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* * * * *
“SHOULD I HAVE GONEout after her?”
Meridia felt the guilt along the subtle connection she shared with Donner and sent back a silent wave of reassurance before speaking. “If she needed to be alone, then she needed to be alone. We all need it sometimes. And this way, she’ll have worn herself out enough that she won’t be so twisted inside.”
Donner had been nearby when she’d gone to talk to Zee earlier, only to find the woman gone.
He’d been reluctant to talk but Meridia realized soon enough it was because Zee asked him not to. Once Meridia demanded an answer, alpha to second, Donner had quickly told her, then confessed he was worried. He’d seen her in the early morning hours, but had to fall back to his patrol route.
A young male right whale Atargarian he was friendly with had contacted Donner, told him he’d seen “Meridia’s adopted little sister” swimming like a demon, miles north of the cape.
Her own worry rising to the fore, she’d sent out an alert, not just to her people in the waters, but to the creatures aware enough, intelligent enough to watch for her.
Now, after delivering the news to the Appalachia Prime, Meridia kept her features blank and calm.
“Is this how you watch over those under your protection?” Nikolai asked. “By losing them?”
“She’s not lost—” Donner growled, only to stop at Meridia’s light mental touch.
“I could always kick them out of my territory when I’m pissed off. Make them outcasts so nobody of the pack will come near. I hear that’s what all the big, surly Primes do,” Meridia said with false sweetness. “But I prefer to let those I love live their lives as they choose. She wanted to swim, so she went for a swim.”
“One that lasts... ” Nikolai gave the slick, shiny watch on his wrist a quick look. “Seven hours?”
Her phone rang and she held up a hand, pulling it out and adjusting it to audio only. Pacing several feet away, she listened as one of the humans who’d been accepted into the fold after marrying an Atargarian spoke.
“Describe her?”
Saul Galway’s voice was rueful. “Meridia, I’m an old man and I can’t walk ten feet without my knees creaking. Millie... well, she’s a lot of things but quiet and graceful aren’t her strong suits. But Millie could scent Therian and we both saw the wolf, black, except for one ear. That was brown. Sleeping curled up in the trees at the park. Millie caught the scent and since we’d heard the alert, we decided to look, make sure she wasn’t hurt. Millie didn’t scent anything like that. Think she wore herself out. How the hell did that girl swim all the way to Portsmouth?”
Damn it, Saul. Squeezing her eyes shut, she braced herself for a reaction from the Therian close by.
There was nothing. He remained leaning against the car he’d arrived in, dressed in a slick black suit, the wind teasing his short hair.
She didn’t buy that calm façade for a minute.
“Thank you, Saul,” she said quietly, wishing she could connect with Millie the way she could with Donner and some of her other people.
“Millie went for a swim,” Saul said, voice lower now, as if he’d sensed her irritation. “She’s going to send word out so people know she’s here and can look for her when she heads back. Unless you want us to wait and drive her?”
“No. It’s fine.” Ending the call, she gave the Prime a silky smile. “It’s your lucky day. I’ll wait to start the clock on your Twenty-four hours until Zee gets home.”
* * * * *
NIKO HAD NEVER CAREDmuch for sushi, but at that moment, he was tempted to sink his teeth and claws into the woman standing ten feet away.
It wouldn’t be an easy fight, and having the big bastard at her side would make it even more interesting, but he was fucking tired of the games, the questions... the worry.
So instead of snarling and going on the attack, he gave her a bland smile. “You’re so kind.”
Her pretty lips bowed up and she fluttered her lashes, but Niko was under no illusions. The mermaid wasn’t flirting with him. Not that he was interested, at all, but he’d seen the hard edge of fury during the moments when she’d let her control drop and spoke to him in a voice that had been like a beautiful blade across his neural pathways.
She used her beauty the same way—an edged weapon to cut, slice and destroy.
It should enrage him—and it did on one level.
But on a deeper level, it roused a deep sense of respect. Because that weapon had been drawn in defense of somebody she cared for. That strength had kept Zee safe and for that, Niko was grateful.
Even if he did wanted to sink his teeth into the mermaid’s annoying neck now.
