29. Carol

29

Carol

He stayed on top of her as their breathing evened out, the jagged thud of her pulse calming to something that was… calm.

"Sorry," he murmured.

"For what?"

Moss was lying heavily on top of her, his weight gloriously firm and hot and immoveable. His hand was still wrapped around her wrist, holding her to the mattress. She couldn't move even if she wanted to. The same way she hadn't been able to move after Briers shot her. After Eloise betrayed her and she couldn't keep her head above the waves.

Where was the fear? The panic? The clamp on her lungs, the hook in her gut pulling her to go, to move, anything but stay still?

Gone.

She didn't want to move. She didn't need to move. She could stay here, forever, with him.

Perfect.

Moss swore under his breath. "Didn't even think about condoms until…"

Oh. Right. And it wasn't as though she was on birth control—not that they'd even talked about that. But he'd pulled out. She knew that wasn't reliable, but just this once…

Just once? she thought with a pang.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Am I okay ?" She blinked up at him. "…Yes? Yes. Yes, I'm more than okay."

He let out a self-deprecating huff of laughter, his eyes creasing at the edges. "Glad to hear it."

"And… you?"

"God, yes. It was perfect. You're…" He reached out for her, and something uncomfortable flickered behind his eyes. "Perfect. Damn it."

She bit her lip, carefully, and his pupils widened. "Maybe we should visit a pharmacy? Before we leave the country?"

Before this precious intermission was over and they went back to facing the end of the world. A chill brushed over her.

Moss reached out. Hesitated before his hand touched her face. "Damn it."

He rose, leaving cool air in his wake. Carol tensed. "What's wrong?"

"You're still—I swore I'd never let you be hurt again, and the next minute—I've broken every promise I made about you." His voice was sharp with regret. Regret? Did he regret what they'd just done?

She sat up uneasily, pulling the sheets around her. "What promises? You never promised me anything."

"I promised myself." His mouth twisted. His eyes were dark—human dark, heavy with conflicted feelings. He wouldn't meet her gaze. "I promised myself I would leave you alone. When I broke that one, I promised myself I at least wouldn't hurt you."

He lifted his eyes to hers, and that was worse than him not looking at her at all. His gaze was hard, as though he had to force himself to look at her.

"You've never hurt me," she breathed, but he didn't soften.

He jerked his chin sideways without answering. "And when I broke that promise, I told myself at least I'd wait until you were recovered from the attack." He lifted one hand to caress her cheek, the sensitive pads of his deft, blunt fingers just brushing her lower eyelashes. His thumb ghosted over the corner of her mouth.

His eyes softened, and the care in them cut like a knife.

"You're still caught in your shift. You didn't feel safe enough to find your human form again on the island, and you haven't here. And instead of helping you, or waiting until you found your equilibrium again on your own, I kept pushing. Just another asshole taking advantage."

You didn't push anything! she wanted to scream. Except the things I wanted you to push! Can't you see that?

No. Of course he didn't. He only saw the teeth, and the eyes. The same things everyone else saw.

"You didn't—" The words stuck, because of course they did. They always stuck when it was important. "I—I can't—"

Agony opened up like a raw wound inside her where she thought there had only been old scars.

Thoughts clashed together, breaking into shattered pieces before she could turn them into sentences. What did she do wrong? Why hadn't she told him everything? Why did he have to say anything now? Had she bitten him?

"Did I bite you?"

No. No, she did not want to have just said that—

"No." His goddamn perfect crooked smile only made the sadness in his eyes more painful. "But if I'd behaved the way I should, you wouldn't have had to worry about that, would you?"

No, no, that wasn't what she meant. Babbling wouldn't help her fix this.

She reached for him mentally, scouring the anguish and fear from her thoughts so they wouldn't hide the truth. She'd lied to him. This was her fault. He hadn't done anything wrong.

* You don't understand, it's not you, it's—*

The connection between their minds shone like a riptide under moonlight. And there it was: the mate bond. It had to be. A ribbon of deceptive stillness between the waves. One she would gladly let drag her away.

And then Moss shut his mind to her. Gently, as though that made it hurt any less.

The silver thread flickered.

"I should have left already," he said, his gaze all rueful regret. "Not stayed and made everything worse."

A sinking feeling took hold of her. "I thought we already talked about this. The plan—with Lance and the others—we're going together ."

His eyebrows did their furrowed-question thing, and her heart sank. "I can't stay, Carol. Being here even one night… it's just putting off the inevitable."

Had she felt still and calm before? Her mind flickered like a thousand tiny fish fleeing a school of sharks, darting senselessly in all directions. "This is about waiting for the dragons' call, isn't it? Standing guard."

"It is."

"But why? If the kraken can drag us halfway across the ocean, why does it need to lie in wait for the shadow dragons' call? Why not live your life up here—" With me, she wanted to say, but her throat locked tight on the words.

"Because the kraken is too dangerous to be allowed out in the world. You know what it was, before the Weaver bound it to my family? A ship-killer. A murderer. It killed thousands of people."

Her stomach lurched. "But you're in control of the kraken now."

"I'm only as in control as it lets me be. And I suspect the only reason it thought I was strong in the first place is that it was exhausted by its escape. And…" He winced. "I'm not sure how much longer the ‘me' that's resisting it will be me. "

"What do you mean?"

He shrugged, too casually, and didn't meet her eyes. "That's what happens when we get our inner animals, right? They become a part of us. Affect how we see the world."

"I never felt like that." Her voice cracked. Was this another way that she was broken?

But if Moss thought the kraken was taking over his mind…

"I never noticed it, until I lost my octopus. I lost a part of myself then, too. What I am now isn't what I was. And the longer the kraken's inside me, even if it's pretending to behave itself…"

He raised his hand. Shadows wreathed around it, and in their depths, black tentacles writhed. "I can't stay," he said bitterly. "The kraken was bound to my family for one thing. If whoever attacked the shadow dragons has freed the Soul-Eater, then I need to recapture him. If he's still imprisoned—then I still need to go. Before what's inside me destroys everything else."

"You wouldn't hurt me." Before he could respond, she added, "The kraken wouldn't hurt me. I know it wouldn't. I—talked to it, remember? It doesn't want to hurt me. It's lonely, it—"

"Wants to take you down into the depths with it?" His mouth twisted. "That would be a cure to its loneliness, wouldn't it? Damning you to share its fate. My fate."

And you're not going to fight it? Not for the life up here you love so much?

Not for me?

Her throat hurt. She swallowed, tried to wet her dry mouth, but nothing worked. The words weren't just stuck, they were razor-edged, like the teeth she was trying to force them past. They would hurt too much to say.

Let alone how painful it would be to hear his answer. He'd already made his decision.

"It wouldn't hurt me," she managed, ashamed of how weak she sounded. How weak she was .

"And what about the others?" His voice was sharp, with a bitter edge. "Would you be so quick to find ways to keep it around once it starts venting its murderous nature on everyone around you? Your friends. Your colleagues. Maggie—"

"It wouldn't. " And if Moss was turning into it— " You wouldn't."

"I don't want to. I want anything other than that. And that's why I have to leave." His jaw worked. "Selfish, isn't it? I'd rather go now and leave knowing you want me to stay, than stick around until you curse the day you ever met me."

His mouth twitched as though he was trying to smile, but the grief in his eyes was more convincing.

"There has to be another way." She reached for him, and he made a jerky movement as though he was about to reach back.

Then shadows curled around his arm, and he snatched it back.

"It was all a trick," he growled. "Pretending to lie low. Making me think I had time." His eyes met hers, pleading. "I never wanted to hurt you, Carol. This wasn't how I meant—"

She braced herself. Deep in her heart, something shivered, uncertain, sensing hurt bearing down on it like pieces of shipwreck falling to the ocean floor. Carol frowned. What was that feeling?

Then an alert blared in her mind. A psychic warning siren. Throughout the house, other shifters swore and scrambled out of their beds, their heartpulses firing with adrenaline.

Moss drew back. "What's—"

* Maggie's disappeared.* Lance's voice was clipped and professional. He was the one who'd raised the alarm, Carol realized. A telepathic siren, part shout, part leopard's snarl. It faded, leaving ringing echoes in her mind. * Everyone, out. We've got a dragon to find.*