Page 41 of The Hunted

She suspected his lungs were full of seawater, considering how long he had been underwater before she’d gotten him up for air. Another landwalker would have been dead from that alone, but this one wasn’t. His throat pumped under her palm when she stopped on the rocks to pull in another breath, letting the magic in her blood do its work to change her tail to legs. Tired legs. The blood from the cuts on her palms smeared across the three faint lines on his throat where gills should be.

Scars.

Still, his body tried to save him.

Arelle panted heavily, her body tired. The crisscross pattern of cuts on her legs, from where the netting had caught her too tightly and the rocks scraped against her tail, left smears of violet on the rocks as she continued dragging the man farther from the water.

Rain pelted down.

It stung her skin.

He still didn’t open his eyes.

“Come on,” Arelle breathed, dragging him by pulling under his arms through muck and rocks and seagrass until she found some coverage under a patch of trees. It wasn’t nearly enough, and it truly didn’t help that much. The long branches and fanned leaves whipped back and forth under the heavy winds. But at least she had gotten him out of the water. “Breathe.”

A good portion of his clothing had been ripped away. Some from his own hand, she suspected, when he’d fallen into the water. Others, by her, as she’d attempted to get him out of the water. Another time, and she might have stopped to admire the man’s lean form, and the way his muscular chest led down to a narrow waist with torn breeches resting low on his hips. Breeches that had split right down the middle of the crotch. His flaccid cock rested half against his thigh, and partly on the fabric.

Instead, the only thing she concerned herself with was climbing on top of the man so that she had better support to do what she needed next. Pushing both hands against his chest while her legs straddled his waist, she put all her weight down against him.

And then again.

And again.

All her efforts were for nothing. Only a small bit of water came out of the man’s lax lips. For someone of her kind, this would have been more than enough to clear their lungs, if that’s what was needed. Except for a second she had forgotten …

This man wasn’t entirely like them.

He was only half.

She struck her fists against his chest, feeling the hard pulse of his heart beating against the hit. “What do you need? What is it?”

Of course, he didn’t answer her.

Could he even hear her?

Behind her, the waves lapped at the rocks, spitting water and sea foam at her naked back while her mind raced to figure out whatever it was she had missed here. If he was like the landwalkers, too, then wouldn’t he need air?

Yes, that’s it.

Triumph filled Arelle, even if she couldn’t be sure that’s what the man needed. Still, she wouldn’t know if she didn’t try. Before she could think better of it, she opened the man’s mouth wide, leaned down, and pressed her lips against his. The first thing she thought as she breathed air from her lungs into his?

He tastes like the sea.

Arelle dug her fingernails into his chest, still feeling the beats of his heart steady under her touch. Dragging in another breath, she gave that air to him, too.

“Open your eyes.”

She waited.

Nothing happened.

Arelle let out a noise thick with her frustration, and then wiped away the red strands of hair that stuck to her face and lips. She could taste the blood left behind from the swipe of her hand, but she ignored it.

A lot like the way she pretended not to see the trickle of blood from her cut palms left trails across the light dusting of hair on the man’s chest. With the wind blowing like it was, she couldn’t smell it at first—she’d been too focused on trying to save this man’s life instead of the dangerous situation she suddenly found herself in when all at once, the wind quieted.

At the same time that she dragged in a heady lungful of wet air that tasted of her own blood, she realized there was a hint of something else, too.

His blood.