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Not from him perhaps, but from enough of her tribe to know exactly what he would be thinking.

“I don’t know. She obviously survived longer than I expected.” Hudson didn’t lose another beat. She couldn’t afford to. She had worked too damn hard to lose all she had worked for.

“Obviously,” Cryoc murmured.

“We need to pull back and rethink the plan.”

“Because of a pet you once played with?” Cryoc’s anger was laced with unspent warrior’s energy. Hudson knew that, but she also knew that while it contributed to her halt on the attack, it wasn’t the entire story.

“No.”

“Bullshit.”

“Cryoc.” Hudson turned to him, her lips rolling back from her teeth as she smiled.

He flinched, and she reveled in the enjoyment of his fear. He didn’t lower his eyes, but he was struggling to maintain the contact.

“I’m not a man. I can think with both brains at the same time. But can you?”

His look of confusion was enough to answer that question. Even her best man was still after all a man.

“She swam into Talon territory.”

“She’s on the line,” he responded.

“And she has crossed over many times already in the time we’ve halted here. And yet?” She lifted her arms, both palms raised to the water above them.

“Where are they?” He looked around as though expecting to spot them poorly hidden in the very place where they were. “Is she bait?”

“I don’t know,” Hudson confessed, though she leaned heavily toward the negative. “But there’s something our little scouts have forgotten to tell us.”

“Which is?”

“Something I plan to find out very soon.” Hudson turned away from Kyree though her body screamed for her to turn back around, to make sure the mermaid, one of the mermaids, who had intrigued her so much, was safe and out of Talon’s grip.

“Would you like me to collect her?” Cryoc’s words seemed stoic enough. But Hudson knew when the man was groveling, and right now he was groveling hard.

“No.” Hudson pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at him. “You and the men will stay here. See if one of you can’t figure out how to use both of your brains. I’ll find the answers I need.”

“What if they come out from wherever they’re hiding?”

“Then,” Hudson spoke slowly as though to a mere pup. “You save the biggest one for me.”

She smiled and turned away before any of her men saw the sneer that replaced the grin. Her men were loyal, at least to the point where all men of Talon could be. But when it came to Kyree, and to Honour, she had found her patience and understanding no longer held the sway that it once did.

Hudson kept to the shadows, making sure Kyree was never lost from her sight for more than a ripple or two.

Kyree’s body sagged as she swam, her head dropping forward before snapping up over and over again. The exhaustion rolled off of her in waves. Hudson waited until she was certain neither her men nor any warriors hidden in the waters of Talon territory could see them before she finally approached.

“My my my, you aren’t the pretty thing I expected to see wandering through a battlefield.” Hudson purred as she slid her body up to Kyree’s, their arms brushing together in the wave of her movement.

Kyree turned her head slowly and found Hudson’s eyes.

Her eyelids drooped and dark bruises marred the skin beneath her eyes. Hudson moved closer, hands out as thoughready to scoop Kyree up into her arms, but she stopped herself just in time.

Kyree’s smile was small and sad as she looked down at Hudson’s arms no longer moving closer but still up and outstretched.

“What are you doing so close to Reine?” Kyree’s voice was softer than Hudson had heard before, and it sent a shiver up Hudson’s spine, a shiver she didn’t enjoy in the least.