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Why was she doing this again?

11

Kyree’s heart pounded, and her breath tightened so hard in her chest it was harder to breathe with every passing second. She tried to calm herself, tried to ease the panic and fear, but it was no use.

Honour swam after Hudson, and a part of Kyree’s very essence tore away from who she was. Despite Honour’s shorter and slimmer build, she swam fast and powerfully against the buffeting of the current made by the kraken.

The unnatural ripples in the water caused bumps to rise over Kyree’s arms. They didn’t belong here. Not in their sea, and not on their planet. From what she had learned, these humans had come from an entirely different world, bringing these monsters to destroy life.

Kyree shuddered as she did her best to hide in the shadows, but not at the detriment of being able to see Hudson and Honour.

They were together now, and the image filled Kyree’s heart with hope and joy. Of course it did. She would never wish death upon any of her fellow creatures. But she knew if she were able to examine it, it would be far more than simply that.

It was easy to push the thoughts away as the two of them looked at each other, words she could hear left their lips, followed by head movements in the negative and then the positive. They swam crossing over each other’s paths without interference or complication. They were a melody on the water, and they were beautiful.

Two halves of a whole.

But the clicking and whirring grew louder.

So loud, it seemed to come from all directions. Kyree could hear it everywhere as water buffeted her.

Two, Hudson said there were two.

Turning around, Kyree caught the sight of several tails as mer men charged at the second kraken that had came up behind her. Her breath caught as a merman, Talon she was certain, was grabbed by one of the kraken’s claws.

It took only a moment for those claws to clamp together, cutting the merman in half. The two parts fell away, blood trailing after him as he floated down into the darkness of the deep soundings.

“No.” She breathed out the horrified word. Tears warmed the water in front of her as she whipped back around, desperate to find her mermaids, desperate to know that Hudson and Honour were safe and out of reach of those horrific claws.

Memories surfaced of Honour fighting against the claw that first hurt her, the one she had swum toward in her attempt to rescue Soulara from the monsters controlling these metal beasts.

Whipping her head back and forth in the water, she searched for them.

There!

The relief that washed over her didn’t last long as tentacles snaked out from the cloud of dust that surrounded the impromptu battlefield. Her view of Honour and Hudsonkept being blocked by the clouds of things, both natural and decidedly not, that waved in and out of the fight.

Dark brown and red smears in the dust made her heart constrict each time one of them disappeared again from view.

But they were incredible to watch, despite the fear for their lives that weighed her down. They weaved around each other with ease as though this were a dance they had performed countless times.

There were others who fought alongside them. She recognized some of Hudson’s men, the ones who had dragged her and Honour to that cave.

She did care about them all, at least about the lives they were currently risking. She mumbled a prayer of protection over all of them, prayers for the lives already lost, and prayers for the lives she knew were about to be lost.

But she couldn’t focus on any mer other than Hudson and Honour.

Each time they appeared again, Kyree’s heart sputtered with hope and bled into another wave of fear. Despite the damage she could see being done to the metallic monstrosities, the noise continued to grow. She had never imagined just how loud battle was. In between clangs and the tearing of flesh and rock, Kyree caught snatches of words, of the mers fighting for a future for their people, risking their own lives to do so.

Her heart sputtered back to life once more as Hudson and Honour turned, almost as one, and stared at her. A quick look back to the other—they could have been mentally connected with how similar their movements were and how their faces contorted in unison. They both opened their mouths and headed in her direction.

Blinking, she tried to understand what was happening.

Bubbles flew from their mouths, quickly carried away behind their bodies. Flukes slammed up and down with speed and force, but Kyree still couldn’t hear the words.

And then the ripple of the water behind her shifted. Her body froze, her heart stilled in her chest. She couldn’t move. She couldn't turn to see what she knew was so close.

Danger.