47. Moss

47

Moss

The kraken flinched back as its tentacle brushed against Carol's collar. It had the strength to break it but not the dexterity.

Echoes of images too blurred for Moss to make out flooded its mind with horror, and he realized with a rush of nausea that it was remembering previous victims. All those it had killed in service of its vow. Or its rage.

But not her. Not her, it pledged, with a desperation that matched the fracturing in Moss's own heart.

* We can go back to the ship,* he told Carol. * Those bird shifters could cut it off—*

Even if the kraken had to kill everyone else in its way to get to them.

*No!* Carol cried. She'd heard his thoughts. Her face twisted with frustration, and she kicked towards the surface. * We'll find another way. I just need to breathe first. I need to—to—*

Panic hazed the edges of her voice. He wrapped a tentacle around her to help her to the surface, but the kraken froze, paralyzed by the memories of the destruction it had wrought with its powerful limbs over centuries and centuries.

Use your magic tentacles then, the ones that—

That he'd last used to break the bodies of the warriors who'd attacked them in their home? The kraken seethed. How could it be gentle now? How could something like it keep her safe?

Because we have to. For the first time since the kraken had become part of him, Moss was certain of himself. Because she is our mate. She makes us more than what we are.

Deep inside him, something stirred from where it had been hiding.

And something in his mate responded. Carol's eyes widened. Not the flat, shark-black eyes he knew, but human eyes.

For a moment, she looked like a stranger.

Then something rushed up inside her. The power of it reverberated along the mate bond, calling and pulling on something inside him—something that had hidden in the greatness of the kraken's soul, lost in the darkness the way he'd feared he would lose himself.

The kraken's huge steel-hard tentacles twisted, shrinking and softening, as another form pushed its way forward.

My octopus?

He couldn't believe it. He didn't want to believe it, and lose his octopus all over again when this turned out to be some trick or delusion.

But—

Those were its familiar muscular arms, white-speckled brown on the top and deep orange around the suckers on their undersides. Long and flexible, curious and so bloody annoying the way they got into everything and pulled things to pieces…

He blinked. Human eyes. Like Carol's were now—a thought that seemed wrong. And he was human-sized again, Carol whole and wondrous in the water before him, instead of a tiny candleflame he might flick out with one wrong movement.

Greatest of all miracles, his octopus was still there, still a part of him and stretching its twisty arms out to dance in the water.

You're here, he thought to it, lightheaded with relief. You bastard. I thought I lost you.

His octopus told him that it had done a good enough job of losing itself; it didn't need his help. When the kraken had taken over, filling his soul with its deepwater darkness, his octopus had done what it did best. It had dug itself into a crack before the tidal wave of the kraken's appearance could knock it away.

And it had taken this long to find its way to the surface again.

* Moss…* Carol was staring at him wide-eyed, and her love and happiness for him was like sunlight pouring through the mate bond.

His octopus was back. Back—and different. He'd never been able to partially shift like this before, his body still mostly human but with his octopus's arms spilling out all around him and its eyes watchful behind his. Maybe the kraken made that possible with its shadow tentacles bursting out regardless of what shape he was.

His octopus wrapped one long, speckled arm around his shoulders in a hug and reached out to Carol with the others.

Alone, it wouldn't be enough. But it wasn't alone. His octopus's cunning and the kraken's strength; together, they wound tight around the collar circling his mate's neck and snapped it cleanly away.

* There,* he said, his psychic voice rough. * You can shift now.*

*I… don't think I need to.* Her eyebrows lifted, surprise and delight dancing on her strangely human face. * Your octopus is back! And my shark—*

She broke off, seeming to search inside herself. Eyes closed, she smiled, small and secret.

When she opened her eyes again, they flooded black as the ocean depths. She took a breath of pure seawater, filtering it out through gills that suddenly appeared on her neck.

* I thought I was broken.* She sounded awed. * I thought something went wrong, the first time I shifted. That my shark knew I was wrong and that's why it never talked to me. But it was as anxious as I was. And my face…" She raised one hand to touch her mouth. * I wanted it so badly. And this was the only way I could hold on to it. Even if it caused me more problems than it solved.*

* How many problems did it solve?* he asked, gently teasing to test the waters.

Her lips quirked. * None. I didn't say I took the psychologically healthy option. I didn't even know I was taking ANY option. I just… couldn't lose it. And this is what that looked like.* Wryness peppered her words. * It didn't know I wanted it, and I was so hurt it was gone, I couldn't tell it.*

*And now?*

Her smile widened, sharp points showing behind her lips. The gills on her neck flared and relaxed. * We understand each other a bit better.*

The same way he and the kraken did. And his octopus. The three of them together, though—that would take longer for him to come to terms with.

And there were other things that had his attention right now.

He and Carol stared at one another, she from fathomless black eyes, he from eyes that shifted smoothly from octopus to human as his inner creatures—both of them—gave him a shove and said, Hurry up then.

He let the current float him closer to Carol. Or maybe that was the kraken's doing, pushing them closer together. Maybe the ocean was singing them a new duet.

She reached for him first, taking his hand and pulling him in until there was the barest ghost of water between them. * You came,* she said, hesitantly.

* Did you think I wouldn't?*

Her face twisted. * I thought you would be too afraid of becoming the monster.*

*I was.*

*You came anyway. Risked becoming everything you feared. Both of you. Because the kraken didn't really want it either, did it?*

He didn't even need to check with the vast mind inside his own. * No. All those centuries waiting gave it time to think there must be more to life.*

Her smile changed. It became flickering and sharp—not uncertain or anxious, but like a fish delighting in the play of moonlight on its scales. * Well?*

*Well what?*

*Was it right?*

Her fingers brushed his cheek, tracing a delicate line down his jaw to where his pulse thrummed in his throat. Every touch burned like ice.

* Is there more to life?* she repeated, and he would have had to be an idiot not to understand what she meant.

He was an idiot. About many things.

But not this.

He put his arms around her, weightless in the cool embrace of the ocean, and kissed her.

Here in his domain, with gills to match his mate's, loaned from the octopus who'd come back from the dead for him, there was no need to stop to catch their breath. Moss took his time, exploring Carol's lips with gentle care.

But there was no hiding the thrill that went through him when he found her teeth.

She tensed in his arms. * I'm not changing them back. I could, now. And I'll probably have to, for normal life, but… they're mine. They're ME. If—if you're not comfortable with that…*

* Don't you dare change anything about yourself. I've spent every minute since I met you beating myself up for how hot I find your teeth.* He ran his tongue along the sharp points, and she gasped into his mouth. * And your eyes. Everything about you.*

*You like that I look like some sort of monster looming out of the deep?*

*I'd fucking love to turn around and find you looming out of the deep at me. Can't think of anything better.*

* And my teeth?* The hint of vulnerability in her psychic voice made him want to hold her and never let her go. But the growing confidence?

That made him want to lie on his back beneath her and see how far that confidence would take her.

* Use them,* he told her.

A thrill of delight, sharp as sin and sweet as nectar, raced like lightning down the mate bond.

* Only if you use your tentacles.*