Page 53 of The Hunted

Eryx, she thought.

They called him Eryx.

But even as she thought that—even as her mind corrected her to use her mate’s name—Arelle didn’t want to. She wanted to pretend like it hadn’t happened at all, so it didn’t exist, because that would be easier. Because she had to … no one could ever know what she had done.

Arelle soon learned the reason why the people of the colony were not waiting on the streets. They waited at the palace, spilling out from the gates because there were so many. All of the colony, the few hundred that remained, somehow managed to squeeze themselves into the palace, the court, and a little beyond the walls.

The guards stood out front waiting for her. The same guards who’d stopped following her the day before, when she’d chased after Poe.

They said nothing, simply stepped aside to let her pass through. Although, this time around the people of her colony did look at her. They met her stare. Oh, they said nothing, but she wondered if that was because this time, they had nothing to say.

The throne room was still just as quiet and foreboding as it had always been. Zale, sitting on his throne, managed to loom over her from all the way across the room with his severe expression and impressive size remaining entirely still. Maybe she expected to see more anger on his face. The rage he had showed her when she arrived at the palace the season before much the same way, but without Coral.

This time, he simply looked resigned.

Mad, definitely.

But it was as though he had said all he wanted to say, thought all he needed to think, and spilled his anger before she had even ever come home.

Or perhaps, it was that he thought she wouldn’t come home.

She almost hadn’t.

Arelle gave her father a moment. A few brief seconds to look her over, and to see exactly what she knew she looked like in those moments.

Streaked with blood.

Scrapes over her tail and fin.

Bruises on her arms.

But it was the things that he couldn’t see—the war inside her mind—that she did her very best to hide. She didn’t care if he could bear witness to her physical injuries, or to the truth that told the story of yet another loss of a princess for their kingdom.

It was everything else he couldn’t know.

And she would do her best to make sure he didn’t.

“Speak,” her father demanded.

Arelle dragged in a lungful of water and then slowly exhaled. It allowed her a moment of calm. She wanted to ask where her mother was—ask if they’d told her yet. After all, he wouldn’t be sitting there looking at her the way he did, with all their people filling the palace and spilling out into the courtyard while others watched from the streets, if they didn’t already know.

Instead of voicing her thoughts, Arelle said, “I went after Poe. I couldn’t save her. But I tried. I tried.”

Zale tipped his head back, the clenching of his jaw acting as the only sign of his frustration and anger with her. Arelle expected an entirely different show. Rage and yelling. Her misdeeds and wrongs thrown at her feet. A punishment already prepared.

Oh, she suspected some of those things were still waiting for her. Right now, he simply stared at her.

“You went beyond the boundary line,” her father said, “and you broke my rules. Again.”

Arelle shook her head. “Poe did. I only followed—to bring her back.”

Poe wasn’t there but oh, she didn’t have a doubt that if her sister was there … Poe would not have had a problem with putting the blame on Arelle for all of this. After all, Poe had done exactly that the season before.

There was just one difference between the two …

Arelle would admit her own faults.

She accepted her wrongs.