"Unless she doesn't want to be picked." The realization hit me like a current, cold and clarifying. "She's not lost, she's hiding. Deliberately. She doesn't want to be found." Silence fell over us as we processed that. An omega who didn't want to be claimed. Who was actively running from the very thing that should have been her birthright—protection, provision, a pack of her own.
Why?
"We need to find out." Kaelan's voice was quiet but certain. "We need to understand what's happening. Why she's running. What she's running from."
"What if she's running from something bad?" I demanded, my claws flexing. "What if whoever she's hiding from comes looking for her? Then what?"
"Then we protect her." His dark eyes met mine, and I saw something there I didn't expect—not just the cold calculation of a pack leader, but something softer. Something almost tender. "Whether she wants us to or not."
I looked back at the ship. She was still at the railing, still watching us, still gripping the wood like it was the only thing keeping her upright. What was she running from? Why would an omega choose this life—hard labor, hiding, loneliness, over being claimed and cared for?
It made no sense. None of it made sense. I wanted to understand. Wanted to know her story, her secrets, everything about her. And more than that—more than the curiosity, more than the hunger—I wanted her. The realization settled over melike a weight. I didn't just want to claim her. I wanted to keep her. Wanted to wrap her in my arms and my tail and never let her go. Wanted to be the reason she stopped looking so wary.
"We have to do something," I said, the urgency in my voice surprising even me. My claws were still extended, and I could feel myself drifting upward, toward her, pulled by something stronger than reason. "We can't just let her sail away. She's omega. She's?—"
"Ours?" Kaelan's voice was dry, but not mocking. He positioned himself between me and the surface, his obsidian tail sweeping slowly back and forth. "She doesn't know that yet, Riven. And we can't just take her."
"Why not?" I stared at him, incredulous, my scarred hands spreading wide. "She's unclaimed. She's alone. We want her—all of us want her. Why shouldn't we?—"
"Because she's hiding." Kaelan held my gaze without flinching. "Think about it. She's gone to great lengths to disguise what she is. She doesn't want to be found. If we surge up there and take her, we might be the very thing she's been running from."
The words hit me like a blow. I wanted to argue, wanted to insist that we were different, that we would never hurt her, that we would treasure her the way she deserved. But he was right. She didn't know us. Didn't know what we would or wouldn't do. All she would see was four alpha predators taking her against her will.
"She looked at us like we were wonderful." Vale's voice was quiet, thoughtful, his silver hair drifting around him like moonlight as he turned the green ribbon over in his fingers. "Do you remember? That first day, when she gave Kaelan the pearl. She wasn't afraid. She was awed."
I remembered. The way she'd floated there in the blue water, oxygen running out, and instead of fleeing in terror she'd offereda gift. Like we were something worth giving gifts to. Like we were wonderful instead of monstrous.
"She thinks we're mermaids." Thane's voice was soft, and there was something almost sad in it, a gentle melancholy that made his amber eyes look older than usual. He stroked the cream ribbon with one thumb, over and over, a soothing repetitive motion. "Creatures from fairy tales. She doesn't know what we really are."
Sirens. Man-eaters. Monsters who'd lured countless ships to their doom, who'd feasted on human flesh for centuries, who'd earned every terrified legend humans told about the creatures in the deep. If she knew what we really were, would she still look at us with wonder? Would she still wave at us like friends? Would she still toss gifts over the railing and smile when we caught them?
Or would she run?
"She'll find out eventually." The words tasted bitter on my tongue, and I felt my jaw clench around them. "When we take her to the shipwreck. When she sees the bones. She'll know."
"Then we have to make sure she wants to stay anyway." Kaelan's voice was quiet but certain, his dark eyes distant as if he was already planning, already strategizing. His hand drifted to the pouch at his hip where he kept her pearl. I'd seen him touch it a hundred times over the past few days, a compulsive gesture he probably wasn't even aware of. "We court her properly. We show her what we can offer. We make her feel safe and wanted and cherished. And when she finally learns the truth?—"
"She'll choose us anyway." Vale finished the thought, his sharp smile returning, but there was something genuine beneath it now, something almost tender. He wound the green ribbon through his silver hair, letting it trail down past his temple like a decoration. "Because by then, she'll know we'd never hurt her.That we'd burn the world before we let anything else hurt her either."
I looked at the ribbon in my hand. Pink. Soft. Smelling like her—like omega, yes, but also like something else. Something uniquely her. Salt and sunshine and a loneliness so deep it made my chest ache. She'd given us these ribbons. Her treasures, probably the only pretty things she owned. She'd given them to us because we'd given her gifts, because we'd shown up every evening, because we'd listened when she sang.
She'd been courting us back, in her own human way. Reaching out across the impossible divide between her world and ours, offering connection, hoping we'd accept. How could we do anything but answer?
"Fine," I said, the word coming out rough, reluctant, dragged from somewhere deep in my chest. I forced my claws to retract, forced my body to relax from its coiled-spring tension. "We court her. We make her choose us." I bared my teeth in something that wasn't quite a smile, letting them gleam in the fading light. "But she's ours. I don't care what she's running from or why she's hiding, she belongs to us now. If anyone tries to claim her before we do, I'll tear them apart."
"Agreed." Kaelan's voice was calm, but I could hear the same possessive edge in it, see it in the subtle extension of his own claws, the predatory stillness that settled over him. We might be willing to wait for her to choose us, but we weren't willing to let anyone else have her. She was ours, even if she didn't know it yet.
"We need the breathing potion." Vale pushed off from where he'd been floating, his iridescent tail catching the last rays of sunlight filtering down from above. His expression had shifted to something more practical, more focused. "If we're going to court her properly, we need to be able to show her our world. Take her beneath the surface, let her see what we can offer."
The breathing potion. Made by the sea witch who lived in the deep trenches, who traded in secrets and favors and sometimes body parts. The potion that let air-breathers survive underwater, that could keep a human alive in the depths for hours at a time. It was a risk. The sea witch was dangerous, unpredictable, and her prices were always higher than you expected. But if it meant being able to take our girl into the blue, show her the coral reefs and the glowing caves and all the wonders we'd discovered over centuries of swimming these waters?—
It was worth it.
"I'll go." Kaelan straightened, his shoulders squaring with purpose, the mantle of pack leader settling visibly over him. His dark eyes swept across us, commanding and certain. "Vale, with me. Riven, Thane, you stay here. Watch the ship."
"Watch her," I corrected, my voice brooking no argument.
His lips twitched—the barest hint of a smile, there and gone so fast I might have imagined it. "Watch her. Don't let her out of your sight. And don't do anything to frighten her."
