Page 23 of Heart of the Deep

“Guess he’s not hungry,” she said. “Are you?”

Her voice betrayed none of the emotion she must have felt in that moment. Her collected reaction to Neo’s attack was impressive; not only had she handled a male who was larger and — despite his weakened state — much stronger than her, but she’d done so without further retaliation. Dracchus wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d rained blows upon Neo after regaining control.

She was a huntress.

And he wanted her. When he escaped this cell, this ship, she would be his. It didn’t matter that she was his enemy. She’d make a worthy mate.

“I am,” he replied.

She closed the distance between them, set her bag on the floor, and knelt in front of him. Opening her small bundle, she offered him a piece of fish. His lips brushed her fingertips as he accepted the food, granting him the tiniest taste of her.

Though he’d not eaten in days, he barely noticed the food’s flavor; he devoted all his attention to her as he chewed.

Larkin kept her gaze averted, eyes obscured by her tousled hair. She hadn’t looked at him since entering his cell. His fingers burned with the unfulfillable desire to brush the red strands away from her face. His nostrils picked out her scent from the myriad smells in the air — distinctly human, with hints of earth and the sweet vegetation he’d encountered during his foraging trips with Jax in the jungle.

“Why did you come to the boats?” she asked after feeding him another bite.

Though he longed to answer, he couldn’t reveal any information to her. His instinct said to trust her, but the possibility that she was simply using these small kindnesses to interrogate them couldn’t be dismissed.

“Why did you come to sea?” he asked.

“For my brother,” she answered without hesitation.

The dedication and sorrow layered in her voice struck Dracchus harder than any blow from Brock, Altez, and Sanson. Harder than any he’d taken from one of his own kind. He clenched his jaw until his urge to console her eased.

“How did you know we were there, Larkin?”

She met his gaze when he spoke her name. Her bundle of food crinkled as she tightened her grip on it. “Tell me why you came to the boats, and I’ll tell you how we knew.”

It seemed a favorable exchange of information — the knowledge he would gain was by far more valuable — but he paused to consider it. He’d told his companions to give the humans nothing. He had to hold himself to the same expectation.

She nodded as though she’d heard his thoughts and offered him more food.

Through hours of pain, he’d not felt the slightest urge to provide any information to the commander. Why was he so tempted to answer Larkin’s questions now?

“Why are you doing this?” Dracchus asked.

Larkin wiped her fingers on the empty wrapping, folded it up, and returned it to her bag. “Because you’re people.” She winced as she stood up. “No one deserves this.”

She’d spoken not with passion, but practicality; it was a simple communication of something she viewed as an indisputable fact. That made her words more genuine to Dracchus than if she’d shouted them with fire in her eyes. She wasn’t trying to convince him.

“We came to learn what your people intend to do with this ship,” he said.

“And you found out,” she said, waving her hand to indicate the cages. Her frown deepened while her gaze lingered on the metal bars all around. Finally, after many moments of silence, she gathered her bag and exited his cell, closing the door softly.

“We have spectra goggles. They’re old military tech, with multiple modes of enhanced vision. One of them uses some kind of energy field to scan for lifeforms in a limited range and converts the data into visual form. We knew you were tailing the boats for a while.”

A year and a half ago, her explanation wouldn’t have meant anything to Dracchus. But Arkon and Randall had taken their time to explain the functionality of the diving suits often used by the Facility’s humans. What Larkin had described sounded similar to the masks on those suits; Randall had used their vision enhancements to great effect while hunting with Dracchus.

But Randall, Aymee, and Macy hadn’t thought the other humans had access to such devices.

If these hunters had goggles that could see the kraken despite their camouflage, even underwater, and bullets that could make a kraken sleep, what else would they use against Dracchus’s people?

“It’s late.” Larkin glanced at Dracchus over her shoulder. “I…” She sighed and turned her face away. “Rest, if you can.”

When she looked away, his gaze followed her red hair down from her shoulders, pausing on the curve of her backside as she bent to retrieve the lantern. Legs were still strange to Dracchus, but he suddenly understood some of their appeal. Were his tentacles free, he’d gladly run them over her body, scenting, tasting, discovering if the little brown spots on her skin felt any different than the rest of her.

She exited the room, plunging it into darkness. There was a thump as something fell into place on the other side of the door, and then only the ship’s sounds remained — creaking wood, howling wind, lashing waves.

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