Page 16 of Seducing Scylla
Scylla
The sting of rejection courses through my veins as I tread the shallows while Morgan walks along the damp sand, arms wrapped around her middle and her head bowed, defeated. The heavy silence surrounding us is only broken by the sound of Morgan’s stomach gurgling.
“You are hungry?”
Morgan nods, silently. There is a citrus grove not far from here and I divert our journey, my tentacles curling at the rough, scratchy texture of the sand accumulating in my suckers as I move from the water onto the shore.
“Where are we going?” Morgan follows behind obediently.
“I am getting you food.”
“Won’t your tentacles dry out?” She huffs behind me as she struggles to keep up.
The sand crests and falls before giving way to gravel and shrubby hills. I slow, allowing her to catch up.
“They will be fine for a short while.”
“There’s nothing up here, you know? I came up here trying to find something to help Elena and it was just shr—” Morgan’s voice and steps falter at the same time.
“How?” Her eyes widen with wonder and her mouth falls open, much like a fish gasping for air, as we crest the hill. The vision is amusing, and I huff a quiet laugh. The stiff grass and craggy rocks give way to a lush green orchard with rows upon rows of orange trees.
“The island is magic. It will give you what you need. Or it will not. It has a mind of its own.” I shrug.
“But—” Morgan steps forward, sighing as the lush grass softens the ground beneath her feet, the longer blades jutting between her toes. Her chest rises as she inhales the zesty perfume that permeates the air, and I am entranced by the motion.
“Come.” I lead us further into the grove before reaching and plucking an orange from one of the trees and settling beneath it.
“This would’ve been helpful when I first got here,” Morgan grumbles, sitting down beside me.
“The island must not have thought so.”
I peel the outer skin of the orange.
“All I wanted was a stick! I might have been able to help Elena.”
“Perhaps what has happened was destined to happen.”
I pull the fleshy orange apart.
“You’re telling me that maybe we were meant to be kidnapped and trafficked just to wind up here, specifically?” Morgan’s voice rises.
I glance at her before turning back to the orange, nodding. “It is a thought I have had, yes.”
“Oh.” Her shoulders slump and she leans back against the trunk of the tree, tilting her head to the sky and scrunching her eyes shut. “But why me? I’m nobody.”
“You are my mate.” One sea-green eye peeks open at me.
“That is why I think this is not a coincidence. The Fates are meddling, the island their accomplice. I do not think you were meant to set your friend free. Someone else was.”
Two eyes stare at me now. The color reminds me so fondly of the ocean right before a storm strikes that I could easily find myself lost in them.
“Tell me something about you.”
It is not a question, but the change in subject throws me off balance. It has been a long time since I have had someone to talk to, but I have never told my story to anyone else. I swallow thickly.
“Only if you eat.”
I take one orange segment and place it on the soft pad of her bottom lip. She does not look away as she parts her lips and I push the piece onto her cute pink tongue. She bites down on the orange; a spine-tingling groan echoes from deep in her throat as I imagine the sweet juices bursting along her taste buds.
