Page 138 of The Hunted

Then, it quickly faded away.

“I don’t hear him anymore,” she eventually said, her words nothing more than a whisper. “My mate, I mean.”

Eryx’s brow furrowed. “Is he—”

“If he were dead, I would be, too.” The bright burning in her stare faded; what replaced it could only be described as agony. That was where Eryx found his understanding with the mermaid. He found familiarity in her pain because he shared the same. “Or that’s how it’s supposed to be. So, where is he? Why doesn’t he call for me?”

“Perhaps he can’t.”

Poe scoffed hard. “That’s impossible. It’s not how the bond works. He can always call—the same way I do for him. He never answers back. If he’s not dead, then he might as well be.”

“Except he isn’t, if you’re still alive.”

Then, Eryx had another thought.

Because as he assumed, the longer time he spent with this woman and the more their conversation went on, the better he knew exactly how to use her to his own gain.

Here she was, the rightful heir to the Blu Sea. Hadn’t they said with her assumed dead, it was the only reason why Arelle would take the throne after the current king? Eryx refused to even consider his own claim to it through his mother—if her journal entries and the way she signed them with Queen every time were to be trusted—because that wouldn’t help him at the moment. He didn’t have time to learn the sea, prove his place, and take it back.

How would he even go about doing that?

No, he had to get to Arelle first.

Make them safe.

And only then might he come back for the sea.

But Poe?

What would her people do for her—the lost heir?

What would she do—tear a kingdom down, looking for her mate?

Above the rickety roof he’d made out of fallen logs for their shelter, Eryx could hear the winds howling high over the trees and how they snapped and cracked with the pressure. If the landwalkers hid in the storms, and the mermaids came alive … what better time than the season of storms to invite the people of the sea to take back what belonged to them?

A war they could finally win.

“What would you do for me,” Eryx said, “if I could remove that collar from your throat?”

Poe’s hand flew up to the metal around her neck. “I was told it’s permanent.”

“It is … unless it’s removed by someone who knows how.”

The dancing flames colored her features.

Eryx waited.

“Can you?” she finally asked.

“A blacksmith who makes them showed me once. There’s a pin in the back that is impossible for the person wearing it to reach properly and just as difficult for anyone else to remove. But it can be done, if you can manage the pain for the duration of the process.”

Poe smiled.

Cold as it was.

“Pain doesn’t scare me.”

“No?”