I fumble with my keys, painfully aware of Roark’s massive presence behind me. His tentacles curl and shift in my peripheral vision, and even in the darkness, I can see his blood mixing with the rain. He needs medical attention. If I hesitate much longer, he really could be done for.
The key slides home, and I pause with my hand on the doorknob. Behind me stands a creature of myth and nightmare—the kind whose tentacles hang preserved in every pub in town, whose battles with fishing crews fill our local legends. The kind that makes tourists gasp and lean forward when I tell stories about Cape Tempest’s bloody history.
If the town finds out I’m harboring a cthulhu…
But as I glance back at him, those intelligent eyes meet mine, and I see something the stories never mentioned.
Something that makes my pulse race.
And maybe that should frighten me more than anything else about this situation.
I push open the door and let the monster inside.
Chapter 3
Beneath the Surface
Roark
Pain pulses through every inch of my body as I thrash against the nets. The steel-reinforced mesh—specially designed for capturing my kind—cuts deeper with each movement, binding my arms and tentacles in its grip.
Their vessel now lies in pieces on the ocean floor, the humans who dared hunt in my territory feeding the creatures they once sought to capture. Justice, but at a cost. The storm drove me against the rocks, my blood trailing behind me as I desperately sought shelter.
This wooden structure—human-built, reeking of brine and old rope—creaks around me as I collapse onto its floor. My senses, dulled by pain, still register the approaching footsteps through the wooden planks.
Light. Measured. Human. Female. Alone.
I coil tighter, preparing for the inevitable. In my century of existence, I’ve learned what humans do when they encounter my kind. I’ve seen the displays in their establishments—tentacles preserved in formaldehyde, bones mounted like trophies, the macabre celebration of conquest.
The door creaks open.
Rain blows in with her—a small figure silhouetted against the storm. The beam of her flashlight finds my face, and I watch resignation mix with fear in her expression. Her scent reaches me—the salt of the sea, something floral, and beneath it all, the sharp tang of adrenaline.
But she doesn’t run. Doesn’t scream.
Instead, she steps forward. One careful step. Another. Her heart hammers so loudly I can almost taste its rhythm.
“I’m Ashe,” she finally says.
The words hang in the space between us. My mind struggles to comprehend this reaction—this lack of horror, this… introduction. As though we’ve met at some human gathering rather than in the middle of a storm with my blood pooling beneath me.
Her voice trembles slightly, but her gaze remains steady. She stands just beyond my reach—close enough to indicate trust, far enough to suggest caution. A delicate balance.
“What should I call you?” she continues, when I offer nothing in response.
The question stuns me more than any attack could have. In my years hiding among humans, wearing their form like an ill-fitting coat, I never revealed my true nature. And in my natural state, there has been no one to speak with.
I struggle to form words with a mouth better suited to crushing bones than human speech. “R-Roark,” I manage, the sound alien even to my own ears.
She nods as though I’ve said something perfectly reasonable, as though we’re having a normal conversation instead of this bizarre encounter between predator and prey. I could seize her with a single tentacle, could drag her beneath the waves before she drew another breath.
Instead, I lie bleeding on her floor while she asks if she can help me.
Help me.
In a town where they mount pieces of my kind on walls, this lighthouse keeper offers assistance instead of raising the alarm. I should refuse. Should disappear back into the depths. But something in those storm-gray eyes makes me reckless.
“Yesss,” I say, and watch her shoulders stiffen with resolve.
