I’ll come back,she promised silently.I don’t know when, but I’ll come back.
Then she turned and stepped into the dry, climate-controlled interior of the lab. The main room was quiet. Her father must be in his private workroom, lost in whatever project currently consumed him. Good. She could slip to her quarters, change out of her diving suit, and avoid any uncomfortable questions about?—
“There you are.”
The voice stopped her cold.
Merrick Bane stood in the entrance to the main room, elegant and predatory in another expensive suit. His flint-colored eyes traveled over her wet form with proprietary interest, and his thin lips curved into a smile that didn’t reach them.
“I was beginning to think you’d drowned.”
Her skin flickered, then went deliberately dim as she suppressed her instinctive revulsion. “I was checking the deep sensors. The storm shifted some of the equipment.”
“Mm.” He didn’t believe her—she could see it in the slight narrowing of his eyes—but he didn’t press. Not yet. “Your father mentioned you’ve been spending a lot of time in the water lately.”
“It’s my job.”
“Your job is to be an asset to this operation.” He moved closer, and she had to fight the urge to step back. “An asset that will soon belong to me, as we both know. I’d hate to think you were… damaging the merchandise.”
The word made her skin crawl.Merchandise.That’s all she was to him. A rare specimen, valuable for her abilities and her strangeness, something to be owned and displayed.
“I’m fine,” she said flatly. “The water doesn’t damage me. It’s where I belong.”
“For now.” His smile widened. “But soon you’ll belong somewhere else entirely. Won’t you, my dear?”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t, because any answer would be either a lie or a death sentence for her father’s freedom. So she just stood there, dripping onto the floor, as Merrick’s cold eyes surveyed her.
“The wedding is in three weeks,” he said. “I trust you’ll be prepared.”
“My father and I have discussed it.”
“Good. Because I’ve invested a great deal in this arrangement, Ariella. A great deal of money, a great deal of patience, and a great deal of…” He reached out and caught her chin in his cold dead fingers, tilting her face towards the light. “…anticipation.”
Her gills flared with the urge to pull away, but she forced herself to remain still. This was the bargain. This was the price. She’d known it for years, and she’d accepted it, and she couldn’t let one morning with a grumpy Vultor and his adorable daughter undo all of that.
But I want to,whispered a treacherous voice in her head.I want to run back to that cave and never leave.
“Three weeks,” he repeated, releasing her chin. “Don’t disappoint me.”
He swept past her and out the door, leaving behind only the lingering chill of his touch and the faint scent of expensive cologne.
She stood frozen for a long moment, her heart racing. Then, slowly, she raised a hand to her cheek—the same cheek Valrek had touched with such care.
Three weeks.
The clock was ticking.
CHAPTER 9
Valrek scented her before he saw her.
The morning wind shifted, carrying salt spray and something else, that warm honey scent that made his beast prowl restlessly beneath his skin. He straightened from where he’d been crouching near the tide pools, his heart hammering in a way that was entirely undignified for a warrior of his age and experience.
She emerged from the waves like something out of an old legend, water streaming from her dark hair as she pulled herself onto the rocks. Her skin shimmered with soft blue light, and the webbing between her fingers caught the morning sun like stained glass. Beautiful. Otherworldly.Mine.
Not mine,he reminded himself savagely.She can never be mine.
But telling himself that didn’t stop the surge of fierce satisfaction that flooded through him when she spotted him and smiled. It didn’t stop the rumble that built in his chest when she started making her way towards him, moving across the slippery rocks with the easy grace of someone who’d spent her life dancing with the tide.
