Page 17 of Lover from the Waves

Kathryn’s cheeks warmed despite his easy, lightly teasing tone. “Thank you, by the way. For catching that.”

The corners of Ector’s mouth lifted further, displaying those sharp teeth of his. Everything about his appearance should’ve been unsettling, frightening, off-putting, but she only found herself increasingly captivated.

“That is what I am here for, Kathryn.”

Kat glanced down and fiddled with the hem of her shirt. “I…might not have been thrilled about someone babysitting me when Breckett refused to let me go on my own but”—she looked back up at Ector—“I’m glad you’re here.”

“And I am glad to be here.” He tipped his head to the side, and his brow furrowed. “Babysitting means watching a child, does it not?”

“It does,” she replied with a snicker.

“I would imagine that you are not in need of babysitting, but someone to look out for you… Everyone needs that.”

Kathryn tilted her head, her smile fading as she regarded him. “Do you have someone looking out for you, Ector?”

“If you count my people as a whole, yes. But in a more direct sense”—he swung his gaze skyward and shook his head—“no. It was not the way of my people to form such relationships.”

“That sounds…lonely.”

He lifted his shoulders in a shrug, and his tentacles moved restlessly at the bottom edge of Kathryn’s vision. “It was simply the way my people lived until recently. We crave solitude and social interaction at the same time. These…joinings your people have suit those conflicting drives in several ways, but it simply wasn’t practical for us before.”

“Why wasn’t it practical before?”

“We have always had few females, and birth rates have always been low for our kind. Mating has been a matter of necessity for most of our existence. Mates typically stayed together for short periods, often separating if the female grew bored of the male, or if she failed to conceive after a few months.”

Frowning, Kat tucked loose strands of her hair behind her ear—though she might as well not have bothered, as the wind blew them back into her face within a few seconds. She had to remind herself that kraken society was different from her own, that Ector’s people lived by a different set of rules, that they weren’t human despite their similarities. Mating for the sake of breeding… In some ways, that seemed worse than simply being alone.

“What changed? Was it…us?” she asked.

Ector nodded and finally settled his gaze upon her again. “Macy was the first human any of us had ever seen. Her relationship with Jax was unlike anything my people had known, and none of us truly understood it at first. He called her his mate. That seemed foolish to many of us. The point of mating was to produce younglings and carry on our species, and he could not do so with a human. But Jax had always done things his way. He had always resisted the traditions of our people to follow his own path.

“I suspected there was some value in her that Jax could perceive but I could not. She displayed it to us when she saved a youngling…but there was so much more to it. The two of them showed us whatlovemeant. They defined the word. It was something that many of us had felt in our own ways, in different ways, yet had no name for. But it took Macy and Jax to show us just how deep and profound it could be. Those two showed us that we could lead fulfilling, meaningful lives outside of that need to procreate for survival. And once we discovered that she was carrying a youngling…it gave hope to the kraken that we had not known in a long, long while.”

Kathryn looked down at the tiller and brushed her thumb over its smooth, dark wood. She remembered the first time Jax had come to The Watch, carrying Breckett’s daughter, Macy, who’d fallen ill after a terrible wound. Everyone had thought the young woman dead, lost to the sea just like her older sister, Sarina. Just like Colin.

Kat also remembered the fear that had swept through the townsfolk after their first glimpse of what they’d perceived as a monster. There had always been stories told by fishermen and hunters about monstrous creatures lurking in the deep jungles and beneath the waves, but the kraken… No one had known of their existence. They’d stayed hidden for centuries, living in fear of humans—fear and hatred for what humans had done to them.

“Do all the kraken agree with such joinings?” she asked, lifting her gaze to Ector.

“Many of my people continue to live by the old ways, but lasting relationships are becoming more and more common. These changes, though…” His lips fell into a contemplative frown. “Getting to this point nearly tore us apart. Many died along the way. Those who remain are at the very least tolerant of humans and kraken joining. I think we all just want peace, by now.”

Ector’s bright, golden eyes were full of wisdom, passion, and sorrow, so familiar and yet so different because of their oblong, horizontal pupils. They paired with the rawness of his voice to make his pain evident, to make Kat feel the weight of loss he carried on his shoulders. Her heart ached for him.

“There are still some humans who don’t agree with all this, who don’t see you as people. They believe human and kraken joinings are unnatural and consider you…abominations.” She reached across the space separating them and placed a hand on the upper portion of one of his tentacles.

The muscle beneath her palm flexed, and Ector’s eyes flared briefly in surprise.

“But I don’t,” Kathryn said softly. “I see you as the person you are, and I am so, so sorry for your loss, Ector.”

He lowered his hand onto hers. With its green skin, long black claws, and webbing between each finger, that hand looked utterly alien—but it was also gentle and warm despite its size and appearance. “You do not need to be sorry for our trials, Kathryn. I wish it had not cost so much, but we are better for all of it.”

Kathryn turned her hand beneath his until their palms were touching. She curled her fingers; and due to the webbing between his, only the tops of her fingers could lace with his. “I know all too well that it’s never easy to deal with sudden change, but we usually come out stronger in the end.”

He smiled again, and that light that was in his eyes so often when he looked upon her returned. It was a welcoming light, an alluring light. He stroked his thumb along the outside of her hand. “And we often find things we may never have discovered otherwise.”

Kathryn’s lips parted as warmth filled her and her heart stuttered. Spending this time with Ector reminded her of what she had been missing all these years. She had her daughters and their husbands, who had become like sons to her, had her grandchildren, but this… This wasdifferent. She’d been fortunate to have received unconditional love and support from her friends and family over the years, but no one in all that time had looked at her like Ector was right now. Like she was a woman—adesirablewoman.

Something slipped beneath the cuff of her pants to stroke the skin of her calf just above her boot; she knew without looking that it was one of Ector’s tentacles. It coiled around her leg slowly, like it had on the beach, as if he was giving her a chance to pull away. She didn’t. For a second time, she felt the gentle kisses of his suction cups. They were rhythmic, sensual, and stimulating. Kat’s breath quickened, and her sex clenched with sudden need.

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