Page 3 of Craved By the Kraken Warlord

**Now**

Darkness.

Then—a flicker. Gold-green light dances behind my eyelids. My body sways, suspended. Am I… floating?

Something firm presses against my back. Not rock. Warmer.

I force my eyes open.

Glowing tendrils surround me, swirling through the water like liquid silk. One curls around my calf—thick as a tree root, tapered at the tip. Bioluminescence pulses beneath its slick surface, casting shadows on… scales?

*No, not scales. Suckers.*

A tentacle.

I jerk away. The movement sends me spinning. My hair fans out, tangling with strands of luminescent seaweed. The tentacle retracts, but others hover nearby, patient. Waiting.

Air brushes my face. I look up. A bubble—translucent, shimmering—encases my head. I gasp, and my lungs fill with sweet, dry oxygen.

“What the…?”

The tentacles coil tighter around me. Not crushing—supporting. My heart races, but the panic feels distant, dulled. Maybe I’m dead. Maybe this is the sea god’s joke.

A shadow moves below. Vast. Serpentine.

The tentacles stiffen. They pull me downward, toward the shape. Deeper.

I slam my eyes shut.

*Don’t look. Don’t—*

But the glow seeps through my eyelids. And when the first deep, resonant note vibrates in my ribs—a sound too primal to be a voice—I know I’m not dead.

I’m prey.

THE AWAKENING

Iwake up choking on nothing.

My lungs seize, my spine arching off something soft and warm. I wheeze, fingers clawing at my throat—but there’s no water. No ropes. Just dry air and the metallic taste of panic.

*Alive.*

The thought hits like a slap. I blink hard, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Glowing blue-green patterns ripple across a domed ceiling high above, like sunlight filtering through waves. Except there’s no sun here. The light comes from the walls themselves—thick clusters of coral pulsing gently, alive with veins of gold and violet.

I sit up slowly. I’m on a raised slab of smooth stone, draped in something silky and translucent. My skin… is dry. Somehow. The shroud they drowned me in is gone, replaced by this strange fabric that clings to my hips. I touch my face, my hair. Not a drop of saltwater.

“What the hell?”

My voice sounds too loud. The air hums faintly, like a seashell pressed to the ear. I swing my legs over the slab’s edge, toes grazing… sand? It’s warm, fine as powdered glass. I stand, legs shaky, and nearly trip over my own feet. No chains. No guards. Just this cavern, glowing and silent.

A splash echoes from somewhere behind me.

I freeze.

The sound comes again—liquid, deliberate. Something moving through water.

*Don’t turn around.*