Before he could respond, the younger Vultor melted into the forest like a shadow, leaving nothing but the faint scent of pine and wildness behind.
CHAPTER 20
The emergency beacon implanted in Arabella’s arm started to throb barely an hour after she’d left the cave. Her father’s signal. The beacons were old tech, implanted when she was small and they were living in the underwater lab. Her father had one as well, but neither of them had ever been activated.
She stared at the glowing red spot, her stomach twisting into knots. For emergencies, he’d told her. In case something went wrong during a dive. She’d never questioned why he might need to reach her so urgently. Now she wondered if it had always been a leash in disguise.
The mating mark on her shoulder throbbed—a warm pulse of sensation that reminded her of her promise to Valrek.I will observe, gather what information I can, and return before the sun reaches its peak.
She’d intended to do exactly that, watching from a safe distance to make sure her father was alive and relatively unharmed, then slipping away before anyone noticed her.
But the beacon changed things. If he had triggered it, something terrible must have happened. What if Merrick had hurt him? What if the debt collectors had finally come to break more than just his spirit? Her father was weak, yes. A man who’d traded his daughter’s freedom to pay for his own mistakes. But he was still her father. But he was still the man who’d sat by her bed during the endless childhood fevers, who’d worked himself to exhaustion developing the treatments that saved her life, and who’d wept when he first saw her breathe underwater.
Damn it.
She changed course, angling towards the lab instead of the observation point she’d planned to use. Her skin flickered anxiously, and she forced herself to take deep breaths as she moved through the shallow water along the shoreline.
The bond with Valrek hummed at the edge of her awareness—a constant thread of connection that made her feel less alone.He’ll understand,she told herself.If Father is in danger, he’ll understand why I had to go.
The lab came into view around the next rocky outcropping. It had been her home for so long, but it already seemed strange and distant, part of her past rather than her future.
No one was visible, even though there was usually someone around—technicians, supply runners, even the occasional visiting scientist. But now the walkways were deserted, the windows dark, the whole place wrapped in an unnatural stillness.
Something terrible has happened.Had Merrick taken her father away? Or worse, had he simply killed him and left his body behind? Her heart began to pound.
She approached the main lab entrance on silent feet, her gills fluttering with the effort of breathing the dry air. The door was unlocked, another sign that something was wrong, and she slipped inside, her eyes adjusting quickly to the dim interior.
“Father?” she whispered, her voice echoing off the metal walls. “Father, I got your message. Where are?—”
The lights blazed on.
She threw an arm over her eyes, momentarily blinded, and that was when they grabbed her. Multiple hands, rough and efficient, seizing her arms and wrenching them behind her back.
“Got her.” A man’s voice, unfamiliar. “The freak walked right in.”
“I told you she would.” A second voice, smooth and cold and utterly devoid of emotion. “All that genetic modification, and still as foolish as any other human girl.”
Merrick Bane stepped into her line of sight. He was dressed immaculately, as always—tailored grey suit, polished shoes, perfectly coiffed hair. His hawk-like features were arranged in an expression of mild satisfaction, like a collector who’d finally acquired a long-sought piece for his gallery.
“Hello, Ariella.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Did you enjoy your little adventure?”
She struggled against the men holding her, two of Merrick’s private security guards.
“Let me go.”
“Eventually.” He stepped closer, and she could smell the faint sterile scent of his cologne. “First, we need to have a conversation about consequences.”
“I’m not marrying you.”
He reached out and put a cold finger on her neck, the threat unmistakable. “You don’t have a choice.”
They dragged her to the back room. It was a space she knew well, the medical bay where her father had conducted countless examinations, tracked her modifications, and documented every change in her physiology. Two technicians waited by the examination table in the center. The same one she’d laid on as a child, terrified and confused, while machines whirred and beeped around her.
Now it held some kind of garment. It looked like a second skin made of a thin, flexible material in a dark grey color that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. Bands of darker material circled the wrists, ankles, and throat, embedded with tiny nodes that glowed a faint, sickly green.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked smugly. “It was custom designed just for you. It took my engineers three years to develop, but the results speak for themselves.”
“What is it?”
