Page 25 of Kiss for My Kraken
She moved deeper into the room, drawn to the shelves that lined the walls. They held an eclectic collection of treasures—books with weathered spines, polished river stones in a rainbow of colors, delicate shells, and glass bottles filled with what looked like sand of different hues.
“You’re a collector,” she observed, running her finger along the spines of the books. Many were classics—Melville, Stevenson, Conrad—tales of the sea and adventure.
“I gather what interests me.” He moved further into the cabin, and she turned to watch him. In the confines of the room, she could see more of his form—the powerful upper body of a man, muscular and perfectly proportioned, transitioning below the waist into the tentacled body of a kraken. His skin was a sleek silvery-grey with faint blue markings that seemed to shift in the dim light.
He was magnificent.
She realized she was staring and quickly looked away, feeling heat rise to her cheeks. “I’ve never seen a home quite like this before,” she said, moving to the window that overlooked the river. “It feels… alive somehow.”
“It’s adapted to my needs.” He moved further into the room, opening a hatch to the water below and settling himself on the edge. His tentacles moved languidly beneath the surface, powerful yet graceful. “Part land, part water—like me.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “That’s why it’s built this way, with part of it over the water.”
“Yes.” His eyes never left her face, as if gauging her reaction to his home—to him. “I need both worlds.”
Ozzie had completed his inspection of the cabin and now approached Sam cautiously, nose twitching. To her surprise, he showed no fear, only curiosity. After a moment’s hesitation, the dog settled himself a few feet from Sam, apparently accepting his presence.
“He likes you,” she said, smiling. “He’s usually more wary of strangers.”
“He knows I mean you no harm.”
She moved to the low table, running her hand over its smooth surface. It was beautifully crafted, the wood polished to a soft sheen. “Did you make this too?”
“I made almost everything here.”
“By yourself?” she asked, remembering what Flora had said about him being alone.
“Mostly. You’re the first person who’s been inside my home, but there’s a small landing on the other side of the island and I have the occasional visitor.”
She wanted to ask more, but something held her back and she changed the subject instead. “I haven’t thanked you properly for saving my life.”
“You don’t need to thank me.”
“I do,” she insisted. “I would have drowned if not for you. Why did you save me? You didn’t know me.”
“It was the right thing to do.” He was silent for a long moment, his blue eyes unreadable. “But I also recognized something in you. A loneliness that echoed my own.”
Unexpected tears threatened to spring to her eyes. How had he recognized that so quickly?
“I was lonely. I’d been running for so long, never staying in one place long enough to belong.” She hadn’t meant to reveal so much, but something about this place—about him—made her want to share her truth.
“Running from what?”
She hesitated, then perched on the edge of the bench in front of the windows.
“A community that tried to control everything—what I thought, what I wore, who I could speak to.” The memories rose like shadows, unwelcome but persistent. “They call themselves The Chosen. They insist it’s a place of faith and family, but it’s more like a prison.”
He moved closer, his movements fluid and graceful even out of the water. “How did you escape?”
“Slowly. They had plans for me—an arranged marriage to one of the Elders’ sons.” She shuddered at the memory, and he made an odd sound, almost like… a growl? She shot him a quick look but his expression hadn’t changed.
“But then my father died and they agreed to give me a year of mourning. They run a small diner for tourists and I worked there, saving every penny I could.” A bitter laugh escaped before she could prevent it. “They thought I was saving it for the wedding. Mel, one of the older women who worked at the diner, was from outside the community originally and she helped me plan my escape. The night before my wedding I took my father’s old car and ran away.”
“You were brave.” The admiration in his voice warmed her, but she shook her head.
“Just desperate. It was like a trap closing around me. Everyone was so convinced that I would go along with it. My former best friend is married to his brother, and she was all for the wedding, but I saw how much she changed after her marriage. My mother had remarried—to one of the Elders—and she was pushing me into it as well.”
“So you escaped.”
