Free Awakening by Kitty Thomas

which way to go to get home. I fell a couple of times. Running was still so new, but my need to get away from the castle aided me.
    I knew I couldn’t live in the sea anymore. I knew I couldn’t survive out there, but I couldn’t survive here either, and I was sure what lie waiting for me in the ocean would be quicker and less traumatic than whatever my Master’s plans for me.
    My greatest fear was not being able to get there in time, but with the haze of clouds, Kyros wouldn’t be able to move overly fast, either. And he might not be able to find the water as quickly by instinct alone.
    As my feet hit the beach and I got closer to the water, the haze started to clear enough so that I could see much farther ahead of me. I could see the waves now lapping the shore. Home. I didn’t even care that the sea would ultimately kill me. I just wanted to end it and escape the human’s wrath. Even if he wasn’t angry with me, if what Aric said was true, and hadn’t just been meant to scare me, then eventually Kyros would hurt me. And somehow I knew he’d drag it out a long time.
    I didn’t want to think he’d do something like that after the kindness and patience he’d shown me, but after watching him kill a man in front of me, I could no longer sugarcoat his ferocity.
    The fishermen were all down the beach, quite some distance from me, so I felt safe to take the toga off.
    The water was comforting as I stepped into it. I looked behind me to see Kyros getting closer. He didn’t run, just walked at a steady pace as if he had all the time in the world. He must have thought I was trapped with nowhere to go and that he could therefore take his time.
    “Nerina!”
    I turned away from his voice and dove into the water. I would swim until I couldn’t go any further and then I would let the sea take me under, back to my family where I belonged. As the water rushed around my moving form, I started to think that perhaps I could swim far enough before tiring to make it. Maybe I could swim around to another side of Meropis and escape him that way. The idea of being alone in another foreign place, with nothing but more human threats to look forward to, was equally unpleasant. No, it was better to just go home.
    I’d gotten maybe a mile out when I could hear him gaining on me, another frantic disturbance in the water. When his arms finally wrapped around me, I struggled, kicking out at him.
    “You’ll take us both down. Stop it!” he shouted, his voice just as hard-edged and angry as it had been in the kitchen.
    “Good! Go away. Leave me alone.”
    His arm went around my neck, pressing, tightening. I struggled harder but then everything went dark.
    I was surprised to wake up in Kyros’ bedroom, and at first I thought it was a final dream before death. I’d thought his intent was to kill me, as if he couldn’t give the sea that one victory; it had to be him. But he’d only meant to render me unconscious so I wouldn’t fight him as he took us both back to the shore.
    I found myself wrapped in a towel, a sudden chill sweeping over me.
    “Here, drink this.” He held out a mug of something hot and dark-colored, with steam rising off it. Some type of tea.
    I took it, half-afraid it was poisoned, but then the logical side of my brain kicked in. If he’d wanted to kill me he could have just done it out in the ocean. There was no need to go to the trouble of bringing me back. And with the violence I knew he was capable of, there was no point in more civilized forms of murder.
    As I drank the warm liquid, he reached out to brush the damp hair off my face with his fingertips. I jerked back, and he sighed.
    “I’m not going to hurt you. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
    I’d done everything wrong, and we both knew it. I’d wandered all over his castle and gone somewhere I’d known I shouldn’t. I’d run from him, fought him. I didn’t believe it when he said I’d done nothing wrong and he wasn’t going to hurt me. I just