Page 12 of Hooking Captain Teeth

“Short bursts when Captain says so,” I say with a chuckle. I’m dazzled by her smile when she laughs with me. My lady love is stunning.

“Well, you’re Captain now,” she says, patting my chest. She sits up, leaving a cold spot in her absence. “You need to retrieve yourboat.”

“We—” I stop when she places her hand over my mouth.

“There’s no ‘we’ that you have to acknowledge. I didn’t save you to earn your love or respect. The bond between us couldn’t allow me to watch you die.” She fiddles with a…scale?... belly button?... something at her waist, where she transitions from lady to octopus. “I must return to the sea before someone sees me, and I think you know the way to Maude’s tavern from here.”

“If you think I’m letting you slip away that easily, you buss my cheeks.” I grab her elbow to haul her into my arms but release her when she flinches. She’s not kidding. Will she allow some slight I don’t remember to keep us apart?

“Seriously, Teeth, I feel eyes on me. Someone watches us. It’s not safe for me to be on land in this form,” she says as her tentacles reach for the water.

“I don’t know your name! How will I find you?” Desperation pulls my heart into my throat. I’ve had two sober minutes with my lady love after a lifetime of searching. My ribs squeeze my stomach, and all the ocean water I swallowed gurgles in my belly.

“Our night together,” she says with a world of hurt in her eyes, “you called me ‘love.’ I liked it, so why change now?”

I calledher ‘love’ because that’s what I call every whore I bed. All women swoon over it—making it easier for me to play under their skirts. The nickname keeps me from learning their names and allowing the guilt to chase me out to sea when I leave them behind. Promises of my return—which I never intended to keep—are easier to fabricate when they are nameless doxies and not people.

Shame lowers my chin. What have I done? Is this my punishment? Isn’t losing my sister Melanie to brothel life punishment enough? I never hurt or stiffed a working girl. If she said ‘no,’ I moved on—but who am I kidding? By the time I asked her rates, most working girls would sweeten my sugarstick for free.

“Teeth,” my lady calls from the sea. She’s waded into the water up to her hips as I’ve wallowed in my past. “Tell Maude that Sabrina sent you. She’ll assign a girl to take care of you.”

7

Sabrina

“Stop.”

One word.

If he yelled like a petulant child, I could ignore him, but his quiet authority freezes me in place. With each step of his approach, my tentacles ball tighter beneath me. I shrink as he grows larger than life. Arguments die on my tongue. I should check for fishermen heading out at first light, but I can’t take my eyes off Teeth.

The breeze ruffles his hair, lifting tendrils around his face like seaweed dancing underwater. The muscles across his chest and over his shoulders bunch and release beneath his damp linen shirt. I can imagine him as a Kraken under the ocean. His torso is steady, as if he glides on tentacles, but the splashes of his boots kicking the water ruin the illusion.

My eyes roam down his body—to check for tentacles,yeah, right—and find the bulge in his leathers. He wants me, but more surprising is how much I want him. I hate the heat building in me as he nears. Whether it is spiteful or lustful passion, I can’t control my response to him. We could never go back to strangers in a tavern. A force would pull us together from across the barroom floor.

“I’m not done with you.” He stops just short of his body heat reaching me. The water swirls around his hips, so I get an enticing peek at my prize with each retreat of the tide, only to have it taken away by the next wave. His thumb and forefinger lift my chin. He doesn’t touch me anywhere else.

“Please.” I don’t know if I’m asking him to let me leave or to gather me into his embrace. Every second my Kraken form is possibly exposed to prying eyes is a threat to my life, and every second I spend with him is a threat to my heart.

“I intend to please you,” he says with a lazy half-smile.

I know he can. We both do. I burn everywhere he touched me in my human form all those years ago. My soulbeak tingles. The damn thing better stay in place and not sacrifice my life to his care. I’m not wearing clothes to contain it. What if he ingests my soulbeak—without understanding the commitment it initiates? He will choose his crew, piracy, and life as a human for both of us. I’ll be trapped on two legsroaming the earth in loneliness as one of his hearties. Or worse, he will sail away while I join Maude’s working girls to survive.

My lips tremble with unspoken protests as he draws me into his arms. His kiss is as hard and demanding as he is. I yield despite the warning bells clamoring in my head. My mouth opens before he can force his way in. It’s inevitable. He will own me. I slide my front tentacles up his legs in possessive coils. Devil may have me, but I can’t resist his offer. A third tentacle loops around the hand he rests at his side to guide it to my breast.

We aren’t friends or even acquaintances. I don’t know his favorite foods, memories, or friends. He likes piracy, drinking liquor, and whores.What a winner.However, from a safe distance in the sea, I’ve watched him coach his junior crew members, learn to read, and sail the boat at every position—from ratlines as a sailor to the helm as captain. Isn’t bettering oneself the biggest achievement of all? Could Captain Teeth be a mature version of Sailor Teeth, who abandoned me? Do I dare trust my intuition that says our paths crossed now because he’s ready to settle down?

“Climb up, Sabs,” he commands against my lips. His hand leaves my chin to untie his britches. “Take your pleasure and teach me how to quiff aKraken.”

My name on his lips steals the breath from my lungs, but the risk is too big.

“I can’t be another conquest. Not here—”

“This might sound strange, but I believe you when you call me your mate. I went to a fortune teller whose cards said the octopus card represented my lady love. Chub—smartest hearty on the boat—said the octopus was an ace of diamonds and you’d be a rich lass. But here you are…half octopus. I’m not asking to conquera Kraken. I’m askingmy future wifeto give me a banging farewell before she swims off to find my damn boat.”

“We don’t know each other. Mates are the way of Kraken but not humans—”

“I’ve sailed with magic bowls, a woman who weaves like a spider, a Hoodoo priestess, a vampiress…I have met the devil himself in Blackbeard. I lost my ties to humanity and prejudices againstotherslong ago. I don’t question the mystical nature of our courtship, and neither should you, Sabs.”

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