arelle continued to follow until both broke the surface of the sea.

  And then …

  Well, that’s when Arelle learned she was right. It had absolutely been a trap.

  EIGHT

  Eryx

  IT HAPPENED FAST.

  One moment, Eryx was watching the black clouds roll in overhead and in the next, the lookout in the crow’s nest of the ship gave his call.

  “Aye—on the west!”

  What happened next came just as quickly as the lookout’s confirmation on sight of a mermaid. No one questioned his call; they simply moved onto the next part of the plan. Eryx supposed that was because they only had one shot at this working, and the lookout needed to be absolutely sure that his call was correct.

  The cannons on the right side of the ship were fired, all four of them at once, sending the vessel rocking back and forth in the choppy waters. Across the waves, he watched the other three ships that had come out on this hunt begin to move. Pulling farther apart than what they had just been, he knew their anchors had only been grazing the sea floor. Just enough to keep them in place.

  Eryx found himself fascinated by how swift and organized the ships seemed to be even while separated. They planned and planned and planned more … and when push came to shove, those same plans left no room for questions or deviations.

  “Pulling the nets up,” Corval said, coming to stand next to Eryx on the middle deck. “Down on the sea floor, dyed a dark blue, they’re barely even noticeable to the merpeople. Or that’s what we’ve found.”

  Eryx heard everything the man said, of course, but his heart raced so fast in his chest that the blood rushed in his ears. He couldn’t seem to take his gaze off the lifting and lowering waters of the sea, his stare cutting through the waves to just see …

  To find her, maybe.

  Was it even her?

  The anticipation curled tightly around Eryx’s throat, keeping him quiet even as the wind blew hard enough to rock the ship. With the sails pulled, the wind could blow as hard as it wanted because they weren’t moving.

  Yet.

  “Two,” the man from up in the crow’s next called down.

  Corval nodded back. “And?”

  “Both female.”

  Eryx let out a slow breath.

  A good sign.

  “Anything else?”

  High above, the man’s beady black eyes met Eryx’s. A brazen display, really, considering many wouldn’t even meet a royal’s gaze.

  “Both redheads,” the man said just loud enough for them to hear.

  “How can he see that?” Eryx demanded. “The water is already turning as black as the sky. If they’re under the waves—”

  Corval smirked. “Been scouting for twenty years, Prince. He knows what he sees when he sees it. Care to question his calls?”

  He thought about that.

  For all of a second.

  “Not particularly,” he said.

  “Right. Then, stand back and let us work.”

  “Storm is here, Cap!”

  Thirty feet behind Eryx and Corval’s position mid-deck, the captain cursed at the warning from the man who was designated to watch the skies. The team of men on these ships had been doing this more than long enough to know what was happening in the sky and waters.

  Even if it changed in a blink of an eye.

  “Corval!”

  Beside him, the mermaid hunter stiffened. “What?”

  Like Eryx, he never took his gaze from the water.

  “We knew this was a risk given the time of year, Corval. The storms—they come in bursts. We won’t have time to get back to the wharf safely if we continue with the hunt.”

  Every word the captain spoke had Eryx’s heart beating impossibly louder.

  Both redheads.

  “Don’t call off the hunt,” Eryx warned Corval, “or you’ll see nothing for this effort.”

  Corval’s jaw tensed, but a nod answered Eryx before the man called to the capt
ain of the ship, “They’re lifting the nets. We’re too far into this to turn back now. Ride the storm out, Captain.”

  “This is my ship!”

  “And we’ll replace it if need be. Josef says it’s two women—imagine the price they’ll fetch.”

  “Corval—”

  “There she is!” came the call from the crow’s nest. “One in the net!”

  Corval waved a hand high. “Close in, Captain.”

  “Corval, the storm will send us into the fuckin’ water!”

  “Close in,” the hunter repeated.

  Eryx met the man’s stare, and Corval lifted one shoulder as if he were silently asking, you’re sure this is what you want?

  He understood the dangers.

  “West, he said?”

  “Yes, he saw them west, Prince.”

  Eryx reached for the spyglass dangling from the hunter’s grasp. “Let me have a look, then.”

  The sails dropped. All it took was a simple shift of the ship’s direction, and they were sailing across churning waters as the first drops of rain spattered against Eryx’s cheeks. Not that he noticed. He was a bit busy scanning the surface of the sea with the hunter’s spyglass. All the way to the side of the ship where a blue net was being dragged handful by handful from the waters by a line of men.

  They struggled. From the water or the possibility of something being inside the net, well … he couldn’t be sure.

  Eryx followed the line of the net through the water and there it was.

  It was nothing more than a brief flash maybe a few inches beneath the surface of the sea, but he saw it. The flip of a fin—black and green and blue scales that shimmered even when there wasn’t any light to help it reflect. But it wasn’t so much the color of the fin as it was the distinct markings.

  Markings that, like her face, Eryx couldn’t forget. He dropped the spyglass to his side.

  “It’s her.”

  Corval’s gaze cut to him as the rain and wind came harder. All around them, it smelled like the sea. Salt and water. Cold and crisp. A high wave crashed into the side of the ship, sending a spray of water up over the rails and across the deck.

  “She can’t go far,” Corval said, “because we’ve got the area covered.”

  “Make sure of it.”

  A cannon fired. This time, it wasn’t from their ship.

  Up in the crow’s nest, another call came down to make Eryx smile. “They’re in the nets!”

  However, his smile didn’t last for long. The problem with the beginning of the season for storms was that the bursts of violent weather were more dangerous than even the spreads of never-ending storms.

  At least that, they prepared for. Bursts … well, they couldn’t. And it all changed in a blink of an eye.

  The ship rocked dangerously when a wave came in to take them thirty feet higher than they had been, before dropping them just as fast. Except when they came back down, the only thing Eryx saw was water.

  Black water.

  • • •

  Arelle

  Arelle’s biggest mistake had been diving deeper into the water when she realized her sister hadn’t returned back to the surface with her. If only she had stayed near the top of the raging sea, then maybe she could have skimmed over the net that seemed to rise up out of nowhere.

  She blamed herself for this because she surely couldn’t put the fault on Poe, given her sister’s state. Had Arelle just paid more attention to their surroundings then maybe she might have noticed how all the sea creatures had seemed to vanish out of nowhere. A good sign that something was in the area which they didn’t want to be around.

  Like a ship.

  The net came up fast and caught Arelle off guard. She spun against the scratchy, woven lines but the more she fought, the worse she twisted into it. Until finally, the netting had her completely covered and all she could do was feel herself being lifted through the water.

  “Poe! Poe!”

  The net jerked hard to the left, giving Arelle ample view of her sister and the reason why Poe wasn’t answering her back. A good twenty strokes away under the blackened sea, her sister’s body had become so twisted into the netting that there wasn’t even an inch for her to move. The ropes cut into her sister’s tail and fin and with each pull from somewhere out of the water, the net turned again, tying her sister up more.

  Arelle’s heart pumped hard.

  Right in her throat.

  “Poe … Poe, cut the net!”

  Poe had her knife.

  They all carried one.

  Even as Arelle shouted for her sister to try and save herself, she knew it would be pointless. The sea raged too violently, only aiding in the spiraling knots that had become the net around Poe’s trembling form.

  “Help me,” Poe cried, her fingers fisting into the netting around her face. Teeth bared and eyes wide, Arelle didn’t think she had ever seen her sister look so terrified. “Arelle, help me!”

  Everyone had a sense of self-preservation. There was no denying that. It didn’t matter if one came from the sea or the land … when a dire situation arose, one only really thought about saving themselves.

  There was no shame in it.

  It was a natural reaction.

  But for her, the instinct to help, if she was capable, always overtook the need to save herself. She had to do what she always did—the pull impossible to ignore, even though Arelle knew trying to help her sister might very well end with her sacrificing her own life. It was entirely possible that Poe wasn’t owed that, she still had to do what she could.

  “Arelle, please!”

  “I’m coming, Poe.”

  She was.

  Or she would certainly die trying.

  The underbelly of the ship had finally come into focus a good fifty strokes behind Poe. With every pull and twist of the net, they came a little closer.

  Arelle managed to free the knife she kept secured on her hip with a bit of fabric that she used to tie around her waist.

  “Arelle!”

  She couldn’t answer her sister—not when she had to focus on getting free of the netting first herself before she could make her way to Poe. She was all too aware that with every passing second, they were both being pulled closer to the ship.

  Her sister had precious moments left.

  “Arelle!”

  “I’m trying, Poe!”

  Arelle pulled the blade of her fish-bone knife along the netting and watched the ropes fray with the first slice. It wasn’t nearly enough, so she yanked the blade across it again. And then again. Finally, the first rope split, making a small hole, although it wasn’t nearly big enough for her to fit through.

  She kept cutting.

  Kept slashing.

  Even when she sliced both her palms in her efforts. The purple hue of her life source leaked into the water, and trailed down her skin, sticking to her flesh and reminding her that inside … she was warm until she began to bleed.

  Still, Arelle worked.

  She barely even felt the pain.

  When she had finally created a large enough hole to fit through, the netting spun around her as she tried to slip out through it. Her tail became twisted in the crisscrossed ropes, leaving Arelle mostly out of the net but still trapped.

  “No, no, no,” she mumbled, looking back over her shoulder at her sister.

  She was so close to the ship.

  The netting around Poe seemed to lift up even more.

  Poe stared back, horrified.

  Now, though, her sister didn’t shout for help. She didn’t say anything at all. Arelle couldn’t speak either.

  She cut at the netting around her tail, but she knew without needing to be told that it took entirely too long to get the job done. Not to mention, the tightening of the net around her fin left small cuts that bled into the water as she finally pushed away from the netting.

  “Arelle!”

  It would be the last time she’d hear her sister’s voice.

 
Arelle spun around in the dark water in just enough time to watch Poe, twisted and bound by the netting, be pulled up to the surface of the water.

  Gods.

  A cry stuck in her throat.

  Hopelessness raged.

  “I’m sorry,” she tried to say, even as she rushed to cut through the water. It didn’t matter that it would be too late because she still wanted to try. “Poe, I’m sorry.”

  Even to her own mind, it didn’t sound right.

  Nothing was right.

  The only thing that stopped Arelle from breaking the surface of the water was the heavy wave that pushed her backward. She spun into the water, twisting and spiraling around and around. It was dizzying, and when she finally came to a rolling stop, she had no sense of her direction.

  From which way had she come?

  Where were the nets?

  The ships?

  But then she felt it …

  When something sank in water—especially if it was something big—it created pressure that dragged everything else around it down, too. Flipping over to her back, a scream burst from her lips when the entire side of a ship came into view only a short distance away from her face.

  She had a second to react. A moment to get out of the way.

  Arelle still felt the ship graze the back of her tail fin when she came to her senses and decided to move. Although the sinking ship was just one problem because there had been more, she knew. It wasn’t the ship that had pulled her sister out of the water in the net. They very rarely hunted with only one vessel.

  She still couldn’t break the surface to see where she was. How did she get away from here without—

  Arelle’s mind blanked as a figure took shape in the churning waters. Like the other bits of debris and bodies now sinking in the water, one stood out amongst the rest. Undoubtedly from the ship that had probably capsized from the storm.

  For a moment, she simply stared. His eyes were closed. Jaw slack. With his arms extended over his head, the pressure from the sinking ship was quickly dragging him deeper and deeper into the water. In dark water, her vision wasn’t the absolute best, but there was no denying that face.