Page 15 of The Hunted

And yet, he still slid down the end of the embankment, his ripped pants and ruined shoes doing nothing to protect him from the cold water. Except he barely felt it at all. His own blood tasted tangy on his lips, the scratches against his chest from where his shirt had been torn off stinging against the saltwater and heavy rain. Even as the waves came higher, the water turning choppier than ever, he moved farther into it all.

Closer to danger.

To his mother.

He called for her again.

The skies answered back with its own cry.

A warning, maybe.

It could take him under. If the current hit him just right, or a wave … he’d be entirely fucked, drawn out to sea and unable to swim back. Not when he couldn’t breathe under the water.

The realization was painful.

She wouldn’t be able to breathe, either. Despite being born and raised in the sea, in her current circumstance, she wouldn’t even be able to save herself.

Her collar … impossible to take off.

Eryx couldn’t move.

He just called for her—begged for his mother again. His words disappeared into treacherous water and blackened skies. His soul went with it. What remained of him that had any good left was lost with every call for his mother that went unanswered.

Vanished like his pleas.

As did his sanity.

All of it.

Gone.

FOUR

Arelle

“WE HAVE TO go back!”

Poe kept swimming ahead of Arelle. She acted as though she hadn’t heard her sister’s shout under the raging water, but Arelle knew better.

“Poe, we have to go back for Coral!”

Poe’s tail beat hard in the water, her fin slicing back and forth so fast that she made a slipstream for Arelle to follow. That didn’t change the fact that her sister still wasn’t answering her.

“Poe—”

Faster than Arelle could blink, her sister spun around. She nearly ran right into Poe, both of them straightening up as the dark water around them moved so harshly that it rocked them both on the spot. She barely noticed it at all, however, because she was more focused on the way her sister was looking at her.

So mad.

Teeth grinding.

Violet eyes narrowed.

Streaked with the purple of their kind, the blood an electric shade under the dark water. Like this, it glowed. She could reach out and try to wipe the blood off her sister’s face, but it wouldn’t do her any good. In water, their blood became almost sticky. It would take more than a swipe of a hand to wash it away.

Another sign of their wrongs.

A reminder that wouldn’t leave.