Page 109 of The Hunted

Mattue’s brow raised. “Oh, you use her name?”

“Mattue—”

“Her name is nothing. She is nothing—a creature, Eryx. Owned. That is what she is, and you would do well to remember it before you take her out somewhere and think someone else will forget her place, too.”

“I don’t like your tone. Don’t forget your place, Mattue.”

The advisor grinned and shook his head. “See, that right there. It’s concerning. We had a deal, or did you forget it? You have gotten what you wanted, and now I want what you promised me.”

“Take the fucking crown,” Eryx snarled. “If you want it, then take it. Who do you have to go through, when in one way or another, you’ve killed every brother I had?”

Mattue’s head snapped back, and his gaze zoned in on Eryx with a warning flashing brightly.

“Oh, you think I forgot about that, too?” Eryx asked. “He fell from the horse, Eryx, that is what you must say. I might have only been four, but you still sound the same now as you did then. If you want the crown, I’m certainly not stepping in your way.”

It took him a minute, but Mattue made his way around the side of the table and all the way to where Eryx stood on the other side. That piece of white silk was still tight in his hand, and he dumped it to the prince’s feet without warning or care.

Then, Mattue said, “You don’t seem to understand, Eryx. While you remain alive, the crown will always be yours when it is not your father’s.”

“I will abdicate.”

The advisor stared at the piece of white silk like it meant something more than either of them would say. “I’m not sure you will, actually. Not if the crown means you get to keep something … your father did that once, too. Thought he loved a slave. Thing was, she never loved him back. She only ever loved you. Did you ever see your mother without her collar?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It has to do with everything that you are. Your father, well, he would have allowed her anything. And then you were born, and everything had to change. She didn’t need the collar with her fin clipped and you on her hip, but she wore it to hide what you and the rest of them could never know. Not if she wanted you to live. And Anthia … your mother only ever wanted for you to live.”

“What are you—”

“The crown is yours while you’re alive. More than you know, Eryx.”

What?

Eryx would figure it out.

Another time.

“Leave,” he demanded.

Mattue did.

Still, Eryx heard his advisor’s parting words before the door closed. They would haunt him for days, he was sure.

“You’ll regret this, Prince.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Zale, King of the Blu Sea

“ARE YOU listening to—”

“I hear him perfectly fine,” Zale replied shortly, his tail fin snapping hard to the floor of the private palace chambers before he continued his pacing. “I’m hearing too much, in fact.”

The silence that answered his outburst satisfied Zale, but he knew it wouldn’t last long. It couldn’t. That had been his biggest problem since the last of his daughters had been captured by the landwalkers.

Nothing was as he wanted it to be.

Not as it should be.