“It’s okay,” she said again, as though any of this was okay. “I get why you tried to leave now. We can talk about it later. But right now, there’s no danger. We’re safe.” Her expressionhardened. “The people in that helicopter aren’t the enemy. You know that, right? They’re on our side. Onyourside.”
She was talking to the kraken. She thought the kraken would attack the helicopter. It wouldn’t. It was attacking the real threat.
The one thing that might keep him from fulfilling his duty.
No wonder it had dragged him back here. How could he uphold his ancestral oath if he knew his mate was waiting for him back in the surface world?
“You have to get away from me.” He could barely form the words. Every muscle in his body was locked, straining to keep the kraken from escaping.
And it wasn’t working.
The kraken was freeing itself, wrenching loose in a frenzy of shadows and magic. Moss stumbled to his knees in the boiling surf.
Carol knelt with him, her hands on his face.
“No!” he wanted to cry. His lungs were frozen.
“It’s okay,” she said again. “Let me help.”
She closed her eyes. He wanted to push her away, to scream at her to save herself, but he was trapped, his human body frozen in place in the last moments before it gave way beneath the kraken’s rage.
*Don’t be afraid.*Her voice was like cool, fresh water. Didn’t she know how much there was to be afraid of? The kraken had almost had her once.
She pressed further, sweet water finding the gaps in his mental armor. *It’s all right, Moss.*
No. If she reached any further—
*Kraken.*
The monster surged up, engulfing her. Her physical form slumped in his arms.
Her mind was lost in the dark.
Victory rang through him, fierce and exultant.She is ours!the depths roared.
Carol’s mind was a spark, flickering against the darkness of his soul. He screamed, fighting towards her the same way he’d fought the storm to save her, but the monster clutched her more tightly, dragging her away.
I won’t let you have her!
He tore at the darkness inside himself, pain exploding through his skull with each blow because it was his own soul he was ripping apart, his own soul that wanted to take Carol into the darkest depths of itself and keep her there. Blanketed in darkness. Crushed beneath the weight of its power.
Safe.
Safe?
She wouldn’t be safe. The kraken wasn’t safe. It was a monster. A tool of destruction forged to be wielded as a last resort. His grandfather had warned him. Every story, every lesson, had told him not to let the creature slip from his control.
He should have locked himself up the moment the kraken chose him. Immured himself in ice and darkness, waiting for the dragons’ call.
But he hadn’t. He’d wanted to taste freedom. And now his mate would pay the price.
22
Carol
Inquisitive tendrils sought out the shape of her face. They brushed over the curves of her cheeks and nose, tracing the feathery lines of her eyebrows and the sensitive skin of her neck. One paused at her lips. She opened her mouth, and it found her teeth.
It wasn’t erotic. She’d wondered if it would be. Kind of expected it, to be honest. Naughty tentacles were a thing for a reason, right? But the immense darkness of the kraken didn’t have any sexual motives. It wanted to touch her. To know what she was by knowing the shape of her.
