The same thinghehad wanted, ever since he realized she was his mate. Her freedom.
In his mind’s eye, the deck crumpled and cracked beneath sinuous tentacles. The ship rocked as a huge weight slammed into it. Sailors fell screaming into the ocean, small as ants, as the massive creature tore their ship apart.
His breathing quickened. His aura twisted around him, heavy and dark. The guards on either side of Carol drew back warily, their expressions confused. They had no idea what was going on.Their animal sides were screaming at them to get away, and they didn’t know why.
Ship-killer. Kraken. Moss had fought with all his strength against the violence his shifted form was capable of. Now, for the first time, he wanted to feel steel and bones crack, wanted to hear the screams, wanted power—
No. His lips twisted. He didn’t want power. He didn’t want any of it. He only wanted her, and she had chosen to live half a life rather than to want him in return.
He met her eyes. Her beautiful moon-dark eyes that were normally the only still thing about her. Seeing her stand unmoving like this was unnatural. Like the waves had stopped.
*Carol,* he whispered, reaching into her mind, *tell me it’s not true.*
She drew herself up. Her lips quivered, and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. His heart sank. “Moss…” she began, and that one syllable told him everything he feared.
Then her voice lashed into his mind. *Of course it’s not true! I’ve been kidnapped by insane shifters who think they can peel my shark off me like an orange. I had to say something to keep them from killing me outright!*
As her telepathic voice whipped joy into his soul, she kept talking out loud, the words hesitant and half-afraid. “I have to go through with it. Don’t you see? Captain Fairchild is right…”
*Who else came with you?*Her fierce whisper echoed in his mind. “…If this god, or whoever he is, can help me, then I need to at least try…”
*No one.*
*Good.*Her face hardened briefly as her trembling mask slipped. “Can’t you see that, Moss? What if I never get a chance like this again?”
*I need to get you somewhere safe.*He knew there was no hiding the pleading in his voice from her. She was right. Theywere too close, pulled together in the whirlpool of the kraken’s building power. *I can’t risk you getting caught in the kraken’s rage.*
Her mouth went flat. “I know,” she said quietly. “But I can’t let you do that.”
And before he could stop her, she dove backwards off the ship.
46
Carol
Wind whipped past her. Her heart stuttered, memories flashing like lightning across her skin.
The plane.
The storm.
That night all those years ago, her so-called friends’ laughter in her ears as she swallowed water.
Then she hit the water, and the ocean wrapped itself around her.
I’m home.
A home that might still leave her dead. The water was so cold, it pulled the breath from her lungs, her fingers and toes a blaze of pain that would fade to dangerous numbness. Her shark was built for waters like this, but her human body wasn’t.
And with the collar around her neck, she couldn’t shift.
She twisted underwater, kicking up towards the surface. Away from the boat.
And a nightmare chased her.
Moss dived after her. She saw him slice into the water, his powerful form hanging in the shadows beneath Fairchild’sship. His long hair floated around him, and opalescent light glimmered over his brown skin.
Then the ocean exploded around him as the kraken took form.
