Page 38 of The Kraken Games

So why haven’t you shown the photos to Marrick?

Good fucking question.

This afternoon he’d been fighting a rangy wolf with a horrible howl. Luna hated wolves. Sometimes hungry wolf shifters from the nearby wastelands prowled the marshes at night, looking for easy prey. The wolf was mean and played dirty, but he was unskilled, and when Kai finally brought him up from the dungeon, his thick pelt wet and bedraggled and his snout twitching, that’s when she’d left. Fast.

Tomorrow it would be her turn. And the harsh reality was, she was at risk of losing her nerve.

The scowl screwing up her face almost hurt as she stomped out onto the quay. She walked until she reached the sea wall and sank down with her feet dangling over the water.

Maybe some visualizations would calm her. Composing herself, she imagined herself fighting, her muscles strong, hermovements fluid. How long she stayed there she wasn’t sure, but it was nearly dark when she got up and made her way along the dusty streets and over the bridge to the marshes.

Back home, she ate, just to stay strong. The food tasted like sawdust, even though she knew Harper had gone to a lot of trouble to prepare meals for her this week. She swigged down the club’s energy drink and pulled a face at the sickly-sweet taste.

Afterward, she carefully washed her dishes and left the kitchen neat. Order helped. Then she went down to the water’s edge where she kept her dinghy. Climbing in, she cast off, started the outboard motor and wended her way through the marshes to Motham River. Now and then creatures plopped into the water from reeds in front of her, bright eyes watching her. Frogs or marsh toads, no doubt; they didn’t worry her.

As she headed out through the river mouth, the sea was flat and still, like a millpond. An almost full moon rose lazily in the sky, its reflection echoed perfectly in the calm water. Luna skirted close to the shoreline, until the flats gave way to higher cliffs and the air was cleaner. She was close to the celebrious side of Motham Hill, where the wealthy monsters lived and Motham Palace still stood—a reminder of their humble mothman leader, who two hundred years before had helped monsters save themselves from human tyranny.

Not all humans were against monsters. Her family for one. She knew little of her background, but she did know they lived in harmony with the sea, her parents rescuing injured creatures, hurt by pollution and illegal fishing lines. Living a life that was in tune with nature, occasionally trading fish and lobsters on the Motham docks in returns for vegetables and fruit. She remembered vaguely the strange hustle and bustle of monster species, wary, curious, but not unfriendly.

So no, her family had not been hostile to monsters. And they were certainly not friends of the high breed humans that resided out past Motham’s walls. She guessed her folks were probably sea gypsies, with no allegiance to anyone.

When she finally reached her destination, Luna tied her boat to a rocky outcrop and slipped off her clothes. The rock pools here were fed by a hot spring that flowed underground through Motham Hill and surfaced just shy of the pebbled beach. The water trickled, steaming and mineral-scented, into the string of pools, making them an enticing place to relax. Strangely, few bothered to frequent these pools—most monster species didn’t like the hot mineralized water. So they were nearly always deserted, except for the odd little crab or sea critter.

As she slid into the water, she let out a happy sigh and lay back, stretching out her body and letting it float, staring up at the velvet sky through the swirls of steam.

A sudden movement made her squeak.

A head surfaced from the water on the other side of the pool; two dark, mesmerizing eyes staring straight at her.

“Oh, fuck! You.” She scrabbled madly to exit the pool, her hand catching on the rock, grazing her palm. Then, realizing she was stark naked in the moonlight, she sank into the water again with a growl of frustration. “Are you following me?”

“More like the other way round. You’ve just invaded my space.”

“Your space! It’s not your space.” Damn arrogant kraken.

“Whose is it then?”

“These are… my pools.” She jutted her chin as she sank low in the water.

“Yours, eh?”

“I’ve been coming here forever.”

“Hadn’t realized visiting a place gave you ownership rights.”

“In my books it does.”

He snorted, and water bubbled from his nostrils. His dark eyes narrowed, mere glittering slits surveying her. His hair was wet and pushed back from his broad brow. Something caught her eye, the swirl of a tentacle under the water. She realized with a frisson of excitement that he was in half shift, and seemingly not in a hurry to change that. Another tentacle flicked the surface, scattering the moon’s reflection.

Was he allowing her to see him like this on purpose?

Or was he in pain and needing to soothe his body in the warm healing waters?

She flicked her eyes away, imagining those tentacles reaching out to entwine her, imagining one sliding between her legs, along her seam, probing until it suctioned onto her clit, just as it had the other night. Arousal, warm and silky, pooled in her belly.

She squeezed her thighs together.

“Ready to fight me tomorrow?” His direct question surprised her.

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