Page 45 of Jewel of the Sea

She faced him again and approached, the canister swinging in her hold. She wore a bandage on one hand.

“What happened, Aymee?” He moved close and gently took her wrist, raising her arm to study the cloth wrapped around her knuckles.

“I lost my temper with one of the hunters.”

His muscles tensed, but he was careful not to strengthen his grip. “Did he harm you?”

“No. The others caught him before he could.” She tugged free of his hold. “I can’t stay. And this...needs to end.”

Arkon’s arms fell to his sides. His chest tightened and his brow furrowed as he processed her words, and his initial response —What?— caught in his throat. A strange sort of anger followed; it wasn’t directed at her, but at the situation, at the hunters, at the world.

“No.”

Her eyes shot up to meet his. “Yes, Arkon. It isn’t safe.”

“Life isn’t safe. Fear and intolerance separated our people long ago, and I refuse to allow the same keep us apart.”

Aymee squeezed her eyes shut, and a pained expression flitted across her face. The container dropped from her hand and hit the sand with a softplop. When she looked up at him again, she pressed her fingers to his chest.

“We’re asking for trouble,” she said quietly. “They took my sketches, Arkon. They know what you look like now, and at least one of them knows about my trips to this beach. I won’t be coming here again until they leave town.”

The finality in her tone sapped the strength of his resolve. He didn’t want this to be the end, couldn’t bear it to be, but the choice, ultimately, belonged to her. Just as it had from the beginning.

And she was right.

“Holy shit,” said a deep voice from behind her.

Arkon lifted his gaze. A human male had just rounded the bend, a long gun in his hands. He was large enough to rival Macy’s father, Breckett, but there was something harder about this human — an emptiness behind the gleam in his eyes.

Aymee spun toward them. “No!”

Arkon swept her behind him as two more humans came into view, both with similar clothing and weapons.

“They’re real,” the first man said, mouth spreading into a wide grin. The expression drew attention to the cut on his lower lip and the purple, swollen flesh around it. “The damn fish men are real.”

“Just turn around and walk away,” Arkon said, fire flowing into his veins. “No one needs to come to harm today. Our people are not enemies.”

“And theydotalk!” The man turned to one of his companions, a younger human with a strained look on his face. “You were right, Randy.”

Randy’s eyes were on Aymee. The emotions in his features were jumbled; Arkon guessed they bore a deeper meaning but had no idea what.

Aymee ducked beneath Arkon’s arm and inserted herself between him and the humans. “Arkon, go. Now.”

“I am not going to leave you alone with these men, Aymee.”

“They won’t hurt me, but theywillhurt you. Go.”

“Nobody needs to get hurt,” Randy said. “He just needs to come with us willingly.”

“Krullshit,” the first man spat. “Ioweher, and I’m not giving this thing a chance to get away.” He shifted his gaze to the third human. “Joel, you bring that rope?”

Joel shifted his long gun into one hand and reached behind him, removing a coil of rope from his belt. He was tall and broad-shouldered, his skin nearly as dark as Dracchus’s, head shaved bare. “I did. It gonna hold him though, Cyrus?”

“He’s not going with you,” Aymee said.

Cyrus casually moved a hand to the bolt of his long gun and slid it back, checking the chambered round. “He is. One way or another. This bullet’s big enough to go through you on its way to him, so think real hard about how much you want to argue with me.”

“Stand down, ranger,” Randy said through clenched teeth.

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