Mermaids are Menacing (Book 2) Complete

46.) Stalking

Speed without destination is madness. Cerastes could cover acres in instant but he had no clue if he had come closer or moved farther from Rowan. She had months of  lead and now her traces have gone cold. In the night he hunted her, and in the day he hide from the all draining sun and slept. Each night he stalk throught the streets of a new town or city, waiting for the familiar feeling of the bond reaching out. Waiting and hoping to feel something missing snap back into its proper place. Yet, night after night that feeling never came. She wasn't there. It was maddening.

After that first time he never felt her with a man again but the bond had gone silent after he woke from hibernation. He reached out in his sleep trying to find the connection but his claws came up empty everytime. Instead he was plagued with nightmares. He runs and runs to her with arms outstretched but everytime he almost grabs her, he wakes up again. To calm himself he tried to think rationally.

She was near water but most of Green mountain territory has a coast line. Coasts to the far east, running down to the south.  Not to mention the rivers and tributaries in the territory were endless. Never had he desired wings more than he had this year. Cerastes could not teach his own offspring to fly and now he couldn't keep track of a single human woman. Rowan.

With the catacomes collapsed it was impossoble to tell where she exited the mountain. Information that would have been incredibly valuable to his investigation was smashed to smithereens, he could only rely on deduction. 

He started his search at the top of Green Mountain territory and moved east. The mountains to the west were likely to difficult for her to manage. Humans tend to travel by roads for a number of reasons: Its safer, faster, and more convenient. Rowan was a human woman, why would a human spend endless days of time trying to cut through fields with venoumous snakes and woods with impassible branches, when a road was readily available.

Most roads connected towns and cities between the north west and the North East, a few of the bigger citys had roads running to the south but since the sea monsters were so plentiful along that coast, most trade and ports were stationed on the eastern coast. Since the green mountains were the furthest north west in our terriotory that only left east in the road system.

Cerastes ambled East. When a beast came close hr ate it. Had he been able to stand the smell, Cerastes would have taken over a house during the day to sleep but  the smell would have been to hard to live with. The free ranging humans tended to wash less than desired.

Cerastes white hair had grown out cover his eyes in his sleep. As he walked he would shake it angrily out of his face. He wore black pants that tied around the knees and a plain tan shirt under his black mantle.  He didn't  need much and carried little with him. He had no need for weapons, he caught what he needed to eat, and unlike humans he did not sweat.

He looked up at the moon and admired its brilliance. He thought of the time he, Rowan, and their offspring enjoyed the moonlight together once. Their son leaping about and reaching for the moon. We'll have a night like that again soon, He nodded.  It was only a matter of time untill they were reunited.  Rowan was bonded to him and could only return to the place she belonged.
....

But his traveling began to last much longer than expected. He had snuck his way across the entire northern hald of the territory and felt nothing. He made it all the way to the eastern coasts line and found himself in the second largest city in the territory. But she wasn't there. He knew she wasn't there but where was she?

She must have gone South from here, he reasoned. This place is full of people maybe some place more remote would have suited her better. So Cerastes moved down the southeastern region checking each backwoods town along the way. This reminded him of the days when he had to move from town to town to collect the tax, before the council system was put in place. Now there was even more humans and towns and cities in the territory. He didn't miss it at all but still he had to search for her. Human towns became more and more rare as he moved South.

When he layed down at dawn he tried to send messages through their link.
"Come out!" he called across the bond.
For so long he had tried to keep their minds seperate, wanting nothing more than to tear off the arm that pinned them together. Now he was holding onto it like a life line.

"Where are you?" He asked but there was only quiet.

Why wasn't she answereing? Was she with that man again? Playing at being a human wife, maybe she was already round with his child. He imagined her living in his home, and eating the food he provided her.

Never. Cerastes shoved the thought away and tried to sleep.
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Happy halloween. Its a holiday wekend but i tried to do a short chapter.