Page 28 of Queen Takes More
Deep and serious, her eyes tugged on my soul, cracking me into a thousand pieces.
“I’m not afraid of you, Okeanos.”
:You should be.:
I expected her to laugh nervously or protest a little too firmly that she didn’t fear me.
Instead, she slipped into the water.
I slammed back against the rocky side, tentacles scrambling up the ledge to haul myself up and out of the water. I didn’t know why. It just felt like she would be safer if I was out of my natural element. On land, the kraken would be severely slowed down and eventually incapacitated without his watery environment.
Even with millions of powerful suction cups, I couldn’t grip the slick rocks. Ridiculous, actually. I’d never had issues before with any kind of mossy or watery surface. I was made to grab giant boulders and crack them open. I could tear apart a massive freighter, but today, I couldn’t even grip the tree’s roots that arched up out of the water and along the rocky ledge.
She swam closer and I pressed tighter against the rocks. Trying to spare her. If I traumatized her…
Laughing softly, she wrapped her fingers around one of the smaller tentacles that lined my giant beak. Involuntarily, it wrapped around her finger and held on for dear life.
“I’ve seen you as a kraken before. Why are you so concerned now? You’re amazing.”
:You were in danger before. Now… I’m merely repulsive.:
“Not at all. I’m not afraid of you, Okeanos. I’m not disgusted. I want to know you. I want to love you, exactly as you are. My goddess sent you to me when I needed you most. Why would I turn you away now?”
:Because you don’t need me any longer.:The bluntness of my response made me wince internally, but I couldn’t help it. The touch of her small finger against me was making everything inside me writhe with interest. I could taste her skin, even through the smallest of my cups.
“But I do need you. I need every single one of my Blood. There are twenty or more eager Aima warriors standing outside my nest this very minute begging for an introduction, and that’s after I already sent away the first dozen who were here earlier today. I don’t want them. I don’t need them.”
:Why?:That single word vibrated and crashed inside my head.
“Because I have you. I wantyou. Ineedyou. Exactly as you are.”
SHARA
The giant sea monster of legend flinched away from me. Terrified that he might repulse me.
Me, his queen. Even after he’d saved me. Even after I’d freed him.
I wasn’t angry or hurt—just sad. Sad that he’d never had anyone in his entire life who’d loved him exactly as he was. Who’d cared whether he lived or died. Who’d wanted him to be free, rather than trapped in a cramped cell at the bottom of a fucking koi pond.
I’d thought that getting into the water with him might help, but he’d retreated as far as he could, given his huge size and the comparably small pool.
I turned my hand palm up, stretching out my other fingers so I could touch more of the dangling tentacles. “Why are these smaller? They’re almost like a beard.”
:More dexterous. The better to catch any fleeing small prey or bits of shark or whale that might fall out of my beak.:
I didn’t need to listen to his bond to know that he was trying to scare me off. He didn’twantme to get closer to him. Only because it would hurt more when he lost me. When I sent him back to the cage.
I lifted my other hand toward his lower… jaw. Or chin area, though his head was definitely not humanoid. He wasn’t slimy at all, despite the way his skin shone in the water. He felt more like leather. Like Leviathan’s hide—without the scales. “You’re basically a dragon of the ocean.”
:I fucking beg your pardon,:Mehen roared in my head.:What the everloving shit did I do to deserve such an insult?:
“Don’t mind him.” I laughed softly, letting the water carry me closer to Okeanos. “He’s still mad that Guillaume calls him a lizard.”
One of the thicker tentacles was drawn up tight to his body, almost like a stepping stone out of the water. I braced my foot on that ledge and stepped up closer to him.
Then I sat on that folded up tentacle like it was a root or limb of my tree.
He made a gurgling sound that I was pretty sure was choking, not laughing. Perhaps he was going into anaphylactic shock.
