Page 10 of Alien Kraken's Prize

Up close, too, without the terrarium wall between us or the bubble barrier, I can make out her features better. Her face is beautiful by any standards, now relaxed in sleep, her skin seemingly untouched by sun or sea. Soft.Impossiblysoft.

Her… lower appendages are concerning, yes, but I can’t deny my fascination with the differences between us. My mating secretions certainly do not want to deny it.

This is a problem. A very large and uncomfortable problem.

Icannotkeep her as a pet.

I don’t even know where she was found, or worse, taken from. It’d be one thing if she were simply non-sentient, as I assumed. But her talking isn’t gibberish, and she’s constructed herself a bandage from what appears to be clothing.

Now I have a possible intergalactic problem on my tentacles.

All thanks to the ever-meddling Lord Zayros and his obnoxious designs for me and his offspring.

Water laps at the four tentacles still in the swim-through, and I simply stare at the little female, for once in my life completely at a loss for how to proceed.

I am a warrior.

I am the king of Kylassis, the ruler of all the ocean species here.

I am known for my judgment, my justice, and my sense of fairness and duty.

What I am not is an abductor of sentient species.

I bite back a feral cry, frustrated beyond belief by Zayros. He, like nearly everyone, knows all too well my fascination with land species, and now has saddled me with a possible intergalactic war crime if I am to admit that this female is sentient.

My tentacles rasp along the sandy surface, and I narrow my eyes at the Kelfer under the female’s head.

Another rarity, and one I didn’t have a clue was part and parcel of the gift.

Kelfers are from another sea-soaked world, though in another dimension completely. They are sentient, no question about it, and closely related genetically to me and mine.

They sense the world around them through their skin and the acetabulum lining their undersides. Incapable of speech, though not incapable of communication or feeling.

It is strange that a Kelfer has befriended such a creature as this female, much less that it’s allowed her to use it as a pillow.

I shake my head slowly, absolutely out of my depths with this pair.

Mating secretions aside, I need to learn to communicate with this female and deduce where it is she’s been stolen from.

That is step one.

Step two will not be clear until I have answers to that, at the very least.

CHAPTER

SIX

BRIDGET

I manage to sleep,which is nearly as shocking as the pain from the cramps straight-up radiating down my legs.

“And I don’t even have any meds to help,” I murmur, fighting a wave of nausea as I crunch my knees up closer to my chest.

“Eat this,” a stern voice says. “This well help with the pain. Then when you feel better, we can begin to discuss what to do with you.”

I blink slowly, turning my cheek to look up at the male face staring down at me.

“I can understand you,” I say, then side-eye the hunk of green leaves in his hand. “How?”

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