Page 3 of The Hunted

She had a point.

Not that it would make a difference to their father. As the King of the Blu Sea, Zale made all the choices for the people in his realm. Because when even getting pregnant required them to change and leave the sea where they were most vulnerable … it was a risk. Not to mention, having young meant his people would protect them more than even him or themselves.

“I just don’t understand,” Coral muttered, her cheeks pinking when her sisters’ attention turned on her. “I’m not allowed to ask.”

Ah, yes.

Not even the king’s children, or his mate for that matter, were exempt from his control. The girls saw their mother more infrequently as they got older. As for them, their father believed the less they knew about the ways of their people and their traditions the less they’d want to be included.

That was never the case. He’d not yet learned.

Coral, ever curious, had no understanding of mating although she would soon gain a companion to teach her everything. Except she wanted to know now.

“How does it … work?” Coral asked.

“Which?” Poe replied.

“Sex.”

Coral promptly turned as red as the hair on their heads. She wouldn’t even meet their stare, was far more interested in making circles in the water with her fingertip.

“Anyone can fuck,” Poe said, sighing. “Fucking is just that—fucking. A bit different with your tail than in your walking form, but you should know about that, don’t you? Your cleft, Coral …”

Their stares turned on their younger sister, who still didn’t seem to want to look back at them. Coral might be the most curious, but she was also the one who wasn’t at all ready to be grown.

Arelle decided to give the girl an easy out for this side of the conversation. Only because she didn’t think Coral understood anything about sex as a merwoman because her younger sister hadn’t yet had sex. “You’ll learn soon. A companion will be picked to teach you everything. It comes easy.”

Poe sighed. “But if you want a child …”

“We can only conceive when we’re like this,” Arelle added when her older sister didn’t elaborate, waving at her naked legs. “And when we give birth, too. The curse, again.”

Beside her, Poe laughed a tinkling sound. “A curse—doesn’t feel like that when the thrall comes over you, and the heat begins.”

“And how does that work?” Coral asked, at least managing not to squeak with her embarrassment that time.

Arelle allowed Poe to answer, knowing good and well she didn’t have the firsthand experience to give Coral.

“It’s …” Poe’s gaze darted to Coral, and then to Arelle before going back to the book in her hands. “It’s instinctual, a need in your blood, Coral, and when it is your time, you will know what to do. That’s all I can tell you.”

Coral’s fingers danced along the rocky ledge of the grotto. “So, when the storms come, we take to land.”

“Right, Coral.” Poe nodded. “We have to take to land.”

“Where the landwalkers are.”

“Not always. The storms scare them. They’re not like us—they die in the water.”

“We die in the water sometimes,” Coral pointed out. “Right?”

“But the water doesn’t kill us when we can breathe. They can’t.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway,” Poe said, flipping another page in her book, “I want a child this season. I’ll have to ask if Father will allow me that—it’ll make others want the same, which means people will go to the land, and he might not like that.”

Right.

Their numbers were not great anymore. With each season, it seemed as though the landwalkers found more cunning ways to capture them. With children to protect, it made everything even more dangerous.