Page 68 of Queen Takes Blood
Twoqueens.
Power sculpted their features and echoed in their every gesture. They both wore beautiful gowns, shimmering with jewels and fine threads, but it was their eyes that proclaimed them daughters of a goddess. Eyes that sparkled with all the power of the universe.
It took me several long moments before I recognized my own mother. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen her in human form.
Mouth gaping open, I froze, drawing all my tentacles up tightly to my body, squeezing myself as small as possible. Her blue-green hair was swept up into an elaborate design dotted with shells and flowers. Darker teal scales sprinkled her upper shoulders but she stood on two legs and wore a shimmering frothy gown of white and silver that reminded me of waves crashing against the beach.
My mother. At last. She came for me.
The kraken left me so suddenly that I flailed and struggled in the water, unable to remember how to work a human body. To breathe. Swim. Pull myself up out of the water. Gasping, I finally managed to pull myself up onto the rocky coral, slicing my hands and feet open. Not that it mattered. I’d gladly roll my entire body across the most vicious coral if that meant I could leave this cave.
I didn’t even need to go home. Not if she didn’t want me there. I just wanted to be out of here. Not alone. Not trapped.
“He’s truly magnificent,” the other woman said. “You’ve done well to keep him controlled for so long, Undina.”
Sea water blurred my vision, wet hair slicked to my face. Lifting my head, I swiped at my eyes, trying to see. Undina stared back at me, her eyes flashing like iridescent scales in the moonlight. “You’ve grown.”
I looked down at my body, not recognizing myself at all. I had a full-grown man’s body. Large hands and feet, long hair slicked my body down to my waist, a muscled frame of tanned skin as if I’d baked in the sun for decades. I had—though it’d never dawned on me that the sun would affect my human form.
The last time I’d walked on two legs, I’d been a mere child with thin arms and narrow shoulders. Though I’d still destroyed our clan’s fishing camps and broken our ships like kindling. A child’s tantrum when she’d refused to allow me to come home.
Now, I was a man. Decades old. Locked here. Suffering blazing thirst and endless loneliness. Quivering, I licked the cuts on my palms but it didn’t slake the burning thirst at all.
“I’ll care for him, Undina.” The other queen lay her hand on my mother’s arm. “He’ll be safe.”
“Free,” I forced out, my voice raw and rough, crusted with sand, salt, and barnacles.
Undina’s eyes narrowed, her lips tight in a harsh slant. “A king kraken will never be safe free.”
At her words, the kraken boiled out of me with murderous rage, shifting back so hard and fast that waves splashed up over the elegant yacht’s deck. I slammed my largest tentacles into the water, shoving another wave at them. Again. Taller. Water poured over the deck, wrecking their perfect hair and beautiful gowns.
Men scrambled across the deck, taking up guarding positions before their queen, some of them shifting to other forms. Weapons, claws, wings at the ready. Not that any of that could stop me.
My mother stood alone. She had no need for Blood. Not when the sirens swam at her back.
She stretched out her hand and opened her mouth, revealing the rows of razor-sharp teeth. Her song began, luring the beast to sleep at the bottom of the sea once more, but I could not be silenced.
I will not be controlled!
I refuse to be caged!
The other queen didn’t move or lift her hand, but a fine trickle of blood from her mouth warned me that her magic was at the ready. I reared back, tentacles coiling and bulging, building up the energy to smash her pretty boat into smithereens. Mother could swim back to her precious nest. Perhaps this other queen could paddle back to—
A flashing ring of light was the only sign that she’d done anything at all, so fast that I didn’t even see the colors or hear an explosion. The light shrank around me, compressing me smaller. Tentacles bulged and strained to no avail. The delicate light cut like wire netting, slicing me from my beast. The kraken deserted me just as rapidly as before, leaving me shaking and gasping at the shock of being back in human form.
The silver net of magic tightened around me. Arms and legs pinned. Drowning. Water flooded my mouth and nostrils. In the two-legged form, I couldn’t breathe sea water.
I flopped desperately, enough to get my head out of the water for a moment. Choking out a curse at the queen before I sank again. Dripping wet, the queen held a cat in her arms, stroking it like a beloved friend.
A fucking cat. The same one I’d tossed a chunk of fish. A fat orange tabby.
I sank to the bottom of the cave, bound tightly by the queen’s net. My blood clouded the water but at last I could see it below. Deep blue. Calling me home.
38
OKEANOS
Something patted my cheek. “Come now, mighty kraken. It’s time to see your new home.”
