Chapter 11

chapter 11

CEPHARIUS

Feeling like I was going to suffocate in air was awful, but at least I knew it was coming.

No one seemed to have warned her about the bonding process. I was worried about the bound state they'd left her in on her side—I would've rather had her avid consent, but there was no way for me to judge her mind until we were through. I would have to trust in the fact that she'd sat down on her own, and made the journey to the deep to join me to begin with.

I hesitated before putting my first tentacle on her. I had gone three years and thirty days without feeling another's touch, and I would've readily gone the rest of my life.

I didn't want to mar Cayoni's memory, or have anyone else erase my sorrow—but to ensure that might occur, the only way out was through.

So I reached across the magical line and wrapped her wrist.

Because we weren't bonded yet, our contact was merely physical, although my suckers began reporting in all of her minutia. Her wrist was small. Her bones, delicate. I could feel the thrum of her pulse, and the slight heat radiating from her body. And her taste...a lick of salt, the last chemicals in which she'd bathed, and something beneath both of those, something inexorably hers—I wanted more of it, and I wound her ankles readily, without thinking. My suckers pulsed against her skin, trying to take more of her in, as if they realized this might be the last contact with another sentient entity they would ever truly have.

I held back my final tentacle, waiting, wondering if her heartbeat would slow down, if she was terrified of me or excited, knowing full well the answer to any of my further questions lay just inside her mind.

I reached out, bound her other wrist, and enveloped her in my 'qa.

My mind's horizon breached, pulling away from the space I thought of as mine and invited her in to share in it.

I felt her panic as she imagined herself doused in the deep water I was swimming in, and swallowed my own at feeling my "lungs" breathe her "air."

I knew what was happening, however—she did not. Her terror was a living thing as the same mind I'd admired the prior night thrashed wildly, looking to escape. I envisioned myself reaching for it, trying to send my thoughts to settle hers, wrapping not only her limbs but herself , trying to give her a concept of safety, wrestling her fear for her own wellbeing and?—

My colors shifted from gray to black, and a surprising low heat stoked inside of me.

Then I shifted from black, to green, to gray again, each color raking through me, the decisions of my body becoming written on my skin.

It'd been so long, I almost didn't recognize the signs. "No," I whispered.

She was thrashing, because she thought herself drowning—but what was happening to me was real because I felt my pumping arm swell and descend. I only barely kept my panic from matching hers as my colors began changing more quickly .

"No!" I shouted internally at what was happening, helpless to stop it because— because— I didn't want to.

My suckers pulled at her skin like I was trying to drag her into the sea—a thing I could've done accidentally if I were not careful—and my mind soared, bathed in the release of mating endorphins. I shook my head from side to side, trying to clear it, attempting to use internal musculature to pull my pumping arm back up.

I didn't want this—I didn't want her— I wanted what I had —but it was too late.

I felt her thoughts like I felt my own, far deeper than any obligatory bonding I'd had to perform with humans in the past, and her bright mind didn't just meet mine—it possessed me.

It sank into all the cracks where I was broken and for a moment, I was whole.

My 'qa had fully taken her in—and we were mated.

I was suffused with her, and she was closer to me than the water I breathed.

I knew her name was Elle. She was thirty-five years old. I knew she was very smart, very sad, and I was to be with her for the rest of my life—while at the same time, I ached with the knowledge that that was literally impossible.

She was of the air and I was of the sea.

This would be the only time we would ever touch, and my heart, that had felt so healed a second ago, was already falling back apart.

What is happening to me?

I felt her struggle with our bonding, and it hurt me.

"Elle of the Air—relax. Breathe," I commanded her.

"I can't," she thought at me. She was holding her breath, still scared she was drowning.

Her drowning was imaginary. Mine was real.

All I wanted to do was be with her.

We would never touch again.

"You can," I promised her. "Inhale for me."

I took the breath with her, breathing for her, while cold inevitability began to crush my heart.

Elle trusted me enough to do as she was told...but that was it. There was no flare of new purpose from within her, no heat of love or lust.

She was an unmated human and I was doomed.

I was going to lose a second mate—and I already knew that it would kill me.

"I don't feel like myself." She didn't say it, so much as she thought it, and I was able to catch the moment like a bubble rising nearby.

"I feel the same," I told her, filled with concern. And then I had to know, "Are you here of your own volition?"

If she was not, if I was now mated to someone being tortured—I would have my people rip this entire structure from the bottom of the sea, and pull it slowly aloft in shifts for weeks until she was safe in the air once more.

"I am," she said, then considerately asked, "You?"

I was now.

I would never want to be away from her again.

"Yes," I said, relaxing a degree. "And I am pleased I do not need to summon my people to rescue you."

I felt a brush of her amusement. "Me too."

And then I saw what I'd seen before in other humans I'd bonded with—some images from a made-up story from their past, of a woman chained to a rock. "Your kind's myths about my people are so interesting," I murmured—which ruined things.

I felt her mind flit from image to image, trying to hide herself from me. I shook my head—it only made me want to chase her more.

And nothing about her could ever truly be hidden from me again, but I couldn't tell her that; it would only scare her.

"Calm yourself, Elle of the Air," I said, willing her to trust me. I needed to release her. My tentacles were dry, and accommodating the pressure change on her side of the wall was hurting me. I was pouring through my magic—but I wasn't ready to let her go yet. "You have my word, as both your bodyguard and a kraken, that I will not pry into your mind without permission. It is just that both of our minds are very close to the surface right now, because of the bonding."

I could tell she didn't believe me.

"What is your name?" she asked.

"Cepharius."

Left unsaid: the kraken who is yours.

"Of the sea?" she said with a tease.

"If you like." Because I liked it when she thought about me.

I felt her beautiful mind churn. "How long does this take? How long will it last? What does it feel like for you?"

This last question embarrassed her for some reason that I didn't investigate. I'd given her my word, but more than that, I knew the truth—the more enmeshed in her I became, the more this would damage me when it was through.

"It takes as long as it takes," I answered her—but I wanted it to last forever. "It lasts until I sever it." Which I would never do—she would take a piece of me with her when she left the water. "And as for what it feels like for me," I began, feeling emotions build inside me, an evenly matched war of hope and fear, "I would rather not say."

"Oh," she thought delicately. "Am I . . . hurting you?"

Her question was thoughtful, but only that—she didn't care.

Not like I did.

But it was better that way—because even if she felt the same, what would it change?

At least this way I was the only one aching.

I gave myself one more sweet moment to feel her heat and taste her skin and listen to her pulse, like I knew I would never get to again—and it allowed me to tell her a technical truth.

"Not currently," I said, then quickly unwound my tentacles from her before I could make myself a liar.