Page 87 of Hunters and Prey

Most importantly, he hadn’t meant to hurt her. The mistake was on both of them.

Eight months later, she knew that.

After stashing the spear beneath the bed out of sight in case maid service came poking through her belongings, she perched on the edge of the mattress and opened her clam shell communicator. A glossy mother of pearl surface reflected her features on both halves until she uttered the incantation. Cosmas’s face appeared within one mirror seconds later.

“Arrive safely?” he asked.

“Aside from a little traffic on the roads, it wasn’t so bad.” She glanced over the lavish room, luxury and lace stretching from one corner to the next. “This place you picked is gorgeous. There’s a garden outside, but they say it’s prettier in the summer when everything isn’t buried beneath an inch of snow.”

“I thought you’d enjoy it. I only visited once but it remains vivid in my memory. It’s a nice place. You’ll enjoy Philadelphia. Does he know you’ve arrived yet?”

“No. I planned to fish his number out of the phone next.”

Cosmas nodded. “Trust me. You’ll be glad that you went ahead with this soon. Everyone needs a break from their duties sooner or later, El. Take the time to rediscover what you enjoy in life. Recharge. Explore. Come back to us ready to kick a lot of tail.”

“I’ve enjoyed plenty in life long before this,” she muttered.”

“I mean it. Life without responsibilities or having to wake in the middle of the night to see to an emergency situation down in central command. Life without having to rush onto duty because someone’s been gutted by a scylla and they’re at death’s door, needing the care only you can provide.”

Her shoulders sagged. She hated when he spoke commonsense to her. “I know.”

“Good. Take care. Phone the man and tell him you’ve arrived safely, otherwise he’ll contact our offices again.”

“What? He called y—”

Cosmas closed the communication shell, simultaneously ending their chat and making her want to pay off the right combination of guardsmen to kick his tail from the royal palace to the barracks and back.

Matteo spent much of the morning wondering if he was going to regret inviting a mermaid to spend a week in the city, and another twenty minutes in the hotel lobby checking his watch.

“You’re crazy, Matty,” Antonio had muttered while Matt performed a fancy tie-knot in the living room mirror. “Are you really putting this much effort into dressing up for a woman who isn’t even a woman? What if she eats your heart and returns to Atlantis?”

Of course, that had been less than an hour ago before he set out from the apartment and made his way to Thompson House. If not for his family lurking on the same floor, he would have invited her to shack up with him.

Then again, that would have also been assuming she wanted to pick up where they left off. Still, the last thing he needed was his mother popping in at some odd hour with a homemade torrone prepared just for her. The fam knew he had a date, but he’d kept them in the dark when it came to the who.

After all, his mother and his brother’s family didn’t know the supernatural world existed, though his mother was a top-notch conspiracy theorist positive aliens had visited them before. Man, it broke his heart that he couldn’t verify her beliefs, or those of her pals on the Internet forums she visited.

The sound of heels on wood jerked his attention to the stairs as his sea goddess stepped from them into the hotel lobby. Tights paired with suede knee boots covered the length of her legs, worn beneath a dove gray sweater dress. The cashmere hugged her curves, accentuating a statuesque frame guilty of creating a hundred fantasies in his mind since their first meeting.

Down, boy,he pep-talked his dick. Now wasn’t the ideal moment to spring an erection. Being around El returned him of his teen years when a stiff breeze was all it took to introduce him to Boner Town. Damn.

He met her in the middle and took her offered hands, squeezing both.

“Hi.”

“Hi, yourself,” Matt replied. Obeying the streak of confidence flushing through his veins, he dropped her hands, cupped her face between his palms, and kissed her. She moaned into his mouth, the receptive flick of her tongue urging him to meet her stroke for stroke.

He couldn’t get enough of her and would have been content to remain there in the lobby, kissing her senseless until they scorched a hole in the rug beneath them—if someone nearby didn’t clear their throat in a polite, unspoken, “Get a room.”

Ahem.

Fucking tempting. She had the room, but she’d clearly gone to a lot of trouble getting herself put together for their outing. They broke apart, her chest heaving, spots of pink on her high cheek bones. He didn’t make eye contact with the elderly couple passing to their left or the hotel staff as he led her outside by the hand.

“How was the, ah, voyage?”

“Peaceful,” she replied, shooting him a grin.

Suppressing the urge to ask where she found a wardrobe that fit like it was tailored to her body, he guided Elpis to his car.

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