Rage howled inside him, as though the kraken wanted to shred the flesh from his bones. An image appeared in Moss’s mind: a darkness beyond black, a loneliness all the more painful because it was shared, a world where nothing good or light or warm ever touched.
I won’t let you take her there,Moss snarled.
The storm howled all around. Tentacles burst from Moss’s back again like monstrous angel wings, reaching into the darkness on all sides.
The water dragged him under, and his mate in his arms. His senses splintered. The ocean moved around him, or the kraken pulled him through the ocean so quickly his mind couldn’t keep up, traveling under a procession of long, flickering shadows until—
Rock crunched beneath his feet. Gravel. The slick-gritty slide of seaweed.Land.
A wave crashed over his head. A breaker. A breaker, because this wasn’t the deep ocean, this was a coastline, sand and gravel sliding under his feet, water sucking at his legs as it pulled back, ready for the next wave.
The woman in his arms swore. “Land? We’re—we’re alive. Are you okay? Are we—”
She staggered as another wave hit them. He tightened his arm around her automatically and caught the edge of a fractured thought: *—not gonna BE okay if I waste time talking—*
Rain pummeled down on his head and shoulders. He held the woman close and they staggered together up the shore as the water tore at them, crashing down to drive them to their knees, the sucking undertow trying to steal them back into the deep.
*Dry land.*He took a step that sank into gravelly sand and almost left his sock behind as he pulled his foot out.*Well. Dry-ish.*
He hadn’t meant to joke, had barely noticed he was thinking out loud, but her surprised bark of laughter lit a flame in his chest. He glanced down at her. God damn, she was short. And it was so dark she was little more than a deeper shadow in the churning night. Would his kraken’s eyes be able to—
No. Don’t even think that.
Lightning forked across the sky. The rain, which had already been hammering them so hard it was like still being in the waves, somehow got harder.
And the glimpse of her face the light had granted him—tendrils of black hair sodden around a pale face, dark eyes like a starless sky—lit a burning need in his heart to see more.
First things first.Moss gritted his teeth.*Shelter. We need to get out of this storm.*
The storm took the opportunity to howl even louder around them.
*Do you—any idea where we are?*Her psychic voice felt like the sparkle of sunlight on rippling water. He ached for more. Then her arm tightened around his waist. *Up ahead. I think it’s a cave.*
They half-climbed, half-stumbled up the shore together, until the shifting sand underfoot turned into rocks, then sodden tussock grass and boulders. Moss kept his arm around the woman’s shoulders; she was still walking bent over, one arm over her chest. Something chittered at the edge of his awareness, like a small creature trying to stay hidden. Was she hurt? He hadn’t sensed any pain in her mind when they spoke telepathically, but that didn’t mean anything.
He reached for the woman’s mind to ask her and caught the whisper of a thought:*It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.*
Moss flinched so hard he almost let her go. He remembered the way the kraken’s tentacles had wrapped around her. If she was hurt because of it—because of him—he would never forgive himself.
She bumped against him. *Are you alright?*The concern in her telepathic voice was so sincere, his chest clenched.
He kept his thoughts light. *All good. Lost my footing. Good thing I didn’t fall. You’d never find me again.*
She let go of his waist. He stood completely still as her hand touched his side, his chest, then finally found his hand and squeezed it. *You don’t need to worry about that. I don’t need to see to find you. One benefit of being me.*
There was a strange twist in her voice, but before he could do more than wonder about it, she added, *There’s a cave here. I think. Let’s see how deep it goes.*
Without her as his guide, Moss never would have found the crack in the rocks. Hell, he probably would have walked straight into the cliffs and knocked himself out. His octopus would have found every nook and cranny, even the ones he never would have a chance of fitting in, and his feet stumbled as its loss struck him again.
But with her guidance, and despite the constant pressure to see if the kraken’s eyes could peer through the darkness better than his human ones, he slowly made his way out of the storm.
And promptly knocked his head on the ceiling.
He swore. She made a wordless sound of sympathy and suddenly she was right in front of him, her hands in his hair, gentle, checking for injuries.
She tsk’d to herself.
“What?” he asked, lost in the sensation of her touch.
