She had too many questions and too much time to think.
And one thing that wasn’t a question at all, that she’d not had time to start thinking until now.
He was her mate. And she was falling in love with him.
And she didn’t even know who he was. Not really.
She’d been worried about telling him the truth about herself. But what did her truth matter, compared to him? He was a part of the new world that scared her so much: the world of dragons, and metal bird shifters, and shifter myths. That must be why he’d hidden it. He was something from a world no one else knew existed.
But her? She wasn’t special.
Only broken.
21
Moss
He woke to the smell of woodsmoke over salt, and a dragon shoving a mussel shell into his ear.
“Damn it, Maggie,” he muttered, swiping haphazardly at the mussel shell and only managing to drive it further into his ear. “Ow.”
He sat up, shedding sand and dried salt, and caught sight of Carol.
She sat on the other side of the campfire, eyes wide, like a startled deer. If deer had eyes from the depths of the sea.
My mate, he thought automatically, and something twisted deep inside him—part victory, part apology.
He frowned. That had felt like the kraken. But—
“You’re awake.” Carol flushed and winced, like there was something wrong with stating the obvious. God, he wanted to kiss her. Why wasn’t he? What was he doing, lying on the beach while she did all the work of moving the campfire out of the cave and cooking and…
His blood chilled as memories resurfaced. Slowly. Reluctantly. As though something was trying to hold them back.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he said quietly.
She nodded as though he was confirming something she’d already thought. Shit. What had happened while he was gone?
Right. He’dgone.That was what had happened.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she echoed, her voice a ghost of his. “Is that the first honest thing you’ve said since we washed up here?”
“No.”
“What else, then?” A pause, and right before he was about to answer, she said, “Is it a long list?”
“We’re both hiding things,” he said, suddenly and stupidly on the defensive.
“I’m not a—I don’t even know. You’ve been lying about being an octopus shifter. Whatever you are, it’s something more like those metal bird shifters than—than me. I’m not special. I’m just—” She closed her mouth so quickly, he was worried about her biting herself. “The world keeps becoming stranger and more complicated than I ever imagined, and you’re… you’re part of that world. Not my world.”
There was a strange pleading in her eyes. He swallowed. “I’m both.”
“What does that mean?”
It took him a moment to respond. He still felt woozy. He hadn’t expected to wake up on shore. Hadn’t expected to wake up at all. Not in any way that mattered. Not in his own body, but trapped within the kraken’s bulk, miles beneath the surface. In a world so dark and empty, death would have been a blessing.
But here he was. He’d burned himself out to reach his cousins and make sure help was coming for Carol.
And then…
