Page 110 of The Hunted

“You have to understand how dangerous this could be for you, your highness,” one of his advisors said, daring to be the first to speak in the group of four. “The Emerald prince has been seen gathering guards—we know he’s sent back a messenger for his father, but we were unable to intervene before the man was out of our colonies. He’s been spotted nearing Atlas, probably scouting. There are talks, Zale. Talks between the people of an uprising. They feel even more unsafe than before. They don’t believe you can protect them. And if someone is willing to say they will be the one who will do it, what do they have to lose after everything? Don’t you understand—”

“I’m not stupid or foolish. I understand what it could mean.”

“There’s more,” another one of the men said.

Oh, really?

What more could there be?

Zale had agreed to the mating between Arelle and the prince, Mav, from the Emerald Lands when she’d been only fourteen, nearing her fifteenth year. He’d assumed it would be a good match, and even better for his rule. Yet another one of his princesses married to a strong royal bloodline of merpeople from another realm.

It meant power and a hand he could extend.

Things his people needed.

Unfortunately, that merman had been nothing more than a prickly thorn in his side from the moment he swam into Zale’s sea.

“What else?” Zale asked.

His pacing finally came to a stop, and he dared to shoot a look over his shoulder at the enclave entrance that would lead to his wife’s private chambers. She had made it very clear he was no longer invited in there unless she said otherwise.

He didn’t even get to see his grandchild.

Not that those things really bothered him. It was the fact that she’d refused his presence because he’d asked for another child—an heir to replace the ones he’d lost these past two seasons. It only seemed fair, to be honest.

He couldn’t force a child on his mate—one of the only choices they had in mating was the woman’s decision to have the child. Spill the first seed outside of the womb, and she was safe from impending pregnancy. And even if she didn’t waste the first, it seemed like chance whether she even would conceive otherwise. The man was helpless to his partner’s control. As the stories went, it prevented children from arriving to a merwoman in a mated pair that was not a happy or good one. But they didn’t have to be happy or good at the moment. They needed an heir.

“Well?” Zale demanded when his men stayed silent.

His gaze skipped over his gathered advisors, waiting for yet another grievance about Mav that would put him one step closer to either banishing the man from his kingdom or killing him altogether. That option, however, would probably mean a war for him.

The favored son.

An heir to a far larger realm than his own …

Killing Mav would not end well for Zale, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t considering it or thinking about it more often than he should.

“Seems he’s been asking about the last queen,” the man in the middle of the others said quietly. “And what anyone might know about her … unfortunate end.”

Zale stiffened into ice. “What?”

“We told you—we told you the stories of her capture would be spread. You could only twist the narrative so much when there were witnesses. The kingdom knew the prince on land had an obsession with hunting her after the talks of peace she’d attempted with the king. And if the truth comes out that she wasn’t killed like you said she was, then it’s not that far of a step before they learn you planned for her capture, too.”

Disbelief and rage swelled through Zale like never before. He darted closer to the advisor, his hand already reaching for the dagger he kept sheathed at his back as a last defense. Glaring at the man, his hand wrapped around the butt of the knife, but he didn’t pull it out just yet.

“You will watch your tongue, or I will cut it out and place it in your hand for you to stare at for the rest of your days,” he warned.

The man to the right of the one he’d just threatened let out a sigh before saying, “The sacrifice of the last queen didn’t do what you promised it would do, Zale. They continued hunting us. And look at us now—decades later, and even your own daughters have been captured. What now?”

The sea king had a good mind to cut the throat out of the man instead of his tongue. At least then, not only would he be unable to talk and anger his king, but he’d also be dead. A good thing for Zale, at the moment.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t do it.

He had so few people left who he could trust, and these advisors were some of those. He couldn’t afford to lose anyone.

“Bring him to me,” Zale ordered, finally letting go of the end of the knife and dropping his hands to his sides. “Mav, bring him to me now.”

He didn’t need to say it a second time. The advisors were quick to scatter from his presence, but then again, that seemed to be happening to him a lot. Even his subjects couldn’t stomach to be in his view for too long before they, too, found a reason to leave.