Chapter 15
“Hunter!” I scream, jerking awake from a nap.
I’m not sure what’s going on, but our connection feels wrong.
Weak, thin, fading. The bonding sickness hasn’t been as bad for me as I thought it would be—probably because I’ve been thoroughly knotted every night.
But my skin still feels too tight, itchy and wrong, and I’m restless all the time.
I sleep at odd hours, taking whatever opportunity I can.
My breaths come in heavy pants as the foreboding sense of something being off lingers with me after waking.
I tug on my bond with Hunter and get nothing but pain in return. He usually tries to shield me from it, but not right now. It’s too intense for him to hide.
The sky is an ominous grey, warning of an upcoming storm.
“I need to get off this fucking rock.”
I need my mates. And they need me. I might not be able to have them both right now, but I’m done waiting around. I’m going to find Caspian. Hunter’s hurting, and we need a plan, a way out, something.
The sun is high in the sky, and this is usually when I choose to go for a swim, so the guards won’t think anything of me stripping down to my bikini and getting in the water.
Caspian thinks I’ve just been exploring when I spend my time down there, but I’ve also been watching the mermen the queen stationed at my prison.
There are only ever two of them here at a time.
They mostly swim beneath the surface, but occasionally pop their heads above the water to check on me.
They make clockwise circles, evenly spaced apart, which means there’s a small gap of time when I could theoretically get past them.
The trouble is that the water’s so clear. They’ll spot me and quickly catch up.
I need to buy myself a little time. Since I haven’t been able to get those discs from the library in Ocearus to open or do anything, I’ll use one of them. After stripping down, I grab a breather and pick a disc at random.
The merman I’ve nicknamed gopher because of the way he sticks his head out of the water randomly, pops up.
I wave and smile at him. He scowls. He’s the least friendly of the guards.
Not that any of them are all that sociable, but a few seem more curious than combative. Gopher isn’t in that category.
As soon as he’s below the water again, I hurl the disc like a frisbee as far out as I can in the opposite direction from where I want to go. I’ve been watching which way the guards come from, so I know the city must be to the west of here. Hopefully, it’s not too far.
Slipping into the water, making as little sound as possible, I swim as fast as I can, diving deeper. If my plan works, they’ll still be exploring the splash and whatever fell in the water on the other side of my prison.
The breather’s surprisingly effective, but my body wasn’t made for the open ocean.
My legs and arms tire easily, but my eyes don’t sting, and I’m not as cold as I should be.
Which is strange. I’m long past trying to figure it out, though.
My best hypothesis is that being mated to Caspian is slowly changing my physiology.
I bet my best friend Evie would have a heyday examining what’s happening to me.
As a med student, she’s always been curious about DNA anomalies.
I look back over my shoulder as I swim, but so far, I don’t see anyone pursuing me.
Ahead, I spot a school of fish and race toward them. They’ll hopefully provide the cover I need. All I have to do is get to them before the guards figure out I’m missing.
Bright yellow swimmers with neon blue cheeks break formation as I near them, but quickly realize I’m not a threat and reconverge into their pack.
Slippery bodies slide against my bare skin, some of the fish braver than the others.
They buy me some time, but I can’t follow them indefinitely.
They zig and zag, and I don’t want to get thrown off course.
After swimming until my body feels like jelly and I can barely go on, I see lights.
Though, not the lights you’d see in the human world.
These aren’t as hard, giving off a more ethereal glow.
Similar to the ones embedded in the cave walls in Ocearus.
That makes sense, because it was a mercity, even if it was also inhabited by humans.
I push my body toward the bioluminescent colors, my lungs and muscles burning from the exertion and lack of pure oxygen.
As I get closer, I see the lights are actually corals and anemones.
It’s like a coral reef was grown into a wall to protect the city.
Spires rise above the walls, intimidating even from here, but I can’t see more than that.
Shit. Are there guards stationed at the wall as well?
I assume so, based on how I’ve been treated so far.
Though anything could swim over the top I suppose.
Ah hell, what if they have some science fiction-y weapons?
That would be just my luck, escape a barren mer-prison, swim gods know how far, only to get taken out by a merman ray gun or something.
Movement in the water ahead of me makes me pause, I can’t tell who or what it is. It’s getting closer though, which makes me jolt backward and nearly drop the breathing device. Fuck, that would have been bad.
Desperate not to get caught, I look for anything I can hide behind. A shelf of coral, more fish, even a patch of seaweed at this point. But there’s nothing. Just open ocean and small aquatic life that’ll be no use. Just as I’m about to accept my fate, I recognize the figure.
It’s the girl who visited me in my rock prison! The one who showed me the breather. She nearly drowned me in the process, but I’ll take her friendly face over the scary guards any day. Was she on her way to visit me again or just out exploring?
She smiles brightly and does a cute little twirl, her gorgeous tail billowing around her in the water. She looks happy to see me. She helped me before, maybe she can help me find Caspian now. If I can figure out a way to communicate with her.
I return her grin and wave, then swim closer. She flips and plays, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was showing off. I’m so busy watching the sweet mermaid that I’m not paying attention to my surroundings. A damning mistake.
The girl slows as her smile drops, and she shakes her head.
But she isn’t looking at me. She’s staring in anguish past me.
I don’t have time to turn around before a strong hand grips my bicep painfully.
I cry out in surprise, and the breather escapes my lips.
I try to reach for it, but the guard holds me firm.
He has to know I need that right? Or I’ll drown! Maybe he doesn’t care.
The young mermaid suddenly dives at a speed I wasn’t prepared for, scooping up the breathing device before it can hit the sandy sea floor and shoving it back into my mouth.
It’s rough, but I suck in a lungful of oxygen gratefully.
Another guard darts between us, saying something that sounds extremely aggressive in their language and forcing the girl to retreat with his sheer presence.
She looks at me apologetically as I’m yanked back the way I came. He swims much faster than I do, so in no time at all we’re back in the familiar waters that surround my island prison.
He says something to me in his language, but of course I don’t understand until he points at the rock with an angry scowl. Yeah, pretty sure my swimming privileges were just revoked.