The Hunted

by Bethany-Kris

  What would she do—tear a kingdom down, looking for her mate?

  Above the rickety roof he’d made out of fallen logs for their shelter, Eryx could hear the winds howling high over the trees and how they snapped and cracked with the pressure. If the landwalkers hid in the storms, and the mermaids came alive … what better time than the season of storms to invite the people of the sea to take back what belonged to them?

  A war they could finally win.

  “What would you do for me,” Eryx said, “if I could remove that collar from your throat?”

  Poe’s hand flew up to the metal around her neck. “I was told it’s permanent.”

  “It is … unless it’s removed by someone who knows how.”

  The dancing flames colored her features.

  Eryx waited.

  “Can you?” she finally asked.

  “A blacksmith who makes them showed me once. There’s a pin in the back that is impossible for the person wearing it to reach properly and just as difficult for anyone else to remove. But it can be done, if you can manage the pain for the duration of the process.”

  Poe smiled.

  Cold as it was.

  “Pain doesn’t scare me.”

  “No?”

  She shrugged. “My mate taught me to enjoy it.”

  Well, then …

  “Let me grab my knife, and we’ll talk as I work,” Eryx murmured.

  “I still won’t fuck you.”

  He chucked. “I still don’t want you to.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  Zale, King of the Blu Sea

  WHEN THE MOOD of the court was dismal, so was the colony. Thing was, this time it wasn’t Zale’s court reflecting a bad atmosphere to the rest of the colony, but rather the rest of his people making their mood about him and his choices very clear.

  Another time, he would have handled this better.

  Surely.

  Perhaps, he would have controlled his subjects with the same fear he’d once used to keep them away from the land and people of Atlas for all this time. The greatest threat to his place on the Blu Sea throne had always been his misdeeds—should they learn the truth—and how it had radically changed their world more than it already was.

  He’d handed over a queen for a throne.

  She had wanted peace.

  He’d known it would never come to be.

  What did it matter now?

  “We should move the colony to a safer place. Far from Atlas, and the hunters. Somewhere we can live freely. There are smaller colonies without ruling realms that will—”

  “This is our home!”

  The shouts of the people in his throne room had Zale glancing up from the crown that rested in his lap. It felt more like a burden than it did a statement of his place now.

  “We needn’t shout,” came a lazy drawl from the back of the room.

  That voice.

  It instantly made the king want to rage because, if not for the owner of the voice, this wouldn’t be happening in the first place. The people of his kingdom who had dared to storm his home with the demand that they be heard would not be separated at opposite ends of the room shouting at one another.

  Mav.

  The foolish prince.

  “Are you happy now?” Zale dared to asked him.

  He didn’t bother to address anyone else. The room was full of merpeople who had—at first—threatened to rip him from his throne. A good portion of his guards had stopped protecting the palace when the rebellion started to worsen in the Blu Sea. The people of the colony, however, were no longer important to Zale when he couldn’t bend them to his will.

  What use were they?

  If they wanted to die for their home, then who was he to tell them no? If they were willing to do anything—even remove him from his seat as the king—then how could he possibly stop them? There was only one of him, and he could already tell that he was not worth very much to the rest of them now.

  “Have you gotten what you wanted now?” he shouted at Mav.

  The Emerald prince smiled—just a ghost of a smirk that enraged Zale further. Had he been closer to the man, he might have ripped it right from his fucking face.

  Had he no understanding of what he did? How he would lead these people to slaughter?

  Yes, Zale had done awful things … but at one time, his intentions for doing them had been for the greater good. He’d hoped that with the trade of a queen, given to an obsessed prince on land, they would find a safer home and life.

  Instead, it’d only gotten worse.

  “No,” Mav finally replied. “I have not. I was promised a mate, Zale, and I intend to have her returned to me. Your court, they have demands, too. For some, it’s peace. For others, it’s a place where they can be free to live how they wish. And they deserve to be given what they want, too. So, no, I have not gotten what I wanted. Not yet.”

  Liar.

  Oh, his words sounded so good to the ears of those around him. Because yes, Zale had heard all of the whispers. Every little thing that Mav told those around him. How he promised a better life for the royal guard. How he assured the colony they would have both the sea and the land to live their life. How he made it sound perfect when he described the droves of children they would safely be able to have once they’d just done what they needed to do.

  Overthrow Zale.

  Take back the land.

  Burn Atlas to the ground.

  But him?

  Zale wasn’t as easily manipulated as the rest of the people around him. Pretty words and promises meant very little to him when he knew a war with the people on land was not something that would be over just because they started it.

  Other realms had done this very thing. One way or another, they suffered for it, too.

  “What you want,” Zale said, standing from his throne, uncaring that the crown fell from his lap and rolled across the floor, “is to take this kingdom from me and keep it as your own. Deny it.”

  “I have a kingdom waiting for me.”

  That response sent Zale cutting across the floor in a flash. Too fast for the people to understand what had happened, but Mav only tipped his chin up as the king stopped when the two of them were face to face.

  “But what would be better than two kingdoms?” Zale returned, sneering. “How long has your father been chasing the throne of Hades? How proud would he be if you handed over mine to him—how much closer would it get him to the realm he really wants?”

  The tensing of the other man’s jaw told Zale he’d hit a nerve there. The right one.

  “This is their home,” Mav murmured. “Let them take it back.”

  “And what of you?”

  “I want the mate I was—”

  Zale didn’t give the man the chance to finish his statement before he was reaching for the blade at his back. He’d barely thought of the consequences that would come from him drawing a weapon on the man who his people were now following as though they were blind with no thought of their own.

  He only wanted the Emerald prince dead.

  Mav had apparently planned for that because Zale didn’t even get the chance to pull his weapon from behind his back before the prince reacted.

  The staff with the green emerald that never left the prince’s hands came apart in two pieces. On either end were sharp blades that glinted when they caught Zale’s eyes. Mav smirked as he twisted those blades in his hands, unafraid and clearly comfortable with the weapons.

  As though he’d been trained.

  “Fifteen seconds,” Mav told him. “That is how long it will take you to bleed out when I finish the last slice. I have done it to better men than you, so just give me a reason to do it now.”

  Zale snarled under his breath. “You—”

  “I will let you run if that’s exactly what you do. I’ll do it for your mate and the grandchild she protects—I’ll let you both run, but you never look back. Give me your word.”

  The king said nothing.

&
nbsp; And then one blade met his throat.

  “Give me your word,” Mav uttered, too low for the rest of the room to hear, “and the truth of what you’ve done to this kingdom and the queen who sat on the throne before you will never reach their ears. It’s my last option, and I will use it if you give me no other choice.”

  “Her reign is long over—undoubtedly dead. What good would that even do?”

  “You know what it would do. And what if her legacy lives on—I was born where the sea meets the land. Children are born to mermaids and landwalkers all the time. It’s rumored that every son born to the Atlas king was a halfling, and they tried to hide it. And that king—wasn’t he the prince that hunted their queen? They say he keeps merwomen to breed. If she carried on her blood, and that blood lives even after her death, your entire rule was built on a lie of your own making.”

  Ah, that was why Mav really said nothing about what Zale had done. Not for the king, but for himself. Because if there were offspring from the previous queen, that child would have claim over Zale, his children, and anyone else who thought to take the Blu Sea throne.

  “I will use it,” Mav said again, “though it will hurt to do it.”

  Of course.

  “Where would we even go?” Zale demanded.

  “You’ll figure it out. As long as it isn’t here.”

  “Zale.”

  He didn’t dare turn at the call of his mate. He hadn’t even realized Rosel had left her rooms when the court was stormed by the people, but he wasn’t surprised.

  “Please, Zale,” he heard her whisper.

  She didn’t know it, but a lot of this and many of the things he’d done that hurt her … well, he did those things for her. Some, because he was scared that she would be taken from him. The very idea scared him to death. Others, because he loved her and it made him oh, so selfish.

  He understood that over the years, she’d grown resentful. Of his ways, his treatment, and his demands that felt like a constant hand around her delicate throat.

  But she’d been his proper mate.

  A good queen.

  The perfect mother.

  As though Mav could see the change in Zale’s mind through the stare he leveled on the man, the prince nodded. “You take nothing but the child.”

  “How long do we run?”

  “Until you’re dead.”

  Zale chuckled. “I hope the realm you’re willing to slaughter them for is worth the sacrifice you’ll pay to have it.”

  Mav nodded. “Me, too.”

  “Listen!”

  The order cut through the room, blanketing it and everyone inside in total silence. No one had to ask what they were listening for; the call traveling through the sea, filling the water with its faint familiarity.

  A call.

  A song of a royal.

  She was calling for them.

  But which one was it?

  Mav’s gaze stayed firm on Zale. “Do not be here when we return.”

  It killed him.

  All he’d worked for.

  Still, the king replied, “Agreed.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Eryx

  “THIS IS THE worst storm so far this season.”

  Eryx might as well have not bothered to say the words at all. Between the winds that screamed all around them on the high cliffs, the waves that crashed to the rocky ledge a hundred feet down below, and the haunting melody coming from his companion at his left, the words were lost.

  If Poe heard him, she didn’t say.

  Not that it mattered.

  The storms no longer scared him.

  The wind hit at their backs and then switched just as fast, coming in from the front. Then to the side, and around and around it went. He was sure if he could distinguish the clouds from the sky or the sea—it was a canvas of black—then he would see them rolling and circling to create the most dangerous part of the storms.

  The tunnels that came down. Wicked, ravaging wind tunnels that sucked up everything it touched and destroyed anything on the land in mere seconds.

  It was the only part of the storms that caused pause for Eryx, but at the moment, he didn’t have much of a choice but to be where he was … waiting.

  “Are you cold?” he asked Poe.

  She wore nothing but the thin gown the whorehouse had provided—or perhaps it was what she’d been given when they sent her away from the court. Either way, Poe didn’t respond to his concern or even acknowledge that he’d spoken at all.

  In fact, she just kept singing.

  That call …

  It didn’t feel familiar in a way that he’d heard it before, but it still seemed as though the song she sang into the wind almost pulled him forward. And if her call made him want to answer it, somehow, then he could only imagine what it did for the people of the sea who would hear her song and know it.

  At the moment, his own cloak was doing very little to battle the wind and rain. Soaked to the bone, and mildly cold already, he imagined she was no better.

  She was, however, focused.

  A grunt and the beat of hooves against wet rock had Eryx glancing over his shoulder. The horse who had done well in the storms the last few days was finally showing his edginess at the top of the cliffs overlooking the Blu Sea. Restless and jittery, the animal moved back and forth, already seeming like he wanted to leave.

  Eryx needed him, though.

  So, he’d tied the reins down to a small tree.

  Turning back to the sea and the wind, Eryx breathed in. Slow and deep. Filling his lungs and then releasing the air with a low hum that started in the back of his throat. Instinct, he thought, because he’d never made a sound like that before.

  “They’re coming,” Poe said, never looking away from the sea. “Look.”

  He did.

  It took him a second.

  Then, two.

  But against the sea of blackness, the color started to show. Flashes of silver, and slivers of green and blue. Fins cut through the surface of the water before they disappeared once more.

  Poe let out a sigh.

  It sounded like relief.

  But also, of mourning.

  He understood perfectly well because he felt the same. This was good for them. The sight of the mermaids coming to the land meant the plans he put in motion were working. At the same time, all he felt inside was pain from his mate being in limbo away from him.

  “Why doesn’t he call?” she asked. “Why doesn’t he answer me?”

  “This may give you the chance to find out exactly why.”

  Finally, she looked his way.

  Poe nodded.

  Eryx nodded back.

  “Good luck, mermaid,” he told her.

  That earned him a cunning smile from Poe when she replied, “Luck has nothing to do with winning a war.”

  He didn’t have the chance to tell her she might be right because in the next breath, Poe ran forward and jumped from the high cliffs.

  At least, he thought, I managed to get her collar off.

  • • •

  Arelle

  There was nothing more uncomfortable than the feeling of the spikes in the leather collar around her throat being pulled from her gills. It was entirely unnatural, and her gills flared with the first exhales it’d had in far too long.

  “Beautifully made, this,” the man said, admiring the collar in his hands. “But not acceptable if you’re going to be staying here, young one.”

  Arelle side-eyed the man she’d been told was a blacksmith there to fit her new, and permanent, collar. He talked as though they were friends, and even dared to ask her permission before putting his hands on her to remove Eryx’s collar.

  Thing was, she didn’t care to talk back.

  And they were not friends.

  She wouldn’t pretend differently.

  “Now, tip your head up, I like to get the measurement a bit loose, despite what everyone else thinks. It may be the law to wear it, but you should at least
be comfortable in it, I suppose. Lift up for me, thank you.”

  Arelle’s jaw clicked in her annoyance, but she did as he demanded. The man—whose name she didn’t care to learn, though he had been respectful enough to ask hers—pulled what appeared to be a strip of material from the pocket of his waistcoat. He wrapped it around her throat, and for the first time, she tensed.

  He clicked his tongue; his gaze darted to hers. “I know you must think badly of me, but I am only doing my job. I try to do it kindly, little mermaid, because they give me no choice. I am either here to do what they demand, or they kill me and mine. Do not worry, it is not my hands who will hurt you.”

  For the first time since she’d met the man, Arelle acknowledged him with a nod and a soft, “Thank you.”

  “Let me measure.”

  “Sure.”

  He took the measurement of her throat in a tense position, and then proceeded to mark the soft material with a piece of black charcoal.

  “There we are,” he said, packing the items away. “And that is it for today. I’ll put this one back on you for the sake of doing it, although what good it does, I don’t know. You could have removed it yourself.”

  Arelle smiled. “I couldn’t.”

  “Ah, I know. The law again.”

  “Not at all.”

  Her mate placed it.

  She wouldn’t remove it.

  And she hadn’t.

  When she didn’t explain further, even at his raised brow, the man chuckled with a shake of his head and raised her leather collar with the embossed detailing to place it back at her throat. Before he could, however, a ruckus in the hallway drew Arelle’s attention to the doorway of the room in the harem where she’d been told to go to meet with the blacksmith for her fitting.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  “I don’t kn—”

  She didn’t get to finish her statement before a servant of the court and two guards filed into the room while what looked like many more passed by the opened doorway. Each of their fast steps seemed to have a purpose. Their orders outside of the room rang out at the same time the ones inside the room told Arelle and the blacksmith, “There’s a revolt at the sea—they’re coming in from the water. We have limited time to move the king and court farther inland where he’ll be safer. The entire harem needs to be moved now.”