Page 35 of Kringle and the Kraken

“Marvin?” Kris took his eyes off the snowy trail for a second. “My Marvin?”

“Yes. This is what we were talking about earlier.”

“How does he know anything about any of this?”

Technically, Marvin’s identity wasn’t mine to reveal, but he’d given me permission earlier. It still felt strange to be the one to tell Kris that a man he’d known his whole life wasn’t what he thought he was. “He’s a kelpie. An old one. He’s been here almost since the town was founded.”

“Shut up.”

I hoped this wasn’t the thing that pushed Kris over the edge. “It’s true.”

“I would never have known.”

“As shapeshifters, it’s easiest for kelpies to pass as human.”

Kris’s eyes narrowed as he presumably mentally scrolled through his nautical mythology notes, pulling forth everything he knew about kelpies, then nodded. “Yeah, that makes totalsense.” He tipped his head my way. “Sorry to interrupt. Go ahead.”

“Marvin was saying that the Delmars saw the vacancy left by my grandfather and took advantage of the opportunity to enact their own plans, which meant driving out as many humans as possible and making it so the sea monsters in town hid their true selves away. But that makes the ley line magic unstable. I’m not sure why. I’m going to have to contact my grandfather for the specifics, but regardless, it puts the town at risk for attacks like the one on my shop.”

“Wait. What? There was an attack on your shop?” His fingers clenched tight on the steering wheel, his knuckles going white. “The window.”

“Yes. It wasn’t a random act of vandalism or kids messing around. It was a sea wraith attack.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

KRIS

There wasno way I’d heard him correctly. My mind flipped through everything I’d ever read about mythical sea creatures and spirits, finally landing on the tiny bit I knew about sea wraiths. “Your shop was attacked by the angry soul of someone who died violently at sea?”

Levi nodded. “And it’s not the first time wraiths have attacked Lifeboat. This time it was only a broken window. Marvin told me last time a selkie pup was taken.”

With every word Levi spoke, my mind spun faster and faster until I was dizzy trying to sort out the details. He’d asked earlier if I was freaking out, and I really wasn’t, though maybe I should have been.

But I also knew what I’d seen with my own eyes. Levi wasn’t lying, and I knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t lie about something like this.

“So what are you going to do?”

“I have no idea. For right now, I just want to enjoy the rest of tonight. I want to help you cut down more Christmas trees and spend time with your family. I want to sell records and prepare for Poseidonia, and maybe while I’m doing those things, I’ll figure out the rest.”

My hand found his where it rested on the edge of the ATV’s bucket seat, and I wrapped his fingers with mine, giving them a squeeze as we pulled up to the barn. Several seasonal employees unloaded the trailer, and a few minutes later we were on our way back to the front parking lot. The lines had shrunk, but there were still plenty of people milling around, drinking cocoa, and taking pictures in the falling snow. Warm light spilled from the windows in the workshop, and a quick glance inside showed my dad in his element, every seat taken as he walked the group through assembling their wooden toy kits. Swags of evergreen wound with white Christmas lights hung around every door and window flickering like hundreds of tiny flames in the wind and making the snow look like falling glitter. It was beautiful, the kind of picture that ended up on Christmas cards.

Levi’s eyes were wide as he took in the scene, and there was something sort of magical about seeing the whole thing through his eyes. Maybe everyone who’d said I just needed to find love to find the joy of the holidays had been right.

But this wasn’t love. Was it?

No, it couldn’t be. It was too soon.

But it was definitelylike. And more than a little lust.

A thought resurfaced in my mind, one I’d had right before I fainted. Had I already felt one of Levi’s tentacles that night in his apartment? Remembering the soft slick slide of something that definitely didn’t feel like regular human skin had my cock thickening behind my zipper, and I couldn’t keep my mind from wandering to what else Levi’s tentacles could do. Specifically in the bedroom.

I opened my mouth to ask a very inappropriate question to find Levi was already walking toward the barn door. He looked over his shoulder, a wide smile stretching his lips. “Are you coming or what?”

“I hope to.” My muttered response was inaudible over the wind and distance, but I did my best to smolder in Levi’s direction, and his smile went from happy to flirtatious in the space of a heartbeat.

Glad to see we were on the same page, I climbed out of the ATV and followed him to the barn door.

“Levi! Where is your coat?” My mom came out of nowhere the second we crossed the threshold. She wrapped Levi in a tight hug, then did the same to me. “Kristopher, it’s snowing! I know I taught you better than this.” She gestured at Levi from the top of his head, where he was still wearing my hat, to his soggy sneakers. “Why is your boyfriend running around without a winter jacket?”

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