“Don’t,” she whispered, the word catching in her throat.
“Don’t what?” His other hand moved to trace the shimmering skin on her throat, and she fought the instinctive urge to recoil. “Don’t touch my property? That is what you are, aren’t you? A stunning piece of biological engineering. The modifications to your dermal layers alone are worth a fortune. Did your father ever tell you that? That your skin, your very ability to glow, is what funded this operation for the last five years?”
Every word was a carefully chosen blade, sliding into the spaces where she was most vulnerable. She wanted to scream, to fight, to summon the strength she’d felt when she’d faced down the storm surge. But Merrick’s presence seemed to leech the color from the world, leaving everything grey and sterile. The faint, lingering echo of Valrek’s howl in her memory was the only thing keeping her upright.
“Your father always said you were sensitive,” he continued, his gaze dropping to her throat. “Let’s see if that’s still true.”
Before she could react, he pressed a thumb into the soft flesh of her neck, right over one of her gill slits. Not hard enough to cause real damage, but with enough pressure to make her panic, to make her lungs seize in a desperate, instinctual gasp for air that wouldn’t come.
“Don’t.” This time the word was a choked gasp.
He watched her struggle, a flicker of something like scientific curiosity in his dead eyes. “Intriguing. An immediate stress response and respiratory distress even though your lungs are working. You’re far more complex than the initial reports suggested.”
He released her as abruptly as he’d grabbed her, stepping back as he wiped his thumb on a pristine white handkerchief. She sucked in a ragged breath, her throat burning. Her skin, which had flared with angry color, now faded to a pale, washed-out silver.
“I find myself anticipating how you will respond to some of my other experiments,” he said, his voice once again perfectly calm, as if he hadn’t just been demonstrating that he owned her ability to breathe. “Experiments that your father couldn’t perform but that I, as your husband, will have every right to conduct. Now that I know you have the capacity for arousal, they will be even more… interesting.”
The threat hung in the sterile air between them. He wasn’t just talking about marriage. He was talking about making her a test subject for the rest of her life.
“I won’t do it.”
“You will. You have too much to lose.” He looked over at her father, still slumped over his desk, and she knew with a sinking certainty that he was right. She wouldn’t risk her father’s life. She was trapped. Utterly and completely trapped. “Until then, I will expect you to complete the deep dive I asked of you. And this time,have the data.”
With a final proprietary glance, he turned and walked away. The door slid shut behind him with a soft click that echoed in the silence, leaving her alone with the bitter taste of her own powerlessness.
She stood frozen in the sterile silence long after he left. The pressure on her throat was gone, but the ghost of it lingered, a phantom constriction that made each breath feel like a conscious effort.
The rage she’d felt before, the defiance that had sent her running back to the lab ready to fight—it was gone, extinguished by the cold, hard reality of her situation. Merrick wasn’t just a wealthy businessman. He was a monster who collected souls, and he already owned hers.
And somewhere in the distance, so faint she might have imagined it, she heard a howl fade into silence.
CHAPTER 15
Valrek’s beast wouldn’t stop pacing. He stood at the cave entrance, his claws digging into the rough stone, watching the moonlight shatter across the waves below. Three days. Three days since Ariella had fled into the water with tears streaming down her face. Three days since his beast had howled itself hoarse into the uncaring night.
She’s not coming back.
The thought circled his mind like a carrion bird, picking at the raw edges of his hope. He’d driven her away. Pushed too hard, demanded too much, let his beast’s possessive instincts override his better judgment. She’d told him she was promised to another man, and instead of listening—instead of understanding—he’d kissed her like a rutting animal staking claim to territory that was never his to begin with.
Behind him, Lilani slept fitfully in her small alcove, mumbling in her dreams about shiny ladies and glowing stars. His daughter had asked about Ariella every day, her golden eyes growing dimmer each time he’d had to say “I don’t know when she’s coming back.”
Or if she’ll come back.
He heard her before he saw her, a slight disturbance in the rhythmic pulse of the tide. His ears pricked forward and his nostrils flared as he caught the faintest trace of her scent on the wind. Cold sea and warm honey, threading through the salt air like a lifeline thrown to a drowning man.
She came back.
His beast surged forward with a roar of triumph that he barely managed to contain. He forced himself to wait even though every instinct screamed at him to dive into the water and drag her to shore.
She finally emerged from the waves, climbing the rocky path with none of her usual grace. Her movements were jerky and uncoordinated, like a puppet whose strings had been cut and hastily reattached. Her skin flickered erratically, barely visible in the dimness.
Something was wrong.
“Ariella.” He moved to meet her, but stopped short when she flinched at his approach. “What happened?”
“I tried.” Her voice was raw, scraped hollow. “I tried to end it. The contract. The wedding. I thought—I thought if I just told him no?—”
She broke off, her whole body beginning to shake, and his fists clenched at his sides. “Told who no? The man you’re promised to? Merrick?”
