Page 63 of The Hunted

Then, Rosel gave a conspiratorial grin. “Really, you’ll see. Take a swim, hmm? Clear your head.”

That had Arelle laughing.

Bitterly.

“To where? I’m not allowed to leave the palace. And when I do get to travel within the colony, I have guards from father and from Mav.”

“And if I could help you with that?” her mother asked.

Arelle stilled. “Do you know how to get away?”

Rosel arched a brow. “Well, I wouldn’t have been able to survive in this palace all these years without a will and a way, Arelle.”

• • •

The last thing Arelle needed was fun when everything else in her life had become so very serious in a short amount of time, but as she twisted in a spiral through a school of fish that circled around her while darting toward the light at the surface of the sea … well, she couldn’t help but laugh. Their soft fins tickled her arms; their scales sparkled in the shimmery blue depths.

She hadn’t gone very far from the palace or colony. Just enough that she wouldn’t be caught or seen by someone who would report back to her father or Mav. Her mother had been right. All she needed was just a few free moments to simply be.

Not that this time had done anything to solve her current problems, but at least she hadn’t been thinking about it all while she enjoyed herself.

Wasn’t that what counted?

Arelle could go back to dying inside later.

Surely.

The school of brightly colored fish had started to circle back around to her. Turning a loop just before she would break the surface of the sea, Arelle darted for the fish once more, but the slipstream that she passed through to do it had her stopping instantly.

As though she’d turned to ice.

Water rushed into her lungs as she gulped deep, and then moved straight out of her gills. The school twisted all around her, making it impossible to see through to the rest of the clear sea. Not that it mattered. She didn’t need to see when she could taste what had stopped her right in her tracks with each and every breath.

She tried to ignore it.

Desperately wanted to stop breathing in the water.

She couldn’t.

That was the thing about the bond between mates. Once made, there was no possible way to ignore how it changed everything. When the blood was shared, they became one. When the voices were heard, they would hear each other until one could no longer speak.

It’s why she hadn’t talked.

He still had her blood, though.

That’s what she could taste with every pull of water that washed through her lungs and then slipped out of her gills on the exhale. His blood tainted the water, coloring it with the distinct call of him and just a hint of her.

As faint as it was, it still had every piece of Arelle’s body, heart, and mind spiraling into the baser urges of her instincts. The parts of her that tasted blood in the water—the blood of her mate—and thought something is wrong. She still heard the men on the ships calling his name. It sounded like an echo in her very soul.

Eryx.

And at night, when she was alone and he was … wherever he was, well, she heard him, then, too. Calling for her. Wanting the sea. Being alone.

She couldn’t pretend that she didn’t hear him, but the war of not following those calls when that’s exactly what they were meant to do—to bring her home—was maddening. It only became worse with every passing day.

How long had it been now? She didn’t even really have to think about it. Twenty days since that night. Because she’d counted each one. They reverberated in her soul.

And now …