“A masterpiece.”
The word came out before he could stop it.
Her eyes widened, her patches flickering with sudden color. “What?”
He reached out and took her hands in his, feeling the delicate webbing against his calloused palms. “You think these make you a freak? They are extraordinary. The way you move through the water, the grace and power in every stroke—I’ve never seen anything like it. Not in all my years as a warrior, not in all my travels since my exile.”
“Valrek—”
“Your skin glows like the stars fell into the sea and decided to stay.” He released one of her hands to brush his fingers along her collarbone, where her patches were slowly shifting from grey to a tentative blue. “Your voice can map the depths of the ocean, can calm a frightened child, and make a hardened soldier forget how to breathe. You call yourself an experiment? A product?” He shook his head, his golden eyes burning into hers. “You are a masterpiece of the sea. And the fact that your father can’t see that—the fact that he treats you like equipment instead of the miracle you are—that makes him the monster. Not you.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks, carving silver tracks in the dim light.
“You don’t understand,” she whispered. “I’m owned. Merrick has contracts, legal claims?—”
“Contracts written by humans, enforced by humans.” His voice dropped to a growl. “Do you know what we call such things among the Vultor? Wind noise. Empty sounds that mean nothing to those strong enough to ignore them.”
“He’ll kill my father.”
“Let him.”
The words were brutal, and he didn’t try to soften them. He saw the shock on her face, the instinctive recoil, and he forced himself to continue before she could interrupt.
“Your father sold you,” he said flatly. “He took a frightened child and turned her into merchandise, then signed away her future to pay for his ambitions. He has spent your entire life treating you as a tool, a test subject, a means to an end. And now you would sacrifice your own happiness—your own freedom—to save him from the consequences of his choices?”
“He’s still my father.”
“Is he?” He released her hands and sat back on his heels, his expression fierce. “A father protects. A father provides. A father would die before letting his child be sold to a monster like this Merrick creature. What has your father ever done for you except take?”
She opened her mouth to argue, but no words came out.
The silence stretched between them, broken only by the crackle of the fire and Lilani’s soft breathing from across the cave. He watched the emotions play across her face—denial, anger, grief, and finally, a terrible, dawning acceptance.
“I don’t know how to stop caring about him,” she said at last. “Even knowing what he’s done. Even knowing what he is. He saved my life.”
“You don’t have to stop loving him.” His voice gentled. “But you do have to stop sacrificing for him. There’s a difference.”
CHAPTER 16
Ariella was quiet for a long moment, but he didn’t press her. This was her decision to make.
She shifted on the furs, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. The posture was defensive, like a creature trying to make itself small enough that predators might overlook it, and his heart ached for her. But when she looked up, her expression had changed.
“What happened to Lilani’s mother?”
The change of subject surprised him, but he’d known this day would come. Known and dreaded, but she’d given him her secrets. It was only fair he give her his.
He settled back against the cave wall, stretching his legs out before him.
“My parents died not long after I was born and my grandfather raised me. He was a hard male. Not cruel but stern and uncompromising. He was determined to mold me into the next Alpha, and he was unwilling to overlook any indication of weakness.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, but he shook his head.
“I wasn’t unhappy. I was Vultor. The clan was everything. My life had purpose, structure. I was being trained to lead.” His claws scraped lightly against the stone floor. “But as I got older, I started to chafe against it. The endless traditions, the expectation that I would become a carbon copy of my grandfather. The last straw was when he decided to arrange a mate for me. I left, and somehow I ended up in Port Cantor.”
He stared into the dying embers of the fire, seeing the reflection of a younger version of himself, arrogant and convinced of his own immortality.
“I made a lot of mistakes. I was young and reckless, flush with a freedom I’d never known. I fought in the underground rings for money. I worked security for people I should have avoided. I was… adrift.”
