Page 4 of Hunter of the Tide

He walked up to her, now that no obstacles remained in his path. “Like I said, I just wanted to make sure everything was okay. I’ll leave you to it before I’m the cause of another fight.” He turned away.

“You are a hunter,” she said quickly, bringing his attention back to her.

“I was.”

“Why would you think you are one no longer?”

He shrugged. “I look around me sometimes, and my brain says everything I’m seeing — this place, your people — can’t be real. Kind of hard to figure out who or what I am when I haven’t quite reconciled everything else yet.”

“But here we are,” Rhea said, spreading her arms and tilting her head. “You were a hunter before you knew of our kind. Our existence did not affect what you were, then.”

“The foundation was already cracked before I found out your people were real. That discovery just served as the catalyst to break everything apart.”

“But it does not change who you are here.” Rhea placed a hand on her chest with fingers spread wide, over her hearts. His eyes followed her gesture and widened slightly.

“Maybe not,” he replied, glancing down at his own chest, “but it made me realize I don’t know who I am as well as I thought I did. Again, I appreciate it, but you don’t need to worry about me. I’ll figure things out. You have your own problems to deal with.”

“Can you help him?” Melaina asked, lifting her container toward Randall.

He arched a brow, glancing from Melaina to Rhea and back again. “Him?”

“A hunter knows about creatures, yes?” Rhea asked.

Melaina approached Randall. “He’s hurt.”

Randall squatted and looked into the container. “Where did you find this? Prixxir are all over the coastlines, but I didn’t think they came out this far.”

Melaina’s guilty glance confirmed that the girl had gone even farther from the Facility than Rhea would’ve suspected. Rhea cast a disapproving glare at her daughter, who quickly averted her gaze and turned back toward Randall.

“He was hurt and alone,” Melaina said. “Can you help him, Randall?”

The prixxir placed a webbed paw on the side of the container and lifted its head, whiskers twitching.

Reaching down, Randall gently touched the creature; it let out a squeaking yelp and curled up on the bottom again. “I’ve never taken care of anything like this, Melaina. That’s… It’s not really what hunters do.”

“But like any hunter, you watch; you learn. You know their habits,” Rhea said.

His gaze shifted up to meet hers. “I’ve only dealt with these things on land. And I don’t know how serious its wounds are, or how to treat them.”

“Aymee might,” Melaina said.

Randall’s frown deepened. He regarded the prixxir in silence for a long while.

Perhaps it was wrong for Rhea to pressure him into accepting the responsibility, but what did she — or any kraken, for that matter — know about caring for an animal? The only sea creatures kraken interacted with were prey. The only other options were to return the prixxir to the sea, where it might perish, or kill it and use it for food.

But after the tumultuous emotions of the last few hours, Rhea couldn’t bear the look of disappointment Melaina would wear if the creature died. Was it selfish of Rhea to burden Randall with her daughter’s happiness?

Rhea straightened and inhaled deeply. “Please.” The word felt strange as it left her lips; female kraken didn’task, and they most certainly didn’tbeg.

Melaina echoed her mother.

Running a hand over his stubbly cheeks, Randall sighed. “All right. I’ll figure something out. But I can’t promise anything.”

Melaina’s face brightened with a huge smile.

“AndI have a condition,” he continued.

Rhea frowned and furrowed her brow. “What is this condition?”

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