Ten

Ever since I was young, my birthday had never really been a special day. I"d always known I wasn"t wanted, that I"d been a mistake my mom made, and that I was the reason she"d had to marry the useless asshole my dad was. Her words, not mine. My father...well, we"d never really interacted much. I didn"t think I had any memories of sharing a conversation with him, at least.

Then, my father died in some accident at work, and suddenly, my mom couldn"t wait to get rid of me. She"d pushed me off onto the first person who"d take me off her hands—my dad"s mom—and I"d gotten to spend six months as an actual kid who didn"t need to fend for his meals or ready himself for school. I"d been eleven then. But my grandma got sick before my twelfth birthday, and suddenly, I was in a foster home where I was scared to shower when the "mom" wasn"t home. I lived there for two years, and in some ways, it was better than living with my parents, while in others it was much, much worse.

When I was fifteen, I ran away from the foster home I"d ended up in after leaving my first home. Why? Because the foster family already had a kid, an eighteen-year-old daughter who couldn"t get it through her skull that I was very much gay and not into her. I"d felt unsafe, and that"d become my normal for the next few years, until I almost died and then got rescued by a kraken.

With Eben, I felt safe for the first time in, well, ever. I"d felt okay with my grandma, but even in the beginning, I"d somehow known it wouldn"t last. Maybe it was the pessimist in me, or maybe it"d just been my shitty experience with my parents, but I"d never truly relaxed, and then it"d been over before I could.

Here, though, on Eben"s private island where no one from the outside world could bother us, I felt protected. I felt like I belonged. And for the first time in my life, I"d celebrate my birthday with people who actually gave a fuck about me.

I remembered telling Eben my birthday, but I didn"t know if he was planning anything. Then again, maybe birthdays weren"t a big deal to supes. They lived forever, after all. They probably didn"t care for birthdays.

Not that I wanted Eben and the others to celebrate my birthday or make it into a "thing." Just spending the day with them would be enough. Maybe I"d ask Eben if we could go underwater again.

In the past month since I"d woken up, he"d taken me under a few times, and it"d felt just as magical every time. We"d tried to go a little deeper the last couple of visits, and I"d been ecstatic when I hadn"t felt any worse. Maybe someday soon, Eben would take me all the way to the bottom, though he was still "researching" because he was afraid it would kill me.

Even though we"d called our excursions dates, and even though I definitely had feelings for him, we hadn"t even kissed yet. Well, not on the lips, at least. Eben kissed my forehead or cheeks all the time, and my hair too. I always kissed his neck when I tucked my head there to hide away from the world. But we hadn"t kissed, and we hadn"t talked about our feelings for each other.

I thought Eben was giving me space. Maybe he wanted me to initiate it, to be in control, so I didn"t feel pressured, but I wished he"d do it. I didn"t know how to approach the subject, or when the right time to kiss was.

On the streets, I"d...done things sometimes, things I wasn"t proud of but wouldn"t have survived without. No matter how resourceful you were, sometimes you just needed some money, and people rarely gave jobs to kids who had no address and had never passed high school.

Unfortunately, those few alley encounters were my only "experience." That, and whatever that asshole did to me, though I"d rather never remember that.

The point was I didn"t know the first thing about kissing or romantic gestures or any of it. I"d seen movies, and those sitcoms I"d gotten hooked to at my grandma"s always had a romance storyline, but there was no baseline for starting a relationship with the kraken who saved your life.

The internet, though...maybe it would have some ideas? Wasn"t that where everyone searched for answer these days?

I"d been so lost in thought I"d forgotten where I was, and as I came back to myself, I glanced around my empty bedroom, puzzled for a moment.

I grabbed my phone from the nightstand, then remembered Eben was out hunting. That was good luck because I did not want him watching over my shoulder right now.

Thinking over it for a minute, I typed in romance with a kraken. That should do it, right?

My brows shot up at the results that popped up. So many books...fuck! Kraken romance was an actual book genre? There were romance stories with a kraken main character? Did that mean others knew krakens existed? Or was it all fantasy?

Reading the description of one of them, I shook my head. Yeah, it was fantasy all right.

I even found a few where both characters were male, which made me happy. Then, I made sure Eben wasn"t back before purchasing the ebooks. Nala had hooked up a credit card to all the accounts on my phone and assured me I could buy whatever I wanted, that they had a P.O. box in the city where everything would arrive and Nala or Tarika would pick it up for me. I hadn"t bought anything until now, though, because I hadn"t needed anything.

These books, though, they might prove useful.

Scrolling back to the search results, I blinked at an almost perfect illustration of a kraken, and clicked on it to find the artist"s page, waiting impatiently as it loaded.

Only, when it did load, the page was full of illustrations of krakens and other tentacled beings, but they weren"t the only characters in the pieces.

My phone slipped from my grasp as I made a weird, squeaking sound, heat flushing my cheeks as my head snapped up, suddenly afraid Eben had returned without me noticing.

"Fuck," I mumbled under my breath as I gingerly picked up the phone, glad I"d only dropped it on the bed. I squinted at the pictures out of the corner of my eye as if that would make it better, and yet my cheeks warmed hotter as I my heart skipped a beat.

My cock most definitely did not react to the image. Nuh-uh.

Still, the bright illustrations drew my eyes to them once more, and I took a deep breath before looking at them head-on.

The first two had female human characters with the tentacled beings, but the next one had a man with a build similar to mine, and fuck. You truly could find anything on the internet, couldn"t you?

I stared at the image for a few more seconds as heat stirred in my belly for the first time since I"d woken up. I didn"t...hate the feeling, but I also didn"t think I was ready to do anything about it yet.

The sound of soft footsteps caught my ear, and I quickly locked my phone and slid down under the covers, curling up tight. Why was I trying to hide from Eben? I had no fucking clue.

When I walked into Hobie"s room, for a moment, I thought he was asleep. He was curled up with his back to me, the blanket pulled up to his neck. It was strange because Hobie always waited for me to get back from my hunt. On the days he fell asleep without me, he always woke from a nightmare, which was why he avoided doing that.

As I perched on the edge of the bed, I realized his breathing wasn"t slow enough, and his heart was beating just a touch faster. Why was he pretending to sleep? Had something upset him? Had I upset him?

It was his birthday tomorrow, and I"d taken a little longer to "hunt" today simply because I"d been discussing the plans for tomorrow with Nala and Tarika. Was he upset because I was late? Or had he fallen asleep and woken up from a nightmare?

"Hobie? Are you okay?" I asked, and he tensed before slowly nodding. "Are you sure?" He nodded again, and I sighed. Climbing onto the bed properly, I sat cross-legged before reaching out and brushing one of my tentacles against his side. Hobie flinched.

I drew back instantly, startled. From the very first day, Hobie had never been afraid of my tentacles or my touch. He"d not once reacted unfavorably to them. But clearly, something had changed.

"I apologize. I shouldn"t have touched you without asking." That made him turn around.

"No! That"s not—you don"t have to ask," Hobie said with a shake of his head, and that was when I noticed his flushed cheeks. Was he getting sick?

"Do you have a fever?"

Worry for his health took center stage in my mind, and I almost reached for his forehead to check for myself.

"I"m fine," he said, then sighed. "You"re not going to let me get away with this, are you?"

"With what?" I felt a little lost. What was happening here?

"Ugh." He sat up, running his palms over his face. Shooting me a glance, he turned his gaze to his lap, where he played with his fingers as he cleared his throat and spoke, "I"m not sick. I"m just...embarrassed."

"Embarrassed? Why?"

"Well, we"ve...we"ve been on a few dates recently, but we never do anything, and I thought that was probably because of me. I"ve never been in a relationship before, or even dated anyone, so I thought maybe I"d look for some advice online." He shot his phone an evil look.

"Oh." I tried not to feel too pleased about the thought that Hobie wanted to "do things" with me. It was true that I hadn"t initiated anything because of him. I found him insanely attractive, but I was too old to allow my attraction to come in the way of his healing. I"d told myself I would wait for him to take the first steps, and that had been that.

"Yeah, well, the internet is a crazy place, and the things I saw..." He trailed off with a shake of his head, and I raised a brow. What could he have possibly seen or read?

"How crazy could it be?"

The look he shot me said I"d regret asking that question. Cheeks still bright red, he picked up his phone and swiped through a few things before thrusting it at me. Then, he flopped back onto the bed with his back to me and pulled the covers over himself, hiding away in his blanket cocoon.

Shaking my head at his cuteness, I turned my eyes to the phone screen and blinked. Then blinked again. I scrolled past the images of the women before stopping short at a man who looked very much like Hobie, though his hair and eye color were different. It was an illustration, but it looked realistic enough that it heated my blood as I took it in.

The human male was splayed out, his arms raised and his legs spread. Wrapped around each limb and his torso were tentacles colored in a deep-sea blue, some slim, some thick. The tip of one tentacle brushed against his parted lips; another rubbed his bright pink nipples. But the one that drew my eye was the one between his legs, disappearing inside him.

How could humans create something like this when they didn"t even know of the existence of my kind?

At least Hobie"s embarrassment made more sense now because I could feel my own cheeks blazing hot. It wasn"t the image itself that was making me react that way. No, it was my own mind that had conveniently and easily replaced that human"s face with Hobie"s and turned the tentacles around him purple. Shaking my head, I locked the phone before placing it on the nightstand. Then I lay down, leaving some space between us so Hobie didn"t think I was trying to start something.

"I"m not doing that with you," Hobie grumbled after a minute, still hiding under the blankets. "At least not yet."

Not yet. The words rang around my head, bouncing all over the place, until I grabbed them and stuffed them way in the back along with my attraction for Hobie.

"I would never ask that of you, Hobie. You"re in complete control here. You set our pace," I said, and that finally made him turn around.

He frowned at me, shifting a little closer. "But isn"t that unfair to you? You"ve had to wait centuries for me, and now I"m making you wait even longer. Don"t you hate that?"

I shook my head and couldn"t resist reaching out and brushing the tip of a tentacle against his cheek. "No, Hobie. Not at all. I"ve been waiting for you, yes, but I have you now. You"re with me, and that"s all I ever wanted. Everything else we might or might not do would just be a bonus or, as Nala likes to say, the cherry on top. Getting to spend time with you, taking care of you, holding you when you allow me to...it"s more than enough for me."

Hobie gazed up at me for a few moments, as if trying to decide if he could believe me. "Really?"

"Yes," I answered honestly, and he exhaled softly before shifting closer.

"Then hold me, please," he whispered, and I smiled as I wrapped my tentacles around him and pressed him to me.

"Gladly."