Ordus stalks my movements, tensing the nearer I get, so much so that even the tentacle around my ankle tightens. I swear he stops breathing when I settle behind him.
Why am I doing this? What if that was a manipulation tactic? He’s pretending to be afraid so I lower my guard and—I don’t know. Be an easier prisoner? Fight him less? I find that hard to believe.
I take a deep breath. Even sitting, the top of his head reaches the bottom of my chin. Steeling my spine, I use both hands to pull his hair behind his ears, onto his broad back.
He visibly shudders. I pause to study him. There’s a slight bulb on his breeding arm, but it’s not as thick or leaking as much as it was when we were talking about my dildo.
It’s heady knowing such a simple act has goosebumps pebbling over his flesh. His skin itself seems to shiver—I’m not sure if that’s the right word for it. The pores kind of flutter, changing his coloring to make the iridescent blues in his skin glow.
I pull his hair over his shoulders once more, and his skin ripples, rapidly changing between brown and blue. It continues as I comb my fingers through his hair. It’s softer than anything I’ve ever felt—even smoother than silk.
What…what would it feel like against my cheek? His skin is already so soft and velvety. Everything about his appearance does things to me. Even the scar on his ribs has my heart pitter-pattering because it accentuates his rugged appeal and ups the fear factor at the same time it calms my senses that such afrightening, domineering being has become my protector—of sorts.
Unable to stop myself, I brush my fingers over the gills on his neck. He makes a sound close to a hiccupped groan that sends a line of fire down my spine. His responsiveness has me on a power trip.
Ordus’ breaths are coming out strained, the tentacle around my ankle frozen. He’s so tense, I’m afraid he might snap in half. I’m no kraken, and I swear I can smell his unease.
I’m not sure what compels me to take my time doing the best French braid I’ve ever done instead of parting his hair into three and getting it over and done with to release him of his misery, but I do. His breathing never evens out, though, slowly—so painfully slowly—his tentacle relaxes and pulses, warming my body from the inside out.
My hand and elbow are cramping like a bitch by the time I finally get down to his mid-rib. I finish off the braid with the scrunchie, then lower it over his shoulder so he can see my work. Retaking my position back on the floor in front of the luggage to busy myself with folding, I tell myself it’s no big deal. I just braided his hair. It’s stupid. It’s whatever. His silence doesn’t mean anything. I don’t need to look at him.
But I do. I keep stealing glances at him holding the long braid in both of his hands. He’s staring at it like I gave him not just the moon this time, but the sea and the stars, plus the clouds that bring reprieve on the hottest of days.
It has to be more than a minute before he finally looks at me. My cowardice takes hold, and I keep my gaze fixed on my work, folding and refolding just to keep from looking up at him.
The shelving is probably for my things, but I don’t want to assume or get comfortable by unpacking my suitcase. This is temporary. It’s just until I can come up with a plan on how to escape.
My nerves stutter when he rises to his normal height, but I don’t dare look up until he says my name.
“I would like to show you something, Cindi.”
Oxygen leaves me in a rush. He’s stunning. His jaw is sharper with the hair off his face, the shadows of his cheeks more lethal. The gills on the side of his neck are more obvious now too, and it’s weird how well they suit him.
The tentacle does an excited little tap on my knee when I stand on shaky legs. One of Ordus’ limbs dips into the pool to scrape algae off the walls. Then he smears it over his shoulders and onto the piece of driftwood I was wielding the other night, handing it to me. I take the makeshift torch from him and follow the kraken into the pitch-black tunnel I tried escaping through on my first night.
“I will grow algae in here too,” he says, more to himself than to me as he moves into the darkness.
The torch and his glowing shoulders offer a surprising amount of light that reflects off the mildew on the walls. My steps are still slow going, because the last thing I want is to trip again—which seems to be a possibility, even if the stray tentacle has moved its residence around my waist. My wounds have miraculously healed so only a scar remains, but I’d rather not go through the pain again.
Between focusing on not breaking my leg and moving forward, there aren’t many openings to ogle Ordus’ muscled back. I half wish the braid would stop swinging so I can study every inch of his exposed skin and engrain it into memory for me to enjoy later with the tentacle dil?—
Bad. Very, very bad.
Ordus’ body is none of my concern. Absolutely none. I’m his temporary housemate who can’t leave without his escort.
I’m sweating by the time we get to the dead end that turned me around. Only this time, I can see the symbols etched into the walls like the boulder in the underwater tunnel.
“Buka,” Ordus whispers.
The sigils glow the same shade of blue before the stone groans, rolling to the side. Natural light seeps into the damp space, opening to a clearing with a…a cottage? Shed? How did I miss this when I was running around the island the other day?
I check over my shoulder and between the trees for evidence of the Gallaghers, and I blink back surprise when my brain is put at ease with only a single survey.
It’s a small structure about twenty square feet, elevated off the ground, with unvarnished wooden walls and a straw roof held up by logs. There are windows and a tiny door that looks ridiculous against the twelve-foot-tall wall.
It appears structurally sound, I guess, but it’s a far cry from the level of acceptability by any architectural measure. It’s not exactly the most visually appealing thing either, with its lack of symmetry. I don’t need a leveler to know everything is off by at least a couple of degrees.
“How did this get here?” My forehead pinches when I inhale, and a familiar smell makes my nostrils twitch.
