Page 16 of The Hunted

“What?” Poe snapped.

Her sister’s red hair, the same shade as her own, haloed around her shoulders in the water. It made Poe look more like the warrior her mate was than the princess she was supposed to be. After seeing what her sister had done back at the water orchard, Arelle had a right to be hesitant now.

How easily Poe struck out with violence.

It was shocking.

“We have to go back for Coral,” Arelle whispered.

Poe’s stare cut to somewhere over Arelle’s shoulder. Into the depth of the now-black sea and the water that churned dangerously even beneath the surface. It was no wonder why this time of the year scared the humans into hunkering down within buildings where the strong winds and cutting rains couldn’t touch them. If she had not grown up in these seasons, the storms might very well terrify her into seclusion as well.

“For what? Why would we go back there?” Poe demanded.

“Because she’s our—”

“She’s dead.”

Arelle’s chest ached. The water she breathed in stuttered on the inhale and hurt when it came back out. “You can’t be sure. She might not be. We should—”

“Arelle.”

Crying underwater could be an interesting, if not strange, experience. The tears couldn’t be seen, sure, but the whimpers and sounds could travel for miles under the water. Her chest became tighter the longer she tried to hold back the urge to let out her pain. She’d tried her very best to pretend what Poe said wasn’t the case, but she knew it was true.

Saw it herself.

She was right there.

“Arelle, she is gone,” Poe said firmly.

“But … shouldn’t we go back?” Arelle asked, her voice fainter than she wanted it to be. Against her older sisters, she’d always been the quieter one. Their personalities were so much bigger and more present than hers. Not that it mattered, because as the third sister, so far from the throne, she’d never needed to make herself known against her siblings. Sometimes, it was better to be able to fade into the background. It was a hard role to step out from, but this couldn’t be the same. It was their little sister. “We need to go back—she’s our kin. We can take her home, Poe.”

“Go back and get her?” Poe’s laughter came out as a sharp chirp that made Arelle flinch from the viciousness of it all. “Why? She’s dead, you foolish girl. And if we go back there, what do you think the chances are that the human didn’t call for help? If we go back there, we’re only asking to die, too.”

“So what, we just leave her there to rot?”

“What else would you do?”

“Go get her!”

Even Arelle was shocked at the level of her shout. At how strong she sounded, and the way it made Poe straighten up a little more in the water. For a long while, the two sisters simply stared at one another.

Things were changing.

Arelle could feel it all around them.

More things were about to change, too.

How could it not now?

“If you want to go back, then fine. Be stupid, get yourself killed. I don’t care.”

Poe’s words might have hurt, if only Arelle found them shocking. Except she didn’t because she had learned over her years that Poe really only cared for herself. If it benefitted her, then she made an effort to show concern for those around her. Otherwise, she just didn’t give a damn.

“I will be going back to the colony—to our father. The king, Arelle. In case you forgot. You do realize what’s going to happen once he finds out we disobeyed him and went to the forbidden lands, don’t you? Only to come back without one of his children, yes? So yes, you want to be foolish and go back, then do it. But I am going home.”

Right.

Poe had always been the favored one, though. The daughter who could do no wrong. Even their oldest sister, Sarha, who should have taken their father’s throne, had been married off to a colony from another realm while Poe had been left here as the new heir with the benefit of picking her very own mate from a line of suitors.