Page 139 of The Hunted

She shrugged. “My mate taught me to enjoy it.”

Well, then …

“Let me grab my knife, and we’ll talk as I work,” Eryx murmured.

“I still won’t fuck you.”

He chucked. “I still don’t want you to.”

THIRTY-THREE

Zale, King of the Blu Sea

WHEN THE MOOD of the court was dismal, so was the colony. Thing was, this time it wasn’t Zale’s court reflecting a bad atmosphere to the rest of the colony, but rather the rest of his people making their mood about him and his choices very clear.

Another time, he would have handled this better.

Surely.

Perhaps, he would have controlled his subjects with the same fear he’d once used to keep them away from the land and people of Atlas for all this time. The greatest threat to his place on the Blu Sea throne had always been his misdeeds—should they learn the truth—and how it had radically changed their world more than it already was.

He’d handed over a queen for a throne.

She had wanted peace.

He’d known it would never come to be.

What did it matter now?

“We should move the colony to a safer place. Far from Atlas, and the hunters. Somewhere we can live freely. There are smaller colonies without ruling realms that will—”

“This is our home!”

The shouts of the people in his throne room had Zale glancing up from the crown that rested in his lap. It felt more like a burden than it did a statement of his place now.

“We needn’t shout,” came a lazy drawl from the back of the room.

That voice.

It instantly made the king want to rage because, if not for the owner of the voice, this wouldn’t be happening in the first place. The people of his kingdom who had dared to storm his home with the demand that they be heard would not be separated at opposite ends of the room shouting at one another.

Mav.

The foolish prince.

“Are you happy now?” Zale dared to asked him.

He didn’t bother to address anyone else. The room was full of merpeople who had—at first—threatened to rip him from his throne. A good portion of his guards had stopped protecting the palace when the rebellion started to worsen in the Blu Sea. The people of the colony, however, were no longer important to Zale when he couldn’t bend them to his will.

What use were they?

If they wanted to die for their home, then who was he to tell them no? If they were willing to do anything—even remove him from his seat as the king—then how could he possibly stop them? There was only one of him, and he could already tell that he was not worth very much to the rest of them now.

“Have you gotten what you wanted now?” he shouted at Mav.

The Emerald prince smiled—just a ghost of a smirk that enraged Zale further. Had he been closer to the man, he might have ripped it right from his fucking face.

Had he no understanding of what he did? How he would lead these people to slaughter?