Chapter 19
Valrek woke to the sensation of fingers tracing the scars on his chest—careful, reverent touches that mapped each raised line of tissue with quiet curiosity.
He kept his eyes closed, not wanting to disturb the moment, and let himself simply feel.
The bond hummed between them, a constant thread of awareness that was both strange and deeply right.
“I know you’re awake,” she said.
“Mmm.” He cracked one eye open. “How?”
“Your breathing changed.”
“Observant.”
“I’m a scientist’s daughter.” She propped herself up on one elbow, looking down at him. In the soft morning light, with her hair tumbled around her shoulders and the mark on her neck still fresh and new, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “Also, I felt your heartbeat speed up.”
“It does that when you touch me.”
Her skin shimmered pink.
“The mark,” she said, reaching up to touch her shoulder. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. It actually feels… warm. Like sunshine trapped under my skin.”
“The bond is settling.” He pulled her down against his chest, unwilling to let her go even for a moment. “In the old days, mated pairs spent the first week together. Never separating. Letting the connection deepen.”
“A week sounds nice.” She nuzzled into his neck. “Unfortunately, I don’t think Merrick will give us that long.”
The name was cold water on his contentment.
“I think I need to find the Vultor you spotted.”
Alarm flickered across her face. “Why?”
“To find out why he’s here. To find out if he intends us any harm.” He hesitated, then told her the truth. “If he suspects there is a connection between us, he can track you here. I’d rather meet him on neutral ground first.”
Her worried look hadn’t faded so he bent down and nuzzled her mating bite. “Trust me. A single Vultor warrior is no threat.”
“All right. And I think I should…” Her words trailed off, her expression troubled.
“Stay here. Where you’re safe.”
“I can’t.” She pulled back enough to meet his eyes. “My father is not a good man, Valrek. I know that. But he’s not entirely a monster either. He’s trapped, the same way I was. If Merrick retaliates against him—”
“Your father sold you to pay his debts.”
“Debts he incurred saving my life,” she said quietly.
“I wouldn’t exist without him. I wouldn’t be able to breathe underwater, wouldn’t have my Song, wouldn’t have found the pipe or you or any of it.
He made me what I am. He made me into currency, yes.
But sometimes I wonder if he hates himself for it. ”
He growled.
“That doesn’t excuse—”
“I know. I’m not excusing him.” She pressed a palm to his chest, over his heart. “I’m just saying that if something happens to him because of me, I need to know I tried. I need to know I didn’t just leave him to Merrick’s mercy.”
He didn’t understand her feelings, not entirely, but he understood duty. He understood the weight of blood ties, even twisted ones.
“We’ll go together,” he said finally.
“No. You need to find that Vultor warrior. You can find out why he’s here while I check on my father—”
“Absolutely not.” His arms tightened around her. “You just fled a man who wants to own you, and you want to walk back into his reach alone?”
“Not walk, swim. I can hide in the water and you can’t.” She smiled at his growl. “Think about it strategically. If we’re together, we’re easier to trap. But if you’re tracking information while I’m gathering intelligence from another angle—”
“You’re not a spy. You’re a diver.”
“And you’re not a warrior anymore. You’re an exile and a father.” She cupped his face with a gentle hand. “We’re both pretending to be things we’re not. At least let me do it for something that matters.”
He wanted to argue. Every instinct screamed at him to forbid her from leaving his sight, to wrap himself around her and face the world with claws extended.
But she was right, and the tactical part of his brain—the part that had kept him alive through exile and rejection and endless solitude—recognized the wisdom in her plan.
“I will find the Vultor,” he said slowly, “and learn what he knows. You will check on your father from a distance.” He held up a hand when she started to interrupt.
“You will not enter the lab. You will not let Merrick see you. You will observe, gather what information you can, and return here before the sun reaches its peak.”
“That’s barely half a day.”
“That’s all you’re getting.” He pulled her down for a fierce kiss. “If you’re in danger, I will come for you, no matter what walls stand between us.”
She smiled against his mouth.
“My grumpy, protective alien warrior.”
“Your mate,” he corrected. “For the rest of our lives.”
“That’s what I said.”
They held each other for a few more precious moments, and then—reluctantly, painfully—they rose to face the day.
She put on a spare diving suit she’d left in cave with a sigh of relief. The ruined festival dress lay in shreds on the cave floor, and she looked at it with something like satisfaction.
“I hated that dress.”
“It was strangling your gills.”
“It was strangling my soul.” She kicked the silk aside and picked up the echo-pipe, running her fingers across its surface. “What should I do with this?”
“Leave it here. It’s safer here than carried out in the open.”
She nodded, placing the pipe carefully on a stone ledge near the sleeping furs.
“If something happens—”
“It won’t.”
“But if it does.” She turned to face him, her expression serious. “Make sure Lilani knows I wanted to come back. Make sure she knows I would have stayed if I could.”
The words twisted something in his chest.
“You’re coming back,” he said firmly. “I refuse to accept any other outcome.”
“Valrek—”
He crossed to her in two strides and pulled her into his arms.
“You are my mate. You are the mother my daughter has been waiting for. You are the only creature in this universe who makes my beast purr instead of roar.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “You are coming back. Say it.”
Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.
“I’m coming back.”
“Again.”
“I’m coming back.”
He kissed her—long and deep and thorough—and then forced himself to let go.
“Before the sun reaches its peak,” he reminded her.
“Before the sun reaches its peak,” she agreed.
She turned and walked out of the cave, and he watched as she climbed down the path to the beach and disappeared into the sea. The bond still thrummed between them and he focused on it, letting it anchor him.
She would be fine.
She would come back.
He had to believe that.
The alternative was unthinkable.
He found the strange Vultor at the edge of the woods behind the cliff, sitting on a fallen log like he owned the entire forest, one boot propped against a moss-covered rock, and a blade spinning lazily between his fingers.
He approached with his claws half-extended and his beast prowling just beneath his skin. Every instinct screamed caution—this male was young, strong, and carried himself with the easy confidence of someone who’d survived things that would break lesser warriors.
“So you’re Valrek. The exile.” Not a question. The stranger’s amber eyes tracked him closely despite his relaxed posture. “The one living in the sea caves with the halfling child.”
“And you’re trespassing.”
“Am I?” A cocky grin split the stranger’s face. “Didn’t realize you’d claimed sovereign territory. Should I have sent a formal delegation?”
His growl was low and dangerous.
“Who sent you?”
“No one sent me.” The blade disappeared into a sheath at the stranger’s hip. “I’m here on personal business. Checking up on someone the pack banished last year.”
“Banished?”
“Margaret Jacobson.” The name was spoken with contempt. “She caused trouble in a village near our territory. My Alpha Seren handled it, but we like to keep tabs on problems.”
His tension eased slightly. If this stranger’s pack had banished someone for behaving badly, they at least had some standards.
“You still haven’t told me your name.”
“Korrin.” The younger Vultor rose to his feet, and Valrek noted with grudging respect that he moved like a predator even in casual motion. “Korrin Dain. My pack lives in the mountains to the west.”
“And they tolerate humans in their territory?”
“More than tolerate.” Something shifted in Korrin’s expression—a flicker of warmth that seemed at odds with his cocky exterior. “Our alpha has… progressive views on interspecies relations. Some of our pack have human mates.”
He froze.
“Human mates.”
“I know.” Korrin’s grin returned. “It shocked me too, but Seren’s not like the old alphas. He believes we can coexist. He wants something better than the bloodshed our ancestors chose.”
Human mates. The words echoed in his mind like distant thunder.
He thought of Ariella—her shimmering skin, her impossible song, the way she fit against him like she’d been designed for his arms. She wasn’t fully human, not anymore, but the principle remained. A pack that accepted mixed bonds. A community where Lilani wouldn’t be treated as an abomination.
It seemed too good to be true.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because of your daughter.” Korrin’s voice softened unexpectedly. “She deserves better than exile.”
His chest tightened.
“My pack—my former pack—disagreed.”
“Your former pack was run by intolerant, short-sighted assholes.” No hesitation, no diplomacy. “You saved your daughter from that. That took courage.”
“It took desperation.”
“Same thing, sometimes.” Korrin extended his hand in the human gesture of friendship.
“I realize you may not want to leave your home, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be part of a pack.
I can talk to Seren and tell him about you and your daughter.
I can’t promise anything, but I believe he would welcome you. ”
He stared at the outstretched hand. His beast, usually so suspicious of strangers, was quiet. Not acceptance, but… possibility.
“You would do that?”
“I would.” Korrin’s amber eyes held steady. “I know what it’s like to feel like you don’t belong anywhere. Trust me—I know.”
For a long moment, neither of them moved. Then he reached out and clasped the younger male’s forearm in the traditional Vultor greeting.
“I would appreciate whatever you can do.”
“Good.” Korrin’s cocky grin returned, but there was genuine warmth beneath it. “I’ll be in the area for a few more days. If Seren agrees to meet with you, I’ll leave a marker at the old lighthouse point.”
He turned to go, then paused.
“One more thing. I have a human mate as well.”
Before he could respond, the younger Vultor melted into the forest like a shadow, leaving nothing but the faint scent of pine and wildness behind.