The Hunted

by Bethany-Kris

  It covered her.

  • • •

  Eryx

  “As you wish, Prince,” Corval called behind Eryx.

  He didn’t bother to turn to respond to Corval because he knew he didn’t need to. All his orders would be followed without question. The little mermaid would be delivered to the estate of his choosing before the night was over, and kept where she couldn’t run until he was ready to deal with her—although he still had no idea what he planned to do to her now that he had her. Everything he’d dreamed up seemed … not quite enough.

  “They won’t lay a hand on her,” Mattue assured as they walked the wharf to the end where a horse was already waiting for Eryx to mount. “She’ll be in perfect condition, of course.”

  Eryx grunted under his breath. “I already know.”

  “Thought you may want the assurance nonetheless.”

  “I want a dry bed and a good meal.”

  After that, he could decide other things.

  Things about her.

  The young boy waiting by the tacked-up horse kept a tight hold on the reins and didn’t offer them to the prince while Eryx stopped to pull the riding gloves from his pants pocket. Mattue took his silence and stillness to mean he still wanted to talk.

  Perfect.

  “She’s quite … she may be dangerous. Do you think you should have someone guarding her when she’s at the estate with you and the servants?”

  Eryx chuckled a dry sound. “Not likely.”

  “Did you see what she did to those men?”

  “Perfectly fine, yes. They’re foolish and lazy. She probably saw it, too.”

  “Prince—”

  A commotion started back on the wharf. Yelling from the men, and the swish-swosh of rope being moved. He didn’t need to look back to know what was happening. Corval’s men were likely beginning the process of moving the mermaid—he still didn’t know her name and that bothered him for reasons he couldn’t explain—into a cage where she would stay until they delivered her by horse and carriage to an estate not far from here.

  He expected her to die there.

  By his hand.

  Soon.

  And yet, he couldn’t say she would.

  That bothered him, too.

  “What did he mean?” Eryx asked, lifting his gaze to meet Mattue’s after fitting on his gloves. “Corval, I mean. The others wouldn’t stop staring at her. One made a comment. Corval, though … he called her quite worthy.”

  Mattue cleared his throat. “You didn’t notice?”

  “She’s beautiful, Mattue. Many sea women are.”

  “It’s more than that, Prince. Her coloring, the red hair, and the brand on her hand. It’s very similar to the last one they caught—safe guess, they could be sisters, but if not, they’re certainly related somehow.”

  Eryx had not looked at her hand. He’d not noticed a brand.

  “And what of the brand?” he demanded.

  “Well, that’s the interesting bit. The other one had it, too. Arrows, if you noticed.”

  He simply stared at Mattue, waiting for the man to explain. Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait long.

  “Blu Sea royals,” the advisor said, shrugging one cloak-covered shoulder. “According to the hunters, a brand like that means a royal.”

  “Arrows, you said?”

  Mattue nodded. “Specifically, one atop the other.”

  Arrows.

  Where had he seen that mark before?

  And why hadn’t he noticed hers?

  He had another thought, too. If the mermaid was a royal of her kind, then any doubt he had that she didn’t understand him, or his language was nonexistent. While the people of Atlas certainly didn’t communicate kindly with the Blu Sea mermaids, he knew other lands did for many reasons. Or so they had been told.

  She absolutely could speak his language.

  A lot like the others they’d caught could.

  It only pissed him off more.

  Why hadn’t she answered him today?

  “The hunters—they know more about those markings?” Eryx asked. “About the mermaids?”

  “Corval certainly seems to.”

  Eryx would remember it.

  Just in case …

  “Thank you, Mattue. I’ll be seeing you.”

  Turning, he finally offered a palm to the boy waiting with the horse’s reins. Once mounted on the horse, Eryx clicked his tongue and pulled on the strap of leather to turn the beast. It was only Mattue’s call that had him halting the animal.

  “What is it now?”

  Mattue tipped his chin up, a slight smile playing at the edges of the man’s lips. “Well, you have what you wanted … is it not my turn, now?”

  Ah, yes.

  A crown for a mermaid.

  Eryx had not forgotten.

  “I suppose that’s for you to figure out, Mattue,” he replied.

  He had what he wanted.

  Didn’t he?

  SEVENTEEN

  Arelle

  SOMETHING ROUGH and dry scratched against Arelle’s back and legs when she shifted in her sleep. Turning over had done nothing good for her, if only because sunlight spilled over her face and had her clenching her eyes shut even tighter than before to shield from the sudden color that filled her dreams.

  No, she wasn’t sleeping anymore.

  And the dreams hadn’t been that good, anyway.

  Though the lump of ground she’d slept on felt somewhat cushiony even with the scratchy dryness, it crunched under the weight of her body rolling again. She tried to pull her legs closer to her middle, the same way she would with her tail and fin in her sleep, but the telltale clink-clink of chains that fetched up finally had her opening her eyes.

  She breathed deep.

  Dirt.

  Hay.

  Fur.

  Wood.

  Dust danced in the stream of sunlight coming in through a slated window. For longer than she cared to admit, she watched those dancing specks as she relived the day and night before. The grunt of an animal had her tilting her head just enough to see the brown speckled horse that rooted its wet nose against her opened palm lying on a bed of hay.

  Another shuddering exhale left her lips.

  The horse’s lips jiggled against her skin with his next snort. It almost felt like a hello, and despite her current situation, Arelle couldn’t help but smile at the animal. She had only seen them from afar before. Running along the tops of cliffs while she’d stayed a safe distance away in the sea.

  They were as big as she thought.

  Just as beautiful, too.

  Keeping her one hand out for the horse to kiss again, if he wanted, Arelle sat up straight in the crunchy hay. She wanted to cross her legs, but a glance to the side at the chain that led out from a link on the wall kept her shackled at both ankles.

  Memories of the night before flooded her mind the longer she stared at the chain. Oh, the landwalkers hadn’t touched her. They’d not even hurt her, really. They also barely spoken to her at all when they’d delivered her here in pitch-black darkness.

  She wasn’t sure how far from the sea she was, but did it matter when all she needed to do was close her eyes? There, she could see it. Breathe deep and taste it. It felt like they’d traveled for miles before finally stopping, but she knew if she followed the sounds in her heart and mind, it wouldn’t take long for her to find the sea.

  Except she couldn’t do that at all.

  She had all of three feet of chain to move, and as it were, in her sleep she’d rolled herself far from the wall where they’d left her until she’d had no more room to move. Even the cloak had managed to come undone and did little to protect her from the rough ground covered in the horse’s hay.

  Another snort from the horse had Arelle looking his way. The beast wasted no time tipping his large head down to nudge her hand before doing the same to the top of her head. If he understood she sat there naked and confused, the horse didn’t show it.

/>   She had to laugh at that.

  “A beautiful sound, that.”

  The voice had Arelle scrambling up from the floor in an instant, pulling the cloak with her as though she might use it as some kind of shield. A completely, utterly useless shield. She didn’t even bother to check where his voice had come from first. Not that it mattered. Once he’d spoken and she knew he was there, she didn’t need to search for him.

  She just knew.

  Her back hit the wall of the stall, splinters of wood biting into her skin as the cloak hung from her clenched hands. She found Eryx leaning against the wrought iron gate of the stall on the inside. Somehow, he’d managed to get inside the stall. Probably when she had still been sleeping.

  How long had he watched her?

  Was that why she’d felt comfortable enough to wake up?

  Because he was there?

  The shackles at her ankles dug into skin and bone from how taut she dared to pull the chain. Yet, Arelle didn’t move.

  Neither did Eryx.

  Gone was the fancy waistcoat and shined boots from the day before. Replaced instead by a loose shirt with sleeves that flared a bit at the wrists and hung down to his mid-thigh. Scuffed leather boots that hadn’t even been tied up along the seam at the back shifted against the dirt floor of the stall, drawing her gaze up his lean form.

  His clothes hid his body.

  It didn’t matter.

  She still remembered perfectly fine how he looked without most of them.

  “The horse—they call him Till,” Eryx said, his voice creating an echo with every beat of her heart. While he spoke to her, he looked at the horse. “He seems to like you. Then again, animals do tend to recognize similar creatures.”

  She wasn’t an animal, though.

  Arelle stayed quiet.

  Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, Eryx stood straight against the gate, his other hand coming around to show the folded pile of white, flowy fabric he held. He still didn’t look her way, but at least Arelle could breathe like this. Once he stared at her, that would all change, she knew.

  “I know you’re not mute. Why you insist on this silence is beyond me.”

  Finally, his gaze snapped to hers.

  She hadn’t wanted him to look at her.

  Now, she didn’t want him to look away.

  Gods.

  The bond would kill her.

  He took one step closer to her, and even though she was pressed against the wood, Arelle found it almost impossible not to move toward him, too. Somehow, she managed to stay still, even when his gaze took a slow trek over her. From the trembling cloak she held in her shaking hands to the way his stare lingered appreciatively on the shape of her hips. There was something about the way his pupils darkened—making those icy blue eyes of his warmer, even if it was only from the heat of the man—that had her breath catching.

  He liked what he saw.

  He also hated it.

  Arelle didn’t need for him to say it to know.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he muttered.

  Although as he said it, she felt it was a lie. Whatever he was about to say, it did matter. His tone gave it away, but so did the electricity in the air when he came one more step closer. Now, if he reached out, he could touch her.

  He didn’t, though.

  Not yet.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he repeated in a sigh, “whether I hear your voice or not because I swear, I hear it all the time anyway. At night when I’m alone. In the wind when it blows past my ears. Every time I close my eyes. Whether or not that’s because I’ve dreamed of getting my hands around your throat every single day since that night in the water orchard … or if it’s something else, well, I can’t say.”

  Impossible, she wanted to say.

  The bond wouldn’t make it so.

  She hadn’t sung for him. Hadn’t even talked for him that night. He would not be able to hear the siren’s call—his mate—when she hadn’t given that to him on the island when the bond began to tether them.

  “I think I might know exactly what you sound like,” he continued, his boot scuffing against the dirt before he shifted the pile of white fabric from one hand to the other, “but it really doesn’t matter now.”

  Lies.

  It absolutely did matter.

  And if he thought that was what would make her talk, then she had a surprise in store for him. Arelle remained silent even when that heat in his gaze bled away the longer the two of them stared at one another, leaving him back with his cold rage.

  He was not very good at hiding it.

  Not at all.

  Though it ached to do it, Arelle dropped his gaze. He was near, and she only wanted him to come closer. Until she breathed in his air and felt his heat soaking into hers. But that was the bond, and she wouldn’t let herself forget it, either.

  “I heard you speak that night—in your tongue from the sea, yes, but I heard it. Or did you forget about that night? Was it just one of many for you?”

  Arelle blinked, her tongue peeking out to wet the seam of her lips.

  Still, she said nothing.

  That was what pulled the final straw for Eryx.

  His next words came out sharp, harsh, and fast. They impacted the same way a slap to her skin would. A warning, certainly, but they also wrapped around her heart like it was his fist clenching so damned tight. The exhale rushed out of her lungs because for the first time …

  He demanded.

  Her mate made a demand.

  And she rushed to obey.

  “Tell me your name.”

  “Arelle.”

  Silence surrounded the stables, but this time, it wasn’t from just her. No, he quieted, too. The animals stopped their movements, even the mice at the far end that had been squeaking all morning. She swore even the wind stopped blowing for a second.

  He’d demanded.

  She’d had to answer it.

  Not that he knew, but he would have to do the same. That was the bond.

  Arelle lifted her gaze in just enough time to watch the sight of Eryx closing the small bit of distance between them in the stall. His boots barely scuffed the floor. With a hand raised like he might strike her, she tipped her chin up.

  Forever defiant.

  She’d have to be.

  He didn’t hit her, though.

  No, that hand of his found her throat. His fingers wrapped around the delicate column, pressing into where her gills flared out with every breath, but it wasn’t enough to stop the air from dragging hard and heavy into her lungs. He pinned her in place.

  With his stare and his touch and him.

  All of him.

  Having him this close was good, but just as bad, too. Because it made her want more. When he looked down between them, surveying her nakedness and the state of her captivity. He could do whatever he wanted to her shackled and vulnerable like she was.

  Part of her wished he would.

  Another wanted to hide.

  “Arelle,” he repeated thickly.

  Her chin trembled.

  It was done.

  She’d spoken.

  Like she could for him, he would hear her forever.

  What good was her silence now?

  “Arelle,” she whispered in kind. “And you are Eryx.”

  His hand tightened on her throat, and she swallowed hard.

  “Prince—”

  “Eryx,” Arelle said. “To me, you are only Eryx.”

  He stiffened.

  She looked past him at the horse who was now grazing from a bucket that hung on the door of his stall.

  “What will you do with me now?” she asked.

  “I wanted to kill you.”

  Arelle’s stare snapped back to his in a blink. The hard planes of his face called to her in a way that nothing else ever had. Like the scar through his right eyebrow, or the way his lips curved with his satisfaction. Not in a smile, but something else entirely.

  Something more wi
cked.

  She could study his features forever.

  It would never bore her.

  “But why?”

  He exhaled a shaky breath.

  Arelle sucked it in.

  “You killed my mother. Or do you even remember her at all?”

  Of course, she did.

  But that hadn’t been her.

  She didn’t lay the final blow, but a part of her knew that probably didn’t make a difference to him. It had been late—the sky was blacker than the seas. She and Poe looked a lot alike, but especially to someone who didn’t know them well. He could have easily mistaken her sister for her. Perhaps, because she had been the one to come out of the water after it had ended and watched him from a safe distance … maybe that was why her memory had seared into his own.

  What did it matter?

  Here she was.

  “Now,” Eryx murmured, leaning closer until their noses touched and his hand at her throat flexed just a bit, “I’m not so sure what I’ll do with you.”

  As quickly as he’d caged her, he stepped back. Not that it made any sort of difference because Arelle could still feel that man on every inch of her body in more ways than one.

  She expected him to leave her there chained to the wall, but even as he turned away, his hand snagged her wrist. He held her hand high and eyed the brand on her skin of the two arrows, as though he knew exactly what he was looking at and the significance.

  “Which would be worse to you and your people,” he asked, “killing you or keeping you?”

  He didn’t expect an answer. Not when he dropped her hand, and the pile of flowy, white fabric to the stall floor.

  “Get dressed. You’ll take breakfast with me when a maid deems you suitable. Try not to fight—I’d hate for this to end sooner than I’d like, my little mermaid. Even if I haven’t decided exactly how I’ll kill you, I still will … it’s just a matter of time.”

  Wrong again.

  And once more, Arelle didn’t correct him.

  • • •

  Eryx

  “The trousers, waistcoat, and overcoat you chose for the day will be at the end of your bed, Prince, and if you need help—”

  “Did she fight the maid?” Eryx interrupted.

  The male servant who usually helped him ready for the day quieted at the other side of the den attached to his chambers. He didn’t like the stable house as much as he did The House of Miller, but it served his purpose of moving her—Arelle, his mind practically screamed; now that he knew her name, he certainly couldn’t forget it—farther away from the sea. He thought perhaps the closer she was to it, the more she might fight to get away.