Page 5 of Rising from the Depths

Chapter 2

Kronus charged forward, driven by instinct — females were in danger, and it didn’t matter if they were human or kraken.

Without slowing, he slammed the point of his harpoon into the eye of the nearest of the two razorbacks — the one with its jaws closed around a female’s leg. The beast thrashed and rolled, releasing the female, but Kronus grabbed hold of it with hand and tentacles, anchoring himself in place. Crimson water churned around him. The surface and its sparkling light tumbled above and below with dizzying speed.

He squeezed the trigger.

The gun fired with awhump, and the harpoon burst through the other side of the razorback’s head. The creature’s struggles intensified, and fresh blood flowed into the water around it. The razorback bent its long body, gouging Kronus’s back with the spikes on its tail, but the pain was distant and unimportant.

Kronus held fast; the creature was at least five times his length, but he would not relent. He tugged his knife out of the sheath strapped to his left forearm and hammered it into the razorback’s head repeatedly. The rhythm of his frantic stabs nearly matched the speed of his racing hearts. He didn’t stop until its struggles ceased.

Finally releasing his grip, he swept his gaze over the scene. The second razorback was fleeing with two harpoon shafts jutting from its left flank. Chunks of flesh and gore floated in the bloody water, along with four of the five humans who’d been swimming.

Brexes and Charos moved to pursue the surviving razorback, but Vasil, who was just ahead of the pair, halted them with a flash of yellow across his skin. He moved his tentacles in a series of signs.

Tend the wounded.

Kronus looked upward. The female he’d freed from the razorback had kicked to the surface. Blood misted from her left leg, tracing a wavy path beneath her due to the gentle back-and-forth of the tide. He darted up, emerging in front of her.

She fought to keep her head above the water, drawing in quick, rasping breaths between sputtering coughs. Her eyes were wide and frantic.

“Hailey!” she called out weakly.

Kronus wrapped an arm around her waist from behind and pulled her against his chest.

She struggled, swinging her hands wildly and kicking at him, her desperation lending her strength enough to nearly break his hold.

“I have you, female,” Kronus growled. “You are safe.”

She turned her head and met his gaze; this was the woman who’d stared at him, the one who’d seemed more curious than disgusted. Her eyes were a blue so bright they put the cloudless sky to shame, but her dilated pupils were almost large enough to swallow the blue completely. Her skin was pale — far paler than it had been only moments before.

The female twisted to face him, taking his cheeks in trembling hands. “M-My friends. Please! We n-need to save my friends!”

Kronus swam toward the beach. “The others will see to your friends.”

“But the beasts!” She strained against his hold, throwing her body weight against his forward momentum. “They’re still out there!”

He grunted and pushed ahead faster. Several humans had already gathered on the sand — including the male who’d kissed this female — and more were scrambling along the dock, their panicked shouts carrying over the water. The light brown-haired female had gone limp and quiet, though his sensitive skin could feel the tremors coursing through her body along with her frantic pulse.

Once the water was shallow enough, Kronus swung his tentacles beneath his torso and rose, slipping an arm beneath the female’s knees to scoop her up. It was only then that he noticed the damage done to her leg. Beginning less than a hand’s width beneath her knee, her flesh and muscle were mangled, pieces hanging from shattered bone by thin tendons and strips of shredded skin. Blood poured from the wound.

Humans rushed toward him, but he paid them little mind. He was familiar enough with their kind by now to know that such a wound was potentially fatal. She needed immediate attention.

Stop the bleeding.

He raised a front tentacle and wrapped it around her left thigh just above the knee, coiling it tight. She clung to him, but little strength remained in her fingers. He met her gaze.

The woman’s eyes were glossy, and her breath was even shallower than before. “My friends. Please,” she whispered.

“They will get your friends,” Kronus responded.

She drew herself forward, entire body shaking, as though she meant to dive back into the water. “We have to go to them. Have to-to help them…”

“We have to helpyou. You are wounded, female. Be still.”

She fell back against his arm, and her eyelids fluttered closed. Her hands fell away. Panic sped Kronus’s hearts. Her blood trickled over his tentacles, its metallic taste distinguishing it from the sea salt coating his skin.

“Eva!” a male human shouted.

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