by Bethany-Kris
“And her?” he asked.
“Whether or not they know she’s been caught as well is all up in the air. It’s not like they send a messenger to speak with us. Our relationship is … tenuous, at best.”
“That does happen when you hunt them.”
“We need them, Eryx. They keep Atlas rich. The export of their blood is what protects this kingdom.”
“Other realms don’t use them the same.”
Corval sighed. “No, they don’t, but other realms have also fought wars that lasted for the entire lives of men to have the standing they do. And even today, in Hades, two kings still spend their days attempting to burn each other to the ground. One from the land, and another from the sea.”
“There are nine realms. That is just a portion. The same as us.”
“You’re not wrong,” the man replied, “and that’s also why the Emerald Lands have never joined in the discussion of exports with us. Merpeople who rule the land and the sea … well, they have an army more than large enough to keep their realm well protected from anyone who doesn’t appreciate the way they live.”
“Fascinating, really.”
Corval chuckled. “Then why do you sound bored?”
“I’d like to know more about her.”
“Her?”
“Her. Them. The sea. How they live. Anything about them at all.”
Across from him, Corval’s brow knotted. “Why?”
“Because I asked. Need there be another reason?”
“Right, no,” Corval was quick to say. “My apologies.”
Eryx only nodded.
“What we know has mostly come from other realms—three of the nine kings are mermen. Their people often live in colonies. Families tend to be large and remain together through generations because it’s how they raise their young. A village, and all. Royals tend to live closer to land, for whatever reason. If they mostly stick to the seas, the colonies can be quite spread out.”
“What else?”
“It varies from sea to sea, my lord. Each kingdom is different.”
“So, you really know nothing.”
“I know enough,” Corval replied fast, his stare pointed and sharp, “because it’s what I need to know to hunt them safely and make enough to live happily.”
Eryx hummed under his breath, nodding to himself. “Fair enough.”
“It’s why I learned as much as I could about the mated pairs. They’re often the most dangerous, but especially when separated. It’s why when we’ve caught a male, if we can tell he’s one half of a mated pair, he’s usually bled dry before being killed. They become violent when separated from their mates. Uncontrollable. Unrecognizable. He won’t even be passed on as a slave or sold to another realm. It’s not worth the risk of keeping him.”
Now, that had his attention.
“The what?”
“The mates, Prince. They call it the bond. Not that I know how said bond comes to be, but mated pairs … they’re different from the rest. They live with their colonies, their families, make their young and whatever else, but together, they’re different.”
“How so?”
Why was his heart beating so loudly?
It felt like it was in his throat.
“We know it has something to do with their blood. The magic, you know. We think they can call to each other somehow.”
Eryx’s next breaths came a little harder.
Thicker in his lungs.
“And?” he urged.
“Well, if they can call, my lord, then they can find one another, too. And when a man of the sea can burn down half a village square in a single night while trying to get back to his mate, imagine what several of them might do to this kingdom.”
The story jerked a memory to life for Eryx. He remembered a fire, four seasons before, that had burned down half of a village square. Although, it had been blamed on lamp oil spilling onto a flickering flame. Or that was the story told. It made sense to lie about the fire’s origins. People would be a lot leerier about the hunts—more so than they already were—if they knew how truly dangerous the merpeople could be.
It also didn’t settle well with Eryx for more reasons than he cared to name.
Corval glanced over his way and flicked two fingers at him with a smile that almost chilled Eryx. It was like that smile said I know exactly what you’re thinking.
The man then shrugged, saying, “As I said, not worth the risk, really.”
He swallowed the lump forming in his throat.
“How do they reproduce?” Eryx asked.
“It changes,” Corval replied. “Depends on their lifestyle. The women can choose a pregnancy unlike our women, but when they remain on land for a period of years, it seems their cycles change to be similar to our kind.”
Which explained his and his brothers’ births. Before, Eryx had never held any interest in these things, but now … he felt like he needed to know it all.
“Humans, however,” Corval continued, “can’t mate—bond—with a mermaid the way they do. As we’ve come to learn, reproducing with their species isn’t the same as mating. If it’s the magic in the blood, well, we just don’t have it, Prince.”
Eryx said nothing.
Why?
Because he wasn’t like the rest.
He was half. Not entirely human. Not entirely like her. But maybe he was just enough …
“And you don’t know how they mate,” he said.
Corval shrugged. “No, it’s never been witnessed, but we have our assumptions. The blood from both, perhaps. Other than that … well, you could just ask the source.”
“Pardon?”
“Her. You have a mermaid here. Ask her.”
Eryx’s jaw clicked from clenching. “Well, that’s a problem, then.”
“Why is that?”
“Because the more time I spend near her, the less I understand.”
“About what?” Corval asked.
He let out an aching breath. “Myself.”
TWENTY
Arelle
THE CAST IRON tub, filled nearly to the rim with hot water, wasn’t helping Arelle’s newest problem. The itch under her skin continued, even after she took the roughest cloth she could find in the bath chambers and scrubbed and scrubbed until her flesh was red.
Almost raw.
She called for more hot water, and the guard waiting outside the chambers was quick to fetch yet another boiling bucket from the kitchen downstairs. Droplets of condensation dribbled down from the tub onto the shell-shaped claw feet before spilling to the stone floor. She was sure the cracks between the stones were filled with water, now. How the candles filling every flat surface in the chambers still flickered with light and managed to shine through the amount of stream, she didn’t know. The steam rolled through the room like a cloud, filling every nook and cranny as she tried her very best to stop the sensation of something crawling under her skin.
The itch she just couldn’t scratch.
She had a good mind to drag her nails over her legs and arms again and again until she bled or the itching stopped altogether. Whichever came first, as long as the itching stopped. That was all that mattered to her.
Adding onto the sudden itchiness was the loneliness. She didn’t think the people on the estate understood the meaning of community or friendship, considering they barely spoke to one another and most of the time, they didn’t bother with her, either. That probably shouldn’t have bothered her as much as it did, but she wasn’t used to this.
Her people didn’t live alone.
They weren’t alone.
Not like this.
She could count the exact number of days she had been here—seventeen—and not a single one of them had been spent like they would have been, if she were back home in her colony. The bigger problem was the fact she couldn’t seem to leave.
Not because guards watched her. Or because someone would come after her again. All those things were a given.
No, she couldn’t leave him.
Eryx.
That wasn’t how this worked and the longer she spent with him, even if it was in separate rooms and without his attention, the stronger the need became.
Which was exactly why Arelle found herself—once again—in a bathtub while the sky was dark outside, the storms raged all around them, trying to scrub these feelings right out of her fucking skin. That’s what she blamed the itch on, although she didn’t know if it was true.
Couldn’t say at all it was the problem.
In her mind, however, it was.
She would get it out.
A sob slipped past her lips as she pushed the damp strands of her hair out of her face before she went right back to scrubbing her legs all over again. “Gods, why?”
Why did she feel like this?
Why wouldn’t it go away?
Just … why?
She’d probably asked the same question ten times. It wasn’t as though she expected an answer, and honestly, other than the guards waiting outside the chambers for her to finish bathing, she assumed she was alone.
Arelle should have known better.
Eryx had a way of sneaking up on her.
“As I understand it,” came his voice from the arched doorway leading into the bathing chambers, “the … unpleasantness you’re experiencing comes from being out of the saltwater for a while. They call it the leeching. Because it leeches from your skin over time and it can cause quite a feeling. A common complication for your kind. Apparently, it’ll get easier with time until it passes completely.”
Fuck him.
The shocking swell of anger at his answer—that he just knew what it was—pissed her off like nothing else.
Arelle didn’t even bother to glance up from her task of scrubbing her now-red skin into a raw mess as she said, “Why are you still there?”
It wasn’t like she needed him to enjoy her pain and struggle. He certainly did that more than enough at every other point in her days and evenings. He thought she didn’t know when he watched her, but she did. She could feel it most times.
Foolish girl, her mind taunted, because it was you and only you who did this to the both of you. As though she needed the reminder. Really.
“Leave,” she repeated.
His footsteps didn’t follow her demand, but frankly, her tone hadn’t been that strong. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted him near or gone.
The confusion was the worst. Look at all he’d done to her—all the things he promised to do that would hurt her still—and yet the damned thrall of her mate had every part of her craving the man more and more. It never went away. A constant in her breathing days, it tortured her.
She hated him.
She wanted him.
“Or is it you who would like to leave?” he asked quietly. “Then you could return to a kingdom now meant to be yours. Isn’t that what would happen if you found your way back to the Blu Sea?”
Arelle froze.
How did he know that?
Lifting her gaze from her tender knees, she found him leaning in the doorway. He’d shed the day clothes from earlier, now wearing only his evening clothes and a robe stained a rich red with a satiny sheen on the fabric. Tied loosely at the waist, the robe still showcased the broadness of his shoulders and brought out the golden sheen in his skin, even under the flickering lights of candles and thick steam. He seemed ready for bed.
So, why was he here?
“You know who I am,” she said.
It wasn’t a question.
She could see the truth in his eyes.
“You are the hunted,” Eryx told her, shrugging one shoulder. “And so, what good would we be if we didn’t make an effort to learn about our chosen prey?”
“Is that what I am—your prey?”
He didn’t answer.
She really didn’t need him to.
“You don’t know anything about us,” Arelle said softly. “Not what we do or who we love, or even why. All you care about is what we can do for you. You use us, hurt and break us. Don’t pretend like you know things about me or my kind for any other reason than to use it against us when it benefits you.”
Eryx nodded, his lips pursing in a way that hardened his handsome features further. As though he needed to seem more attractive to her than he already was. “You’re not wrong, darling.”
“What is that?”
“Hmm?”
“That thing you called me—the darling.”
Eryx shook his head. “Nothing. And you deflected. Will they come for you?”
“Who?”
“Your people. Someone. Will they come for you, thinking your sister is dead, which leaves only you as the heir to your undersea kingdom? Will they?”
Arelle let out a shuddering breath. The only good thing coming out of this conversation was the fact that the itchiness had lessened. For now.
“Will they?” he asked again.
This time, though, he didn’t stay in the doorway. Instead, he pushed away from the stone wall and crossed the space between them. His bare feet smacked against the damp floor, and before she could even blink, he leaned down over the tub; his face came to a stop only inches away from hers. Like this, she couldn’t look away.
He was too close.
All of him.
She saw all of him.
Dragged in his scent with each breath.
Wished to touch him.
Fuck him for it, too.
“Will they come for you?” he asked.
Arelle wet the line of her lips. “He might.”
“Who? The current king? Someone—”
“The man chosen for me.”
Something dark flashed in Eryx’s eyes. “Chosen. Your mate—isn’t that what it’s called?”
“The one chosen for me.”
It seemed better to repeat that sentiment, seeing as how she couldn’t exactly lie. Not that it mattered because the darkness was back in his face, and his jaw clenched with his next breath. All at once, she knew exactly what bothered him, when moments ago, he’d been perfectly calm.
Eryx was jealous.
“Say it,” he murmured, “that he is your mate.”
She still couldn’t lie. Not like this. Not with him.
“No, he can’t be my mate,” she whispered.
Their locked gazes didn’t budge. She wasn’t sure how long the two of them stayed like that. Did it even matter?
“I only wanted to kill you,” he said, voice thick with pain and frustration and something else entirely. “So why are you still alive with me like this?”
She didn’t think he really wanted an answer. He proved her right when he stood, turned, and left without a look backward. The urge to follow him was almost too much. It nearly dragged her out of the hot water.
Arelle sank beneath it, instead.
If he wanted her, he would tell her.
Wouldn’t he?
• • •
He was punishing her.
Of that, Arelle was most sure.
What other reason would Eryx have after their encounter that night in the bath chambers to do what he’d done? What he was still doing?
They’d moved—in the middle of the night, during a break between storms when the sky was still dark, and she’d had no real understanding of what was happening. From the house he’d brought her to, all the way to a new estate the guards called the House of Miller. She thought the new estate was worse, if only because they were so close to the sea here that she could smell it, taste it, hear it and even see it.
Outside the windows of the bedchambers where she was being kept, without any freedom this time around, she could watch the sea lap at the stairs leading down from the back of the house. She was so close to it that the itchiness became worse. And she was so alone in her confinement that had, so far, lasted five days that she was sure she would soon go insane.
Eryx wouldn’t see her.
No one did.
Arelle st
ayed locked in her rooms with only the windows to keep her company, and the occasional guards that came to remove what they needed or bring her what she asked for. They didn’t speak more than they had to. A servant never once graced her presence. She ate, slept, and lived alone.
At least before, she could leave her rooms. There were people around.
Now, it was just … nothing.
It had to be a punishment.
Didn’t it?
Pacing the length of the chambers, Arelle did her very best to ignore the sounds of the sea. It sounded like the most haunting song—calling her closer but warning her to stay away. She had never wanted anything more than the water and her home, and yet she knew the punishment and pain that waited for her should she return.
There was no winning here.
She would only lose.
But it was how she lost that scared her the most. Would she pay with her freedom, her life, or both? As it were, Eryx had already taken one.
What was another?
The fragility of her mind wasn’t lost on Arelle. Nor was the fact that she felt as though she were crawling out of her skin because of the bonds that tied her to one other person in the large house. She had no idea where he was within the estate, and yet in her mind and heart, she heard him all the time.
They were close.
Not close enough, her soul screamed. Not where you should be. Not where he’s touching you or seeing you. Not where you can see and touch him. It’s not enough.
She would break.
And maybe at the end of it all, that was what Eryx had wanted. Maybe it hadn’t been a punishment at all, but rather, an inevitable end. Because if she were feeling like this, then he had to be experiencing the same. That was the bond, and it was only fair. The thrall didn’t affect only one half of the pair—it ruined them both.
Forever.
After all, if he had learned other things about her that she hadn’t been the one to tell him—like her proper place in the sea—then how much else had he learned and not yet said?
Did he know what she had done?
What it meant?
Arelle spun on her bare feet, the flowy fabric of the white silk gown blowing wide around her legs. The heavy wooden door that was always latched surprisingly opened when she attempted to pull on it. The guard still waited outside in the hallway, but in that moment, he didn’t seem bothered that she was leaving her rooms.