42. Carol

42

Carol

The guards jostled her to the edge of the deck. The water was so far below them. An enemy, again, instead of the home she so desperately wanted it to be.

Fairchild struck what he probably thought was a noble pose. "Great one!" he called out, and shouted with his mind at the same time, his fervor so clear in his telepathic voice that Carol felt sick. "Hear my call! Long have you slumbered beneath the waves, denying the world your strength—"

Moss was the one who was meant to be waiting beneath the waves. That was what he'd said, wasn't it? That as soon as the kraken chose him, he was meant to go… somewhere. And wait.

For some reason, she thought of the huge underwater cavern from her dreams. The loneliness. The dark pit.

She thought of Moss, trapped in that lonely, dark place because it was his duty, and her heart broke.

That couldn't be his fate. It couldn't.

One thing was clear. Whatever Fairchild thought he was doing, wasn't it. Standing with his arms out, head flung back, rapt expression. More and more, Carol was convinced he really did believe everything he was saying.

Not the stuff about saving her, or anyone else he considered inferior. But that he could call on the world's most dangerous shifter and it would see him as a worthy… partner? Disciple? Worshipper?

It would have been funny, except she had a good idea of how this would go when nobody answered his call. If the fish weren't biting, try putting down bait.

If the Soul-Eater didn't answer your call, try throwing a tasty mutant overboard.

She shivered.

Fairchild couldn't call the Soul-Eater. He couldn't call Moss, either, at least not in a way he would listen.

But she could.

The thin ribbon of moonlight silver that connected his heart to hers was barely a thread, but it was still there. She hadn't dared touch it before, in case even a single touch broke it.

Is this the right thing to do? Call on the kraken now, and prove to him that he's the monster he always feared?

You always knew you were never a monster, Carol. It was always just your face. But it's his soul.

He had to be right about his own soul. Right?

Except…

She had tasted the kraken's soul. She'd dived into it, felt its touch. Felt its mind , the layers of history and experience. And grief.

It knew what it was meant for, and what had always been denied it. It had sworn long ago to uphold an oath to protect the world. And had sacrificed itself to that promise.

It was dangerous because it had to be.

Could it be something else, if it was allowed to be?

Fairchild was shouting now. She didn't let herself concentrate on the words. Just the spittle flying from his mouth. The self-righteousness twisting his face.

Men like Fairchild were the real monsters.

She closed her eyes. There it was: the thin silver thread connecting her soul to Moss's. It was dimmer than before. She wanted to clutch it tight, but she was a fisherman's daughter—she knew that was a good way to snap the line.

Gently, carefully, she sent her thoughts down the mate bond. * Moss? Kraken?*

It wasn't enough. She couldn't reach them.

Or was it only Moss she couldn't reach?

Panic gripped her. She forced herself to stay soft and gentle as she reached along the mate bond again. Moss had always kept the kraken hidden deep inside himself. She'd had to push past his psychic defenses to reach it, back on the beach.

But the first mind she found at the other end of the soul bond was the kraken's.

A tremor gripped her. Not the restlessness of her suffocation-fear but a violent, cold shaking that started in her bones and clamped down on her entire body. Fairchild stopped ranting and stared at her, eyebrows raised. She ignored him.

He must be there. He must. I just have to reach farther—

Deeper into the darkness. The soul that had spent so much of its existence alone.

He had to be there. If the kraken was there, then Moss was, too.

Unless—

Her breath turned to ice in her lungs.

Moss had been chosen by the kraken after its last host died. What if Fairchild's men had attacked the house after they took her? What if he—

No.

No.

Pure rage rose up inside her, burning away the ice. She'd spent her entire adult life hiding away, telling herself she couldn't be the woman she'd always dreamed of being because of her face. And Moss had built a whole life for himself that had been ripped away from him when his soul merged with the kraken's. Both of them had been changed forever by their shifter powers.

It wasn't fair that she'd had to hide away. It wasn't fair that he had to face a life locked away from the world.

It wasn't right.

* Moss!* she cried out. * Kraken! Come to me! I need you!*

And if it was only the kraken who answered her call, and not Moss, then she would happily become the monster Fairchild thought she was.