Page 107 of Heart of the Deep

And Larkin…

She washisfuture.

Chapter 24

Dracchus moved into the Mess at the rear of their small group. Larkin walked directly ahead of him, with Aymee and Arkon preceding her. The others had already entered after their wounds were treated. Despite Larkin calling himkrullheadedand several other interesting names, Dracchus had refused any sort of treatment until everyone else had been tended.

The kraken gathered in the room parted to allow Dracchus and his group to pass, and he felt the weight of their eyes upon him. He moved as smoothly as he could given the aches and pains that had come to dominate his body over the last few hours.

He welcomed the pain, if only as a distraction. It was a powerful thing to focus on.

His people were quiet while he moved to the far wall and entered the small space that had been left clear for him. Aymee and Arkon took their places with the rest — Jax and Macy, Rhea and Randall, Vasil, Brexes, Ector and the other elders — at the front of the crowd. Kronus was by himself to one side, staring at the floor. Several male kraken watched him with undisguised wariness and suspicion.

“Uncle Drak!” Sarina shouted when he drew near. Her voice shattered the prevailing silence. She leaned over Macy’s arm, holding her hands toward him.

He took her, and she immediately looped her small arms around his neck and clutched his upper arm with her tentacles. Reaching across his chest, he patted her back, gritting his teeth as the freshly sealed cut on his side disapproved of the movement.

She pressed her forehead to his and blew through her siphons. Smiling, Dracchus did the same. There was something uncharacteristic in her eyes; a glimmer of sadness? He wasn’t sure she understood what had happened, but at the very least, she knew it hadn’t been good.

“I love you, Uncle Dracchus,” she said, nuzzling her face against the crook of his neck and shoulder, clinging to him.

“Love you too, little one,” he replied. When he looked back to the crowd, many of them stared at him in open question. Love, still such a new concept to the kraken, perhaps even stranger than the sight of a male holding a youngling as small as Sarina.

“This is the offspring of Jax the Wanderer and Macy, the first human to live in the Facility since the uprising,” he called, running his eyes over the crowd. “She is Sarina. She and all our younglings are the future of our kind. They are not defined by their blood, or the blood of their parents, but by how they see the world. And when we do not taint their views early, they are wise enough to see the truth.

“Humans and kraken can exist peacefully. We can share this world, we can even live together and thrive.” Dracchus gently pulled Sarina from his arm. She frowned, but went back to her mother willingly. “We cannot ignore what happened tonight. The divide between kraken is not the fault of humans. We are to blame, and we allowed it to widen and plunge us into violence.

“Neo led his exiles into the Facility tonight to kill not only the humans, but all of us who associate with them. Kraken who have done their part for our people for years, some beyond their normal duty. What was the reasoning behind this? Is loving a human crime enough to be slaughtered by our own kind? Does it warrant the killing of younglings, regardless of their blood?”

His hearts thumped in their rapid triple-beat. He drew in a slow, deep breath, and released it with equal measure. Apart from the pain of his wounds, his chest and throat were tight. It was Arkon’s place to use words like this, not Dracchus’s.

A warm body tucked itself against his side, and he knew it was Larkin without looking. Her presence calmed him somewhat.

“Neo and his group wronged these humans, and these humans areourpeople. When the exiles faced consequences for their actions, they chose retaliation rather than acceptance. They came with anger and hatred in their hearts, and that is how they were returned to the sea.

“And what is in our hearts, we survivors? Confusion. Sadness. Pain, loss, anger. The reasons for what we have done does not counteract the price that was paid. But our people are strong. Our people are intelligent and wise. We will learn from this pain, and together we will move on to the future we have long waited to claim.”

Larkin stepped forward. “This war between our people needs to end.”

The kraken turned their attention from Dracchus to his mate. Some frowned, flickering glances between him and Larkin.

“I know some of you might still be angry at me for what I’ve done. I helped the rangers capture your people. I understand that anger. In my ignorance, I believed the words of a man who had betrayed myself and my brother.” She gestured toward Randall. “The humans hunting you are doing so out of fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of what might happen, fear of what’s already happened.

“I know only enough of your past to know that tonight was a repeated event. The circumstances were different, but the outcome would’ve been the same. We would’ve been slaughtered in our beds. The kraken that attacked tonight are the ones humans fear, the ones we called monsters. The ones who we hunted to protect ourselves from whatcouldhappen.

“For a while, I thought that way.” Larkin turned her gaze toward Dracchus briefly. “But I know different now. Macy, Aymee, and Randall know different. There are already people in The Watch who know different. The rest of them need to be shown that they’re wrong. They need toseewith their own eyes that you aren’t monsters, but people, like us.”

“What do you mean?” Brexes asked, brow low.

“Your people locked Jax away, and beat Dracchus, Vasil, and Neo,” someone said from the crowd.

“And your people would have killed me,” Macy said.

“We fear what we do not understand,” Larkin said gently. “Our people, and yours.”

“This is a lesson we try to teach all younglings who hunt with us,” Ector said, “but it is often overlooked. Knowingofa thing is notknowingit. Awareness is not understanding.”

“And humans and kraken know little of each other,” Dracchus said. “These are not the ones who enslaved us, and we are not the ones who rose against them.”

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