Page 70 of The Hunted

But … he didn’t think much about that. Or the work still left to do. His purpose here was done. Eryx finally had what he wanted.

“Prince,” the advisor prodded when he stayed quiet.

Eryx came back to Mattue with a sigh he hoped voiced his displeasure with the man without him actually needing to say it. “I would ask why you’re here on the wharf waiting for me, but I’m sure the answer will only annoy me.”

“Someone needs to keep eyes on you.”

“Do they have to be your eyes?”

“Would you rather the king send someone else?”

He’d rather his father left him be altogether. If he was still shunned from court and his royal duties, then what did it matter?

“How did the hunt go?” Mattue asked.

The shouts of men from the ship drew both men to the side of the wharf where Eryx and Mattue stood next to one another. A net that dangled dangerously close to the churning waves was hoisted higher along the ship’s rear. Eryx didn’t need to explicitly say it for his advisor to know, considering the man could plainly see what awaited them inside the net, but he spoke, nonetheless.

“It went well,” Eryx said.

“Is that her?”

“Aye, to the left, boys!”

Eryx had no intention of shouting to Mattue over the calls of the men working to move the still net from the side of the ship to its position over the wharf. Corval had decided, only after the mermaid hadn’t fought once she was in the net, that he wouldn’t move her to the large cage on deck. Instead, he left her in the net, hanging over the sea as they sailed back. There, Eryx watched her the entire time.

Not that he thought she would get away. He just … couldn’t stop staring. Now was not the time for an exception.

“Is it?” Mattue asked him again, louder that time.

Eryx only smiled.

It took all of a few moments for the men who were not needed to hoist the net to its proper position and remove themselves from the ship. They circled around the spot where the dark blue rope of the net dangled over the wharf, spilling in piles while the teardrop shape dangling in the air spun a slow circle over and over again until it finally came to a stop.

A foot from the wharf, the net and its contents remained motionless. It only dropped to the wet wood when one of the men lifted his hand with a nod. With weapons at the ready, Corval gave the signal up above to let the net go.

She hit the wood with a thud.

All the blue netting spilled over her.

Eryx could plainly see the shape of her legs twisted beneath her as her hands flew out to catch her fall. Not that it made much of a difference in the end. The netting was pulled away from her by the hands of the men with quick tugs until she was laid bare to the prince’s inspection, and that of every other man on the wharf.

It was not lost on him …

Not her beauty. The way those violet eyes of hers seemed so wide. How she stared at him. Not even how quiet it’d become.

And she was beautiful.

The spattering of scales at her temples shimmered under the colorful sky when she tilted her head up higher toward him. Her shapely figure. Her golden skin winked when her legs shifted to fold beneath her so that she was sitting on her knees. With all her nakedness on display, from the smooth bare skin leading to the paradise between her thighs to the pert breasts with red hair plastered to her chest … a truly magnificent sight.

He doubted a single man surrounding them hadn’t noticed.

And she was all his now.

Despite the hatred and confusion and all the other emotions that welled inside Eryx at the sight of the mermaid he’d been hunting laid at his feet … he was not so prideful that he couldn’t admit she was—by far—the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen in his life. His memories had not done her justice.

Neither had his dreams.

But even as he felt a sense of vicious satisfaction at having caught her, he had to ignore the strange pull at his chest that demanded he move closer to her. A part of him screamed she should be looking up at you from where she rests at your boots and begs or bleeds or both. Another murmured she would look so good there breathing your name, too.