She’d stayed in the water until sunset, letting the current carry her where it willed, using her song to map the underwater terrain in a futile attempt to quiet her racing thoughts. But eventually even the sea had lost its comfort, and she’d dragged herself back to shore with a heaviness in her chest that had nothing to do with exhaustion.
Her father was asleep in his study, slumped over his desk surrounded by scattered notes and blinking diagnostic screens. He looked older in sleep—the lines around his eyes deeper, the grey in his hair more pronounced. She might have felt sorry for him, once. Before she’d learned the true cost of his genius.
She moved through the lab on silent feet, heading for her room. She was almost to her door when she heard it.
A howl.
Long and mournful and utterly unmistakable, carrying across the miles of ocean and stone like a living thing. It rose and fell with an ache that made her heart clench, a sound of loss and longing that she felt in her very bones.
Valrek.
He was calling to her. His beast was crying out across the darkness, and every cell in her body burned with the need to answer. She pressed her hand to the cool metal of the door, steadying herself against the wave of emotion that threatened to pull her under.
I can’t go through with this.
The realization crystallized with sudden, terrifying clarity. The wedding. The contract. The life that Merrick Bane had planned for her with all the care of a collector arranging his displays. She couldn’t do it.
Not when her heart belonged to a scarred Vultor warrior who looked at her like she was the moon. Not when her soul sang in harmony with a little half-human girl who called her the “Star Lady.” Not when every fiber of her being knew that she belonged in that rough-hewn cave by the sea.
Tomorrow, she decided. Tomorrow she would tell Merrick that the wedding was off. She would find a way to pay the debt, or negotiate new terms, or simply run if it came to that. She wasn’t a child anymore. She wasn’t a powerless experiment with no say in her own fate. She was a grown woman with capabilities that most humans could only dream of, and it was time she started acting like it.
The howl came again, softer now, fading into the night like a dying prayer.
I hear you,she thought, pressing her forehead to the cold metal.I hear you, and I’m coming back. I promise.
She fell asleep to the sound of distant waves and dreamed of golden eyes.
Merrick Bane arrived at precisely eight o’clock the next morning.
She had been waiting for him, dressed in a neat, tailored gown with her hair pulled back and her chin raised defiantly. She’d rehearsed what she wanted to say a hundred times, had practiced keeping her voice steady and her skin calm.
It all evaporated the moment he walked through the door.
He was immaculate, as always—tailored suit, polished shoes, not a single hair out of place. His sharp features were arranged in an expression of pleasant interest, like a man surveying a property he was about to purchase.
Which is exactly what I am.
“Ariella.” His voice was smooth, cultured, never rising above that calm whisper that somehow managed to be more threatening than any shout. “You look… refreshed. I trust the diving went well yesterday?”
“Yes. I?—”
“Why don’t you show me your data? Specifically, the readings from the storm surge.”
She froze. He knew. Somehow, he knew she hadn’t been at the deep sensor array. He knew she’d been somewhere else. Somewhere she shouldn’t have been.
“I was checking the equipment. The storm must have interfered with the readings.”
“Don’t lie to me, Ariella. My techs confirmed that the sensor array was offline. So where were you?”
“Just… exploring.” The words felt like a betrayal, but the last thing she wanted was to draw Merrick’s attention to Valrek and Lilani.
“In view of our upcoming nuptials, I am willing to allow a limited amount of… flexibility in your tasks. A very limited amount.”
“About that.” She forced herself to meet his flint-grey eyes. “We need to talk.”
“Indeed we do.” He moved past her, settling into one of the lab’s few comfortable chairs with the ease of a man who owned everything he touched. “I’ve finalized the guest list for the wedding. Two hundred and forty-seven attendees from every prominent family in Port Cantor. It will be the event of the season.”
“That’s what I want to talk about.”
