"Get off!" Rowan cried, thinking the Thalassic Mortal was going to drag him into the ocean. The webbed fingers that wrapped around his ankle were so cold, it hurt his skin.

Instead of getting dragged into the sea, the Thalassic Mortal dunked Rowan's foot into the rock pool next to him. The water was just as cold as the creature's fingers and Rowan gasped, trying to pull away. The Creature had impeccable strength, and Rowan failed miserably.

In a frustrated panic, Rowan lifted his other foot and smashed his heel straight into the Thalassic Mortal's forehead. Pain crinkled up Rowan's leg, but at least the creature had let go of his other one. As the sea mortal rolled off the rock and into the ocean, Rowan ran as fast as his legs would carry him. He slipped on seaweed and scrambled over shells, grazing his knees and feet, but he didn't stop. Rowan kept running and running until he reached the top of the sand dune. He collapsed to catch his breath.

He couldn't see where he was previously sitting from that angle, and thankfully, there were no scratch marks on his ankle. The creature didn't poison him.

Kaerius laid in the water face down, holding his head in his hand. It throbbed, and the cold water soothed it. "As soon as I remove this bond, I'm going to kill him," he muttered in the Thalassic Mortal tongue.

Kaerius's other hand held his chest. Rowan had injured him, and it not only hurt his head from getting kicked in the face, but it also bruised his heart. There was a definite bond, and it whined within him.

When Kaerius had tried to drown Rowan, Kaerius started to choke too, and ever since that night, there had been a constant pull in the sea creature's chest. One that heated up every time he saw the human. Kaerius's tail twitched when Rowan looked at him.

Kaerius wanted to inject Rowan with poison and drag him underneath the water and watch him struggle to breathe. At the same time, Kaerius's heart threw a tantrum every time Rowan's eyes watched over him with curiosity. Rowan's inquisitive stare made Kaerius feel less like a monster of the sea, which was the exact opposite of what he wanted.

Kaerius owned the waves, his species dominated the ocean. He was born to be a creature of the sea, feared by those who roamed the land. There was no way in the depth if the waters that he would let a puny human ruin his life.

* * * * *

When Rowan got his breath back, he hurried home and into his bedroom. He threw his bag, and it landed in the corner of his room. Rowan rechecked his leg. His veins were still a normal colour, thankfully.

Instead of flopping onto his bed or having a shower, Rowan sat at his desk and leaned over the big stack of files his mother had left. He pushed aside the werewolf file, the vampire file, stopping when he stared at large bold letters reading 'THALASSIC MORTALS'.

It felt like Rowan's lungs tightened around his heart. He had just booted a Thalassic Mortal in the face less than half an hour ago. Adrenaline still whizzed around his body from such a ruthless act. He knew he shouldn't have met up with the creature. Rowan clearly wasn't in a rational state of mind.

The Thalassic Mortal had tried to kill him, and Rowan had stupidly thought they could find peace with a simple apology. He thought the whole soulmate act was a game to get Rowan close enough to poison him when he least expected it.

Yet Rowan sat, furiously flipping through the pages of a file dedicated to the sea creatures, searching for the part about soulmates and royals. It didn't take him long to find 4 full A4 pages on the subjects.

As rowan's eyes traced the first paragraph, a voice said, "I thought you were finishing at 12. Why did it take you so long to get home?"

Rowan's head snapped in the direction of the door. His mother had entered unannounced, as usual. Mandy's eyes flicked to the files her son was looking at, and her blue eyes gleamed with surprise.

"I sat on the beach for a bit," Rowan said which wasn't a lie. He just wouldn't tell her that he had company.

"What are you looking at?" Mandy asked, suddenly uninterested that her son came home late and wouldn't answer his phone. "The Thalassic Mortal file," she hummed, eyeing Rowan. "Are you interested in coming on another hunt?"

Rowan almost allowed his jaw to hang open. "Wow so, I almost die on the first hunt, and you want me to go on another one? Are you even my mother?"

"Fine, your first one was sketchy, but we can learn from your mistakes. You'd make a great hunter if you'd just let me give you the experience you need."

Rowan slowly got to his feet. "My mistakes?" he repeated in a tone he rarely used. "Get out of my room."

"Rowan-"

"Get out!" Rowan yelled and stormed to the door. Mandy hurried out in time for Rowan to slam it in her face. He leaned his back against it and gripped his hair. Everything came flooding back to him. The fear, the burning in his lungs, the throbbing in his veins, the darkness, everything.

Rowan would often go for a swim in the sea when he was frustrated. People often described running as a therapy session, and an easy way to de-stress. Swimming was Rowan's bliss and would clear his head in an instant.

He could see the sea from where he stood. His window was large and looked out across the entire beach and the rocks he loved to sit on. The sea was no longer safe for Rowan, and it pained him to think that it might never feel safe again.

Rowan decided to run himself a bath. He wanted cold water to distract himself from feeling overwhelmed. His throat hurt, so did his head, almost as if he had been the one to get kicked in the face.

Rowan had a door leading into the bathroom from his bedroom, but so did his mother. He made sure to lock both doors before stripping and getting into the empty bathtub. He turned on the cold water and gasped when it splashed onto his foot. The noise of the water echoed. The bathroom was large enough to fit a shower in the corner, a toiler, and a sink that had a set of drawers underneath it. There was a large mirror to his left, and the walls were tiled with a mint green colour. The floor was a light wood lino and had started to peel at the edges. Around the top of the wall where it met the ceiling, random sea shells were glued all round, making a beautiful rim. Rowan had helped find a lot of them over the years.

He breathed deeply as the water slowly ran up his legs, and started to fill the tub. The water was freezing and ached his skin, but it was successful in painting over his stresses.

Rowan closed his eyes and controlled his breathing until the water reached his chest. He turned the tap off before it overflowed and lowered himself against the curve of the bath.

As he sank, the water rose up and up until only his head was above the surface. Rowan's dad was as tall as him, and when he lived with them so long ago, Michael purposefully bought a massive bath, so even people over the height of 6ft could stretch their legs.

The cold was numbing Rowan's skin. His breathing was uneven, though he forced himself to take long and controlling breaths until his heart rate slowed. It felt nice. He had numbed to the point where he could imagine that he didn't exist and that he was floating in nothing but good thoughts.

Rowan kept breathing in a controlled way as his hands gripped the side of the bath. He used his arms to sink his head lower and lower until he inhaled one long breath and fully submerged himself under the icy water.

Rowan imagined that he was in the sea, though he wasn't in any danger. He dreamed that he had just left college on a warm summers day and needed to drift in the ocean to cool off. He imagined that he could feel sand underneath him, and if he opened his eyes, he would see the sun wiggling above him.

Rowan smiled to himself, so submerged within his mind that he did open his eyes, expecting to see blue skies, the sun, and the swaying movements the sea made on a calm day. Instead, Rowan saw wide purple eyes staring back at him, surrounded by thick lashes and what looked like black eyeliner.

Rowan opened his mouth to cry out and inhaled the bath water. He sat up quickly, coughing it back up, grating the inside of his throat and gasping for breath. Rowan coughed until someone banged on the door.

"Rowan?" Mandy yelled, "Shall I kick the door down? Are you choking? What's going on in there?"

"I'm- I'm fine," Rowan rasped, coughing in between words. "I have a drink in here. I-I swallowed it the wrong way." Rowan sounded convincing, and his mother eventually left. He troubled himself when he could sometimes lie so well.

He leaned back against the bath with one hand on his chest, but he started to shiver. Rowan let some water out and turned on the hot tap. Rowan was already not feeling well, and it was definitely not a good idea to bathe in water that felt like it had ice cubes in it. Though Rowan's skin craved the cold. It always had.

After a while of sitting, trying to force his thoughts away from the supernatural world, Rowan got out of the bath and changed into loose shorts and a t-shirt. He crawled into bed and placed his laptop on his knee. Rowan's headache was growing, and his nose was blocking up. He hugged his pillow and watched a film, hoping he would stop thinking about the Thalassic Mortal, even it was just for a few hours.