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“Give Talon the enemy they can’t resist. And the enemy they could never win against.”

“What enemy?”

“The humans.”

“The mechanical monsters?”

“Oh yes.” Hudson chuckled darkly.

She would rid herself of the strange mermaids she had met. She would shake herself from the questions as to how the two of them were even traveling together.

She had to focus on the real battle at hand. The one thing she had fought for since before she understood the place they had given her—the one she’d refused.

So, why did her mind keep drifting back to those two mermaids she had left in a cave? Why did she hold a tight grip onto the hopes of seeing Honour in the waters of battle?

7

“Honour, we have to talk about it.”

“No, we don’t.” That was the last thing that Honour wanted to do. Hudson had left before dawn, and as soon as those herbs had hit her bloodstream, the burst of energy had compelled Honour to make as much of the trek back to Reine as possible.

She had to get out of there. She had to leave that cave and all the confusing feelings behind. She pushed her fluke down to pick up speed, because she knew they were close. For the first day, Kyree had kept silent about the whole Hudson-kissing debacle. But ever since they’d woken that morning, Kyree had pushed to have some kind of answer.

Honour refused to give one.

“Yes, we do.” Kyree snagged Honour’s wrist and pulled hard. “Please, before we get back there and there’s no time to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. She let us go. It worked. End of story.” Honour turned her entire body away from Kyree and tried to swim, but Kyree was so much bigger and stronger—at least right now.

Kyree flapped her fluke twice and tugged Honour right back to where she had been. “No, not end of story.”

“Yes. End of story.” Honour wasn’t going to live this one down. She didn’t want to talk about what had happened. And it wasn’t simple embarrassment. That would be easy to admit. It was because every moment of being in that cave was just as confusing as the next, and she hadn’t been able to sort through it yet.

Not that she ever would.

She’d avoid it as best as she could and pray to whatever gods Kyree believed in out there that they would never run into Hudson again.

“No.” Kyree flipped them, pinning Honour to the sandy bank underneath them.

Honour sucked in a sharp breath. Flashes of Hudson against her, the warm scales of her fluke, the roughness of her hardened nipples, the tension between fear and arousal that came back to back hit her one after the other. She could take Kyree in an instant, turn them over and pin Kyree under her. Kyree wasn’t a warrior. Her body wasn’t built for it. The only advantage she had was her size.

But Honour couldn’t bring herself to do it.

She couldn’t force herself to make Kyree leave.

Not when she’d been the pull toward reality and sanity that Honour had clung to each time Hudson had been in that cave with them.

“We need to talk about it,” Kyree said, her voice much softer this time, as if she finally understood the turmoil that Honour faced alone.

“I have nothing to say,” Honour whispered, afraid that if she let loose what was going on inside her, she’d never be able to pull herself back together.

“Why did you kiss her?” Kyree asked, so directly. But there was no judgement in her tone. It was all curiosity and concern.

Honour swallowed a lump in her throat. That was the ultimate question, wasn’t it? Why had she made the decision? She’d spouted off that she’d had all the control in the situation, but nothing could have been further from the truth. She’d felt absolutely out of control.

Instead of answering, Honour asked a question. “Why did you find what happened so arousing?”

Kyree’s lips parted in surprise. She rested her body more firmly on top of Honour, easing Honour into the weight. Honour sucked in a sharp breath, the memory of Hudson doing something similar, and yet this was vastly different.