I pressed the bottle to my chest, fighting down the panic that threatened to choke me. I'd been so focused on surviving day to day, on avoiding Cort, on stealing moments at the railing with my mermen, that I hadn't let myself think about what came next. About what would happen when my secret was exposed.Cort would know. The thought made bile rise in my throat. Cort, with his calculating eyes and his possessive hands and his promise that they would ‘come to an understanding’. He'd know I was an omega, and he'd?—
I couldn't finish the thought. Couldn't let myself imagine what an alpha like Cort would do to an unclaimed omega trapped on a ship in the middle of the ocean.
"Early riser."
I spun around, my heart slamming against my ribs. Decker stood in the doorway, his thin frame silhouetted against the gray morning light. His pale eyes glittered with that familiar malicious curiosity, and his thin lips curved in a smirk that made my skin crawl.
"Couldn't sleep." I shoved the bottle back into my bag, hoping he hadn't seen it. Hoping he didn't know what it was. "Thought I'd get a head start on the day."
"Mmm." Decker leaned against the doorframe, blocking my only exit. His eyes traveled over me slowly, taking in my still-damp clothes, my tangled hair, the flush I could feel creeping up my cheeks. "You look different lately, mouse. Happier. Almost...glowing." His tongue darted out to wet his lips. "Makes a man curious."
"Nothing to be curious about." I clutched my bag to my chest like a shield, my fingers white-knuckled on the rough canvas. "Just the sea air. It agrees with me."
"Does it?" Decker pushed off from the doorframe and took a step toward me. Then another. His thin body seemed to fill the small space, pressing in on me from all sides. "Funny thing about sea air. It doesn't usually make a person's clothes wet. Doesn't usually leave salt crystals in their hair." His pale eyes narrowed. "Doesn't usually smell like something... other."
My blood ran cold. Could he smell them on me? The mermen, their ocean-deep scent, the traces they'd left with every touch? I'd been so careful, so cautious, but I'd spent hours in their arms last night, pressed against their bodies, surrounded by their presence.
"I don't know what you're talking about." My voice came out steady, but my hands were shaking. "I fell asleep on deck. Got caught in the spray from the waves. That's all."
Decker studied me for a long moment, his pale eyes unreadable. Then he smiled, and it was worse than his suspicion had been. Knowing. Predatory. Patient.
"Of course." He stepped back, giving me room to pass. "That must be it. The spray from the waves." He paused as I edged past him, his voice dropping to a whisper that brushed against my ear like something unclean. "Cort's been asking about you, you know. Asking where you go. What you do. Who you talk to." His breath was hot and sour against my skin. "He's a patient man, our Cort. But even patient men have limits."
I fled. I didn't stop until I reached the deck, until the open sky was above me and the wind was in my face and I could breathe again. My legs were shaking. My whole body wasshaking, tremors running through me like the aftershocks of an earthquake.
They knew.
Maybe not everything, maybe not the truth about them, but they knew something. Decker and Cort, watching me, waiting, closing in like wolves on wounded prey.
I gripped the railing and stared out at the sea, willing the water to part and show me the faces I needed to see. It was morning, and the sun was bright overhead, and they wouldn't come until dusk. They never came until dusk.
Hours. I had hours to get through before I could see them again. Hours of avoiding Cort's eyes, of deflecting Decker's questions, of pretending to be something I wasn't while the walls closed in around me. I could do this. I had to do this. The day passed in a blur of tension and fear. I kept my head down, volunteered for the worst jobs, made myself invisible in the way I'd learned over months of hiding. Scrubbing the deck on my hands and knees. Hauling ropes until my palms bled. Sorting through the catch with fish guts up to my elbows.
Anything to stay busy. Anything to avoid being cornered. Anything to make the hours pass faster until sunset. I couldn't avoid everyone.
Cort found me at midday, when the sun was highest and the deck was crowded with crew taking their meal break. I was sitting alone near the bow, forcing myself to eat hardtack and dried fish, when his shadow fell over me.
"Lily." His voice was deceptively pleasant, almost friendly. He lowered himself to sit beside me, close enough that our shoulders nearly touched. "We haven't talked in a while. I've missed our conversations."
"We've never had conversations." I kept my eyes on my food, my jaw tight. "You talk. I listen. That's not the same thing."
"Isn't it?" Cort chuckled, a low sound that made my skin prickle with unease. His hand came up to rest on the deck beside me, close enough that his fingers could brush against my thigh if he shifted even slightly. "I've been watching you, Lily. You know that, don't you? Watching and waiting and wondering."
"Wondering about what?" I forced myself to take another bite, to chew, to swallow. To act like my heart wasn't hammering against my ribs, like my instincts weren't screaming at me to run.
"About what you're hiding." Cort's voice dropped lower, intimate, like we were sharing secrets. His head tilted toward me, and I could smell him, alpha musk and sweat and something possessive that made my stomach turn. "You're not what you pretend to be, little mouse. I've known that since the day you came aboard. But lately..." He inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring. "Lately, you smell different. Sweeter. Like something's changing."
The scent blockers. They were failing faster than I'd thought. Or maybe Cort was just more attuned to me than I'd realized, his alpha senses picking up on what I was desperately trying to hide.
"I don't know what you're talking about." The lie didn’t sit right with me, but I had to. I wasn’t going to let him find out what I was.
"Don't you?" Cort's hand moved, just slightly, and his fingers brushed against my thigh. A casual touch, easily mistaken for an accident. But his eyes were fixed on my face, watching my reaction, cataloging every twitch and flinch. "I think you do, Lily. I think you know exactly what I'm talking about. And I think, very soon, you and I are going to have a real conversation about it."
I stood up so fast I nearly tripped over my own feet. "I have work to do."
"Of course you do." Cort didn't move, didn't reach for me, just watched me with those calculating eyes and that patient smile. "We all have work to do, little mouse. But work ends eventually. And when it does..." He let the sentence hang, unfinished, full of threat and promise.
I walked away on legs that felt like water. Walked until I couldn't feel his eyes on me anymore, until I found a shadowed corner where no one could see me shake apart. I had a week…maybe two if I could make it work, make my scent blockers stretch that long. But then…Then Cort would know. Everyone would know. And there would be nowhere left to run.
