Page 8 of Alien Kraken's Prize

“Uh-oh,” I croak. “I’m excited by the sudden appearance of an alien mer-octopus-man.”

His nose is weirdly flat on his face, nostrils barely apparent. His jaw is strong, and his eyes are completely arresting: a vivid blue-green that shifts like a kaleidoscope when he tilts his head at me.

A strange, garbled noise comes from his mouth.

“Ooooh,” I say, my eyes wide. “You can talk.”

Relief floods me, stifling some of the completely uncalled-for lust still attempting to make itself known.

“Listen,” I tell the octopus-man, “We are in a terrarium. Aquarium.” I pause, considering which word is correct, considering he’s an octopus. Maybe he lives below me? Maybe there’s an underwater portion?

He responds in his gibberish language.

“A cage,” I clarify, sounding out the word slowly. Of course neither one of us have universal translators. Why would we? That would make this shit too easy.

Sigh.

He tilts his head the other way. His hair—which is luxurious and definitely demanding to be touched—falls over one shoulder.

His other tentacles are thrashing around in the water, which does, in fact, hamper the sexiness a little.

The six-pack, no, eight-pack abs, though? Those aren’t hindering it. Not one bit.

I bite my lower lip, then my gaze dips lower, to where one tentacle is still waggling over me.

“Oh,” I say slowly, realization dawning. “My period.”

He says something guttural and incomprehensible, yetagain.

I let out a seriously exasperated sigh. “I don’t understand you.”

Tentacles slither from the water as the octopus-man tentatively wraps a blue-ringed appendage around my ankle. His eyes drift from there back to the juncture between my legs.

Now thoroughly annoyed, I yank my leg back and do my best to cover myself.

“Some of us don’t have tentacles on the lower half,” I tell him, gesturing to my legs, “to cover everything up.” I block my boobs from view with one arm, sadly, not a hard feat, considering I wasn’t blessed with bazongas like Aileen’s.

No bazongas, no tentacles, what a shame.

His tentacle tightens on my ankle and I glare at him, until that delicious desire surges through me again.

It hits me all at once then, the realization.

I gasp, kicking the grasping tentacle away with my heel and scurrying back on the sand as fast as I can.

“You… you have some kind of sexy octopus secretion,” I wheeze, waggling my finger at him. “That is extremely naughty. Rude, even. I am on my period.”

I shake out my pants, cringing a little at the crime scene evidence in my underwear before coming to a quick decision. Bra on. That takes care of the teeny-weeny tatas. The shirt will have to do. I keep my gaze fixed on my new octo-man companion and rip the shirt into strips, wrapping them around my underwear before shimmying back into my pants.

“There,” I say, embarrassingly out of breath. Never had time to work out on the space station. “Now all I have is time!” I tell him.

His tentacles do that weird slithering again, and he comes farther out of the water.

“Oh,oh. You’re a big dude,” I say, staring up at him. He’s still got half his tentacles hanging out on the ground, and he’s easily several feet above me. His shoulders must be twice as broad as mine, too.

Okay. He’s large.

In charge too, from the looks of it. Heh.

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