Page 75 of Krammin’ With A Kraken

I won’t let him hurt you,I thought, allowing the water to carry my words to them.

“Seta.” Professor Mackenzie’s arms were up, and his face was as pale as the moon.

There was a tremor of fear in his voice, and my heart twisted. Even my favorite professor was afraid of me, and that knowledge made me want to cry.

“It’ll be alright. Why don’t you come out of the water?” Mackenzie coaxed in the same way you’d try to calm a rabid wolf.

The harpoon gun flashed. A bolt arced over the water, flashing with spells.

Without thinking, I drew on the saltwater, creating a wave that rose up and caught the bolt. Green flashed like lightning within the wave as a spell activated on impact.

I snatched the bolt with one tentacle and flung it into the air before a second spell could detonate. The bolt exploded, showering wood and steel down on the lake.

I snatched a fragment away from a curious bottom feeder even as several pieces of the falling steel sliced across my skin.

“You’re quick on your feet— Oh, sorry. Is that a sore subject?” Ezric mocked.

“Not at all.” My voice reverberated through the air, like a whale song through the water. I was proud of how calm I sounded, since I’d never been more scared in my life. “I love my body.”

With slow, deliberate movements, I swam away from the side of the lake where Mackenzie and the students stood. The farther I was from them, the safer they would be.

“Why wouldn’t you?” He reached into his pocket. “You could kill all of us, couldn’t you?”

Could I grab him with my tentacle? From the corner of my eye, I saw the bright light of someone’s phone. They were recording this. Which meant if I picked him up, I’d look like every single evil kraken ever to grace a landlubber’s nightmare or television.

“That’s not what Poseidon made us for,” I replied. “I’m a protector.”

“Liar!” he shouted, his breath coming in hard gasps and his eyes shining with a deranged fervor. “You had to sneak into Slaymore because youknewthat no one would accept your kind. You don’t belong. You’re a threat to all living things.”

Ezric threw something at me.

A grenade.

Throwing up another watery wall, I blocked it before it could sink beneath the water’s surface and injure the terrified creatures darting about. The grenade bounced off the watery shield and landed among the huddled students.

Ezric didn’t seem to notice, or maybe he just didn’t care. I lunged toward land, my tentacle stretching out to snatch the grenade. Just as I wrapped my thick tentacle around it, Ezric fired the harpoon.

Fiery pain surged through my tentacle, but I refused to drop the grenade. With the harpoon sticking out from my appendage, there was no way I could fling the grenade far enough to clear the academy buildings.

That left one choice.

Coiling my tentacle tightly around the weapon, I braced myself.

I roared in agony as it exploded and hundreds of tiny metal shards pierced my sensitive skin. Students scrambled away from me, fear etched across their stark faces.

Pulling my injured tentacle back into the water, I sunk down beneath the surface. Gritting my teeth, I yanked the pointed tip out of my skin.

Krakens had healing abilities, but I couldn’t start healing until the weapon was removed. This injury was going to take a while to heal, judging by the blood spilling into the water around me.

“Monster! Show yourself or I’ll slice her throat!” Ezric’s voice traveled through the water.

Ignoring the pain still ricocheting through my body, I pushed myself off the lake floor. I burst out of the water, waves crashing to shore around me with a snarl that sent rocks tumbling into the lake.

Hades knew I was trying to be patient, but with each attack on the innocents around him, it was becoming more difficult to keep from becoming the monster he wanted me to be.

“You are just as soft as that boyfriend of yours!” Ezric taunted.

The slayer held a tearful Jenny in front of him, a knife pressed to her neck. My tentacles glowed as fury bubbled in me like molten lava.

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