The world he was so in tune with, the world he’d built for himself here, halfway around the world from his home, disappeared as his soul fractured into a thousand sharp edges.
Darkness boiled up inside him, filling and overfilling the space where his octopus had been.
*What do you mean, it’s gone?*Pania asked warily. Out loud, she said, “You don’t look so good. Sit down for a minute.” A bubble of laughter caught in his throat. Trust Pania to keep her head when the world was falling apart.
Oh, god. Pania. Ataahua. The rest of his team—the front of house staff, the guests—
He forced the words past the pain and panic fracturing his mind. “I have to get out of here.”
“Yeah, nah, you don’t look so great. Take a minute. Ataahua and I’ll hold the fort.”
Ataahua whooped from across the room. “Finally! In charge, where I belong!”
Pania leaned closer. The creature inside Moss raised its head. “Seriously, cuz, you look like—”
*Our great-uncle’s dead.*
She flinched as though someone had slapped her. *He’s dead? How—no. Oh, no, Moss. You…?*
He didn’t dare to look at her. He could guess what she looked like: her face ashen, her expression stricken. Her big brown eyes wide with horror.
Their great-uncle was dead, and the duty that their family had upheld for hundreds of years had chosen him to carry on his vow.
It was an honor, he reminded himself. A sacred trust, part of an ancient pact between his people and the shadow dragons to protect shifterkind from their greatest enemy.
It was important.
It was a death sentence.
For him, and for anyone who got in his way.
*What are you waiting for? Run!*Ataahua shouted into his mind.
Her words broke through his paralysis. He shoved away from the counter. Pots clattered to the ground. He stumbled into someone. Their mouth moved, but he couldn’t hear them over the ringing in his ears. The lights were too bright. Everything was too loud and too quiet, and the creature who’d broken into his soul was pressing against his skin from the inside.
Soon it would break free.
Run.
He burst through the doors to the front of house. Shouting followed him as he shoved his way out onto the street. Someone called his name—someone he knew, someone he’d worked with and drunk and eaten with, who invited him over for family dinner, but he couldn’t let himself even think their name in case the monster inside him caught hold of it.
Cold air struck the breath from his lungs.
He needed to get in the water. Thank whatever gods were listening that he’d picked up sticks and moved closer to the harbor. If he’d had to fight through busy streets to reach it—
It wouldn’t be a fight. It would be slaughter.
Darkness writhed inside him. The monster was pressing against the inside of his skin. How long did he have? A minute? Less?
Adrenaline spiked in his veins. This wasn’t something he could control. He could only hold it off. And when the creature taking form inside him reached its full strength and prized away his last defenses, it would all be over.
No more controlled chaos. No wonderful machine of moving parts. No knife’s-edge anticipation of that one flash of heat or carefully measured heartbeat to bring a dish from great to exquisite. No more team, no friends, no family—
He choked on a sudden, smothering wave of grief. He could barely remember a time when his octopus wasn’t there to poke through his memories with him, adding its interested commentary to his own thoughts. And now it was gone, and there was a monster in its place.
His feet stumbled, and he gasped as he crashed into a low guardrail. The water stretched out in front of him, wide and flat and welcoming.
Why was he wasting his energy grieving what he would lose? If the monster got out now, it would destroy everything around him.
