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“Honour.” Kyree raised an eyebrow to make her point. “That’s unfair and you know it.”

Honour didn’t reply, though Kyree saw the regret in her eyes before she turned and swam back to her training.

With a shake of her head, Kyree swam out of the training room and didn’t stop until she was out of the boundaries of Reine. No one stopped her on her way. No one asked questions or tried to get her to stay for her safety. If Honour didn’t come back to her, she was more alone than ever. And Kyree had to fix this. She had to bring the three of them back together because it was the only way she was going to survive up here.

It took longer than she had hoped to find Hudson, but her heart swelled at the sight of the sleek beautiful mer with the dirty blonde locks flowing around the familiar face. Kyree’s lips spread in a natural smile.

“Kyree.” A line appeared between Hudson’s eyebrows as the laugh she had been sharing with her men dropped from her lips.

Murmurs followed Hudson’s swim, but Kyree couldn’t make out the words. Hudson didn’t seem overly phased by the voices that trailed along the bubbles she left behind with a flick of her fluke.

“What happened? Is Honour okay?”

“She’s a stubborn mer who won’t see reason.” Kyree pursed her lips, the mention of Honour souring the enjoyment of seeing Hudson again.

Hudson chuckled. With one arm draped over Kyree’s shoulders, she led her to a small rock shelf just out of sight of her men.

“So she’s her usual self.” Hudson half lay on the shelf, the gray and green moss-covered stone contrasting with the blonde of her hair, though both her body and the stone held firm edges that made Kyree’s mouth feel as though it were filled with moss.

“I need you to come back and talk to her before she goes and does something stupid.”

Hudson lifted one eyebrow, that smirk on her lips making Kyree feel like she had missed something vital in the minimal words Hudson bothered to utter.

After a ripple of silence that drifted unsettlingly between them, Hudson pushed herself back up a little higher but still more reclined than Kyree thought the conversation required.

“What exactly happened? And why do you need my help?” Hudson never was one to beat around the bush, was she? She wanted facts, much in the same way that Honour did. Kyree clung to that knowledge, something tingling in the back of hermind that she’d missed how to convince Honour that this was the right decision.

“We’ve found where they have Soulara.”

“Why are you here then?” Hudson looked more confused now than before.

“What?”

“Why aren’t you going and getting your princess back?”

Kyree huffed a stream of bubbles from her mouth. “What is it with you two? You’re so obsessed with going into a battle, of fighting without stopping and thinking about looking beyond the next step.”

Hudson rested back against the rock shelf once more, the smirk on her face even more prominent as she listened to Kyree continue to rant her frustrations about the similarities between Hudson and Honour.

“And would you stop lying there all sexy with that smirk as though you know the secrets of the ocean?”

“Sexy, huh?” Hudson was damn near gleeful now.

Kyree shut her eyes and gulped in a deep breath, stopping herself from growling and having Hudson take that the wrong way as well.

“And I don’t want to know the secrets of the ocean. It’s far more fun not knowing.” Hudson twinkled her fingers into the water, as if she was playing with an invisible creature.

“So why are you still smirking, then?” Kyree squinted, needing more of an explanation.

“Because I’m not the only one so like the General Honour.” Hudson pushed up from her perch. She moved swiftly and nearly soundlessly as she swam into Kyree’s space.

“What doesthatmean?” Kyree channeled the frustration and the anger. She didn’t want to get all worked up with Hudson’s scent so close that it made her skin tingle. She didn’t want togive Honour any more ammunition toward her accusation about Hudson and orgasms.

“Did you tell anyone where you were going when you swished away from the city to come find me?” Hudson circled her slowly, fingertips brushing ever so lightly across Kyree’s skin at surprising intervals.

“Yes.”

“Anyone other than Honour?”