Chapter 2

Chapter

Two

Nireed plucked at a piece of netting, almost invisible to the eye, when an approaching pod of whales, including two calves, let out a volley of distressed clicks. Any closer and they'd get tangled.

She flashed her luminescent lights in rapid succession, issuing a warning, then indicated where they'd need to swim to get out.

The biggest whale, likely the matriarch, dipped her great big head and, with a series of whistles and pulsed calls, redirected her pod away from danger.

If only Nireed could swim away with them and forget this mess.

What in the deepest, foulest murk was she supposed to do about all this loose, drifting netting? It was miles wide and hundreds of feet deep, and she couldn't even attempt to reel it back up, not when the fishing vessel that towed it was now a groaning, sinking hunk of metal below them. Soon, it would drag this mass of netting into the deep, entangling any number of unsuspecting creatures in its descent.

All because of one young, hot-headed merman.

Cyrus.

The net had been encircling them, yes, gradually drawing up from below and threatening to trap them all inside, but there'd still been a clear, direct path overhead to the boat. They could've scaled over the side.

Instead, Cyrus had flown into a fit of rage and slashed open the boat's haul before she or anyone else in their hunting party could stop him and prevent this exact outcome. The boat took on water fast, its crew leaping into the ocean. Naturally, everyone wanted to attack right then and there, but Nireed slapped her fins hard and signed that they needed to guide the creatures trapped inside the net to safety first.

It was long, hard work. Miles of netting, hundreds, probably thousands of individual creatures, and only five of them to make it happen. But they did it.

"Why'd you let him go?" The younger male snapped his tail. "The orange one with weird fins."

Anger prickled along her scales. As if he'd any reason to be frustrated. He'd just eaten his fill of choice cuts from the boat crew.

Under normal circumstances, their waters were teeming with fish. Hunting should've been easy, and yet, fewer and fewer of their hunters returned each day, disappearing right alongside whole schools of fish and whatever other ocean denizens happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the last few weeks, their people had learned the hard way not to fall for the lure of potted meat, a recently introduced delicacy to their diet. But even knowing that now, with how large these walls of nets were, by the time they smelled it in the water it was sometimes too late.

As it had almost been tonight.

Merfolk were being baited, then captured or killed, and each of the boats—hard to say just how many—reported back to a larger ship that reeked of dead fish and diesel-run heavy machinery. A factory ship. A shore-bound friend had once explained to her what that was—a beast of a vessel that processed and packaged fish at sea in large quantities, sometimes more than 200 tons per day, and prepared it for Surface Dweller markets.

The floating factory was nearly 400 feet long and greedily gobbling up her pod's main food sources. Her people too.

"You should've killed him," Cyrus pressed, his challenge fiery and fierce.

She glared, gesturing to the netting with a hard slash of her hand. They had bigger problems to deal with, and he was wasting energy trying to undercut her authority as hunt leader. "He wasn't one of the others. He didn't do this." While the orange-clad human in question had tried to save the fishermen who'd attempted to catch and kill them, and maybe that made it unwise to let him go, his scent was curiously familiar, teasing at the edges of recollection. And she followed that instinct to protect him, to make sure he was able to get away.

"Far better uses for that one," Serpenra signed, a sly, suggestive smirk twisting her thin lips, bloodred from feasting. While her magenta scales were muted with age, she was one of their most clever hunters, and Nireed wouldn't leave her alone with a Surface Dweller male for anything. "He seemed quite taken with you. A shame you didn't make use of…"

"Leave it." Nireed slapped her hands together. There'd only been fear, nothing more to explain his body's reaction. "He's gone, and we've food to tow home."

Serpenra pouted. "You're no fun."

"Still don't understand why we let him go."

Grabbing the mouthy male by the scruff of his hair, Nireed yanked him toward the column of fuel and refuse belching from the sinking boat, shoving his face near its noxious plume. "You see that?" She held firm as Cyrus wriggled, using one hand to sign. "This is why we don't sink Surface Dweller vessels. When you have enough forethought to consider that and are not ruled by blind vengeance, I'll listen to your opinions. Until then, keep your mouth shut and don't presume I care whether you understand my decisions or not."

Pushing him away, Nireed took two of the eight rope leads they'd tethered around the lifeless fishermen. While their kind didn't actively hunt Surface Dwellers anymore, these men had tried to kill them, and meat was meat. To waste it was a grave offense, especially after so much destruction.

Casting one last helpless glance toward the mass of netting, Nireed pulled her catch into the deep, the others following behind with theirs. Her friends on shore would shudder at the sight, would beg her to find some other way to feed the pod.

But something good had to come out of this night.

Their people were hungry. And the flesh of their enemies would fill their bellies for now.