Page 1 of The Kraken Games

CHAPTER 1

The water was iridescent blue as Kai swam closer to the surface. He could feel his body transforming, two of his tentacles becoming legs. He let them kick out behind him as he made his way up from the deep of Motham Bay, welcoming the energy of ancient kraken and human surging in equal measure through his body.

Two more tentacles transformed; arms joined his legs. Kai took long strokes, admiring the formation of his biceps and forearms, the fingers of each hand, splaying them and then flexing them, marveling at their dexterity.

If this meeting with his grandfather was about what he thought it was, Kai knew he would need them.

As he swam through the labyrinth of rocks and seagrass, small fish moved in schools around him, their scales sparkling in the dappled light that shone through rock crevices as he neared the caves. More sunlight permeated the water up here, sending it turquoise and cobalt in turn. Kai felt the urge to breathe like a human, his lungs expanding, his gills flattening and his nostrils widening.

Not yet. Not yet.

There was a sudden flash of a large, sleek creature weaving at speed through the schools of fish, and then suddenly Kai was nose to nose with a dolphin. He grimaced as it blew a raft of bubbles in his face.

“Get lost, Torqua,” Kai laughed. Torqua was the youth leader of the school of dolphins that patrolled the caves, and Kai’s oldest friend. They’d grown up together, meeting at cave ceremonies through their early years.

Torqua gave a series of clicks. “Have you been called to meet the old fella?”

“Maybe.” Kai shrugged.

“Does that mean what I think it does?” Torqua swirled around Kai, his bright eyes surveying him.

“None of your business.” Kai grinned and landed a playful punch. In return, Torqua slapped him with a flipper.

“Kai’s goin’ to compete.” He chuckled. “I feel it in my fins.”

Kai wrapped his arms around his friend’s neck and good-naturedly they tumbled, scuffing up the sand on the shallow seabed, before a voice boomed, “Get in here, boy, now.”

Fuck.

Razad was standing in the cave entrance, glaring at him. Kai quickly released Torqua. His grandfather, and the leader of their clan, stood, hands on hips, tentacles swirling around his big body. Of course, this wasn’t the time for rough and tumble, just before his meeting with Razad. Kai had let excitement get the better of him. After all these years, all the training, the healing work he’d done, to be called now was a dream come true—if he didn’t muck it up with his own exuberance. “Get lost,” he growled to Torqua. “Can’t afford to get in the shit with the old man.”

Torqua let out a volley of sharp clicks, the dolphin equivalent of a chuckle, and disappeared.

Kai bowed his head and swam toward his grandfather.

“Mi Kulpi,Ancienta. Sorry, learned one.” He addressed Razad by his official title. “Mika tetana serat brani kilka—may your tentacles stay supple and your mind clear,” he finished in medieval Kraken, prostrating himself in front of the leader of their clan.

Razad merely grunted, then out shot a barnacle-covered tentacle and suckered Kai up to meet him. Face to face.

“It is time for you to behave like an adult. Your Metan is drawing closer.”

Kai met his grandfather’s eyes steadily. His face was rugged, covered in the ravages of deep-sea living, the heavy lines of transforming from kraken to human many, many times.

One day, Kai knew he would look like this. But for now, as a kraken in his twenties, being told that his Metan was not far away— that was serious stuff. Metan meant mature krakenhood. It meant being ready to fight.

And, above all, to mate.

Did this mean that competing in the games was finally within his grasp? If so, he had attained everything he’d worked for. And finding a mate would surely follow.

Razad released him and spun around, moving into the cave, his limp more obvious in his partially human form. Gray hair hung down his back, looped with colored braid, his beard thick and matted with seaweed as was customary for an elder.

Kai swam after him, through the rock formations, until they reached the inner sanctum, the cathedral-like hole in the rock where the sunlight filtered through, shining on the very spot where Razad’s throne stood.

Kai looped two tentacles beneath him, then sat cross-legged on them and laid his hands in his lap, one on top of the other, adopting the customary pose for when a youth was with their elder.

“You called for me, Grandpa.” Now that they were alone in the inner sanctum, he could address Razad in this way.

“Yes, and no doubt you have some idea why.” The old kraken stared at him solemnly. “Grandson, you will be competing this season.”

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