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“What?” Hudson barked out.

“Trust me.” Honour wrapped her fingers around Hudson’s wrist and held her hand against her slit. “But this is going to be amusing in more ways than one.”

“What are you even going on about?”

“You’ll see,” Honour teased again. She was enjoying this far too much. The vibrations got stronger as they reached her, the sixth sense that she had honed for years was finally coming in handy.

The reeds at the front of her home moved to the side as a silvery hand pushed them. Honour grinned when Hudson jerked back sharply. Glancing over her shoulder, Honour’s eyes lit up at the sight of the one person she hadn’t seen yet.

She should have known that Soulara would come find her sooner rather than later, and the fact that she hadn’t been at the castle for the debriefing should have been a very good sign that Soulara was going to show up immediately.

“Princess,” Honour said, her voice far more a whisper of awe than a statement of respect.

“Honour?” Soulara’s eyes crinkled in a smile, and then widened when she dropped her gaze from Honour’s face to her chest to the place where Hudson’s hand was still against her.

Hudson jerked back immediately. “Fuck.”

Soulara chuckled low and deep. She was enjoying this just as much as Honour was. How many times had Honour caught Soulara with her fingers knuckle deep in some mermaid over the years? Far too many to count, that was for sure.

“Exactly.” Soulara’s laugh echoed through the room, hitting Honour’s ears like the last piece that needed to fall into place.

“I missed you.” Honour swam forward, out of Hudson’s grasp, and wrapped her arms around Soulara in a deep hug of friendship and appreciation. “You can’t do that again.”

“Do what, exactly?”

“Get kidnapped, stolen, taken away from us. We need you here.”

“So I’ve been told,” Soulara whispered. She backed away slowly and brushed her fingers under her eyes as she noddedtoward Honour. Soulara never had been one for big emotional outbursts. Neither had Honour for that matter.

“We need to talk,” Soulara said, her way of changing the conversation to something far less touching and more impersonal.

Honour was thankful for the transition. She’d needed it as well. “What’s wrong?”

“Autumn.”

That name hit Honour like a ton of bricks. She hadn’t liked the idea of Autumn from the beginning. She’d purposely not asked about Autumn when Hudson and Kyree had told her Soulara was safe. She’d wanted to avoid the topic of the humans for as long as possible.

The war was over, wasn’t it?

“It’s not over,” Soulara said, her voice dropping to a quiet tone. “At least not for them, and not for me.”

“The krakens are dead. The humans are gone—”

“Not all of them,” Soulara pushed, a fire raging under her words. “Not all of them are gone.”

“What do you—” Honour held herself in check enough not to wince or grimace at the thought that there were still humans in their world, perhaps even in their waters. “Didn’t they drown?”

“Not all of them,” Soulara reiterated.

“Well, who’s left! I’ll go kill them right now.” Honour reached for her sword, but Soulara put a gentle hand on her wrist to stop her. “Where are they?”

“If you’re going to behave like that, then I’m not going to tell you.”

Honour paused. She glanced toward Hudson for confirmation that this was actually happening, and when she found Hudson’s non-confused look, she wasn’t sure what to do with that.

“Honour,” Hudson started, “before Kyree and I came to find you, we had another task to complete, direct orders from your princess.”

“What orders?” Honour ground out. She didn’t like this at all, not one bit. And the fact that no one had told her what the hell was going on yet was irking her even more. “Spit it out already!”