Page 40 of The Hunted

Where were the nets?

The ships?

But then she felt it …

When something sank in water—especially if it was something big—it created pressure that dragged everything else around it down, too. Flipping over to her back, a scream burst from her lips when the entire side of a ship came into view only a short distance away from her face.

She had a second to react. A moment to get out of the way.

Arelle still felt the ship graze the back of her tail fin when she came to her senses and decided to move. Although the sinking ship was just one problem because there had been more, she knew. It wasn’t the ship that had pulled her sister out of the water in the net. They very rarely hunted with only one vessel.

She still couldn’t break the surface to see where she was. How did she get away from here without—

Arelle’s mind blanked as a figure took shape in the churning waters. Like the other bits of debris and bodies now sinking in the water, one stood out amongst the rest. Undoubtedly from the ship that had probably capsized from the storm.

For a moment, she simply stared. His eyes were closed. Jaw slack. With his arms extended over his head, the pressure from the sinking ship was quickly dragging him deeper and deeper into the water. In dark water, her vision wasn’t the absolute best, but there was no denying that face.

That man. Though she didn’t know his name, she remembered his voice. So distinct with its thick pain as he called for his mother.

His mother. Who had been a mermaid.

Arelle turned away from the sight of the drowning man—his death would be silent, even if the sea was screaming; that was simply the way of the water—but hesitated in swimming away entirely. Looking back over her shoulder, she felt a tug in her chest.

A pull.

It wasn’t because he could see her and would know she didn’t try to help or even for the fact someone was drowning in waters they couldn’t possibly swim in … no, it was what she knew about him that made her hesitate.

His threat to her from a season before echoed in her mind.

I’ll kill you.

Arelle couldn’t forget the sight of him begging for his mother, either. Or how he’d been willing to risk himself to wade into dangerous waters if it meant he might be able to save the woman.

He wasn’t like her.

But he was one of them.

She heard whispers of the halflings. Of young birthed to merwomen who had been taken as slaves for the landwalkers. Anything was possible with the right circumstances, and though he’d threatened her, she couldn’t ignore the urge to help him.

Didn’t she owe him that? She hadn’t been able to help his mother. She’d watched the woman die. It would be easier to let the man die in this sea …

But that wasn’t who Arelle was.

She turned back for him.

For a man whose name she didn’t know. She turned back to save a life that only wanted to end hers.

NINE

Arelle

ARELLE SUCKED in a lungful of damp sea air as she heaved the man’s body over the sharp rocks leading into a heavily forested part of a smaller island. She hadn’t realized how close they were to Atlas Islands until she dragged the man up to the surface of the sea to get him in the air.

Not that it seemed to matter that they were now on land.

He still didn’t open his eyes.

Didn’t breathe.