Page 59 of The Kraken Games

In the cabin there were fishhooks and dirty coffee cups and cigarette butts in ashtrays scattered haphazardly around. A bottle of half-drunk rum. Binoculars, and an old worn-out map book. Everything was grubby. A final demand for his dock fees was half crumpled, and when she moved it aside, there was her phone.

So he had found it. She would never have left it in here. She grabbed it and bounced off the boat indignantly.

“It was on your desk,” she said, accusatory eyes bugging at him.

Wyatt shrugged his big selkie shoulders. “Oh,thatphone. Had no idea whose it was. I was going to take it to lost property after my coffee.”

The lying rat-bag. Of course he knew it was hers. She was probably his only passenger last night.

When she got further up the quay, she punched in her code, hoping against hope that by now she’d have the app to upload from Kai. Her heart was in her mouth.

But her code wouldn’t work.

She tapped it in again. And again. Access denied each time.

Someone must have tampered with her phone. Probably trying to get the password to her bank or some such.

And there was only one slimy culprit it could be.

“Fuck you, Wyatt,” Luna muttered through gritted teeth.

Kai’s eyes tried to acclimatize to the heavy darkness, but even with his kraken sight he could make out nothing. Here in the Cave of Contrition, the darkness was like no other. It pressed on his eyeballs like gravity. Sick of floating in the bitterly cold water, he hauled himself up on a rock in the midst of it, his tentacles sore and tight and still bruised from the games.

The games you lost.

When he finally got back to Thedaka, no doubt he would be shunned again.

So what’s new?

He should be meditating on the texts that they all learned as younglings, the verses recounting kraken deeds of strength and fortitude, of battling humans and bringing down their ships.

Humans!

If he let his thoughts stray to Luna, he would probably weep from the overpowering sense of rage and betrayal inside him. And that would only make his current situation a thousand times worse.

Kai hugged his tentacles around his knees. He remained defiantly in half shift, even though he knew he should be full kraken to ward off the coldness of the water down here. If he got sick, who fucking cared. Even his own father had watched wordlessly as he was led away into isolation.

His mom, so proud of her only son when he’d told her he was this year’s competitor, would be gutted. He knew already from his father’s pinched and sad face how he’d let his parents down.

He winced, trying not to think of anything that brought more pain. But there was nowhere his mind could go to find peace. Everything led to betrayal and humiliation. Now the humans would be bolder in their forays out into deeper waters, they would dare to edge closer to Thedaka’s borders, looking to catch bigger fish hauls. Yeah, what a fallacy that was! The city had only recently started to rejuvenate from the chemicals spewed out to sea from Motham’s human owned industries. Pollution that had bleached its coral reefs and killed its fish reserves.

Fuck you. Fuck you, Luna Storm.

Groaning, he closed his eyes against the darkness, trying to shut out images of their lovemaking; the way she’d arched against him, the feel of her soft human skin sliding on his, the dark wet recesses of her sweet cunt, her clit ripe and swollen just for him.

Even now he could feel his cock hardening, his mating arm wanting to stretch out toward… nothing. No one. Just an illusion.

She’d felt like his mate. In those brief collisions of intimacy and need, be honest, it had felt like that was where they were meant to be. In each other’s embrace. Forever.

He heard himself bellow in the darkness, the sound echoing back at him from rock walls he couldn’t see.

And then, strangely, hecouldsee.

He blinked. Surely that wasn’t possible? But no, it was unmistakable: there was a small bright light heading his way. A jagged toothed anglerfish emerged, its little lantern bobbing in front of it. And behind it loomed the shadow of something much bigger, weaving in and out of the rocks on the bed of the cave.

Wh—what the hell?Kai peered harder.

The anglerfish looked a little worried as it swam closer. “Don’t eat me, I am escorting an ally.”

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