Page 48 of Salt and Knot

“Mercy, mercy!” I beg eventually, and he stops. But his tentacles remain lightly coiled around my calves.

He’s amazing.

My heart is so full.

Experimentally, I lift one foot, straightening my dripping leg.

He releases me. And while his colour fades to a duller hue, he doesn’t try to stop me.

I let it slide back into the water, and gently, the tentacle returns to my ankle, giving me a little squeeze of reassurance and thanks.

I trust him.

It’s an absurd thing to think, but I do. This is my mate, and while he may not have gone about announcing his presence with the finesse I might have preferred, he wouldn’t hurt me. There isn’t anything to stop him doing whatever he wants right now, but he’s being sweet and funny.

Who knew a kraken had jokes?

This is good, and I’m enjoying myself. But I have this craving to be closer to my sea monster.

To get in the water with him. It’s a tug from my navel, as strong as if his tentacle were wrapped around me. We’re linked. Bonded.

I keep my breathing steady as I remove my sodden dress, knickers and bra. Then I take a breath, and ease myself off the edge and into the water. Immediately, Dylan is there, holding me carefully.

“It’s okay. I can swim,” I tell him.

As though he can feel my nerves, he gives me a bit of space.

We float, watching each other for a few moments, and then Dylan pushes water to the surface in a jet, almost like a fountain, and I laugh in delight.

His pattern pulses, and I think he’s happy. It’s a feeling that seeps into me as well, although we’re not touching. He makes his tentacles into little arches above the water, dipping and swirling them, so they make a display.

That massive eye on one side of his head watches me all the time, checking on me.

This creature is as made for me as his human part, I realise, and reach for him. A tentacle is immediately there to meet my hand. He can sense my movements, doesn’t even have to see them. Smoothly, he wraps around my wrist and slides the end over my palm. Suckers kiss at my forearm. The touch warms me from the inside out. It’s his horny tentacle. I can tell instinctively. We respond to each other differently with that, and the playfulness of our interactions so far melts into something deeper. Sweeter.

The meeting of two mates, who finally understand each other. I want to be wrapped in him again, as close as two creatures can be. And there’s just one way that I think I’ll feel close enough to Dylan.

I squeeze the end of his tentacle and bring it to touch my naked chest.

“Give me your bite. Bond me as your mate. Fully.”

Chapter 25

Isla

The kraken’s big eye gazes at me, unblinking.

“I mean it,” I add. “You’re my mate as much as your human side. I know you didn’t mean to scare me before. Plus, I think I’d like to be able to swim underwater.”

I take a deep breath, hold my nose, and duck under the surface. Opening my eyes doesn’t sting like it did on the beach, and Dylan has followed me down.

Then, it’s as though he’s made a decision. His tentacles wrap swiftly around my whole body, and drag me with him, down, down, into the dark water. But all the time, his enormous blue eyes watch me.

I don’t struggle this time. It’s calm, and cool and descending into darkness that’s soothing. Then I feel the water propelled from his siphon as he presumably reaches the underwater passage that leads to the open ocean. It’s entirely black for a few seconds, then the light opens up, and we’re out of the cave that makes up the entrance.

My lungs are beginning to feel pressured. I’ve never been much good at holding my breath. Oxygen is needed, for me at least.

But instead of dragging me further down, Dylan swims up, and we break the surface into the late-evening sunshine. I gasp in breaths, and it’s only when my pulse is back to normal that he tenderly wraps his tentacles around me and jets us down. He has a clear aim. Not just the sea in general, but a particular location. Though when he stops, it seems to me initially to be an ordinary bit of seabed. Yellow sand tinted pink and purple from the water screening out the light, the blue of the sky, the sunset, and the sea above us.