Chapter 14

chapter 14

CEPHARIUS

I was not okay with Elle's cable.

It looked like one of the cables we let two-legged run across the bottom of the sea, only I knew it housed everything that kept her safe—and there was no way I was going to let it chafe against the bottom of that stone.

I picked it up once she was past me and let it flow through my much smoother hand instead.

If I had my way, she wouldn't even have been out here at all.

I would rather torture myself and only ever see her again through the windows of her station, knowing she was safe, then have her out here in the water beside me. I knew how dangerous the deep was, and while her outfit seemed well-made, I knew firsthand how many two-legged skeletons littered the bottom of the sea.

Elle walked out ahead without knowing I'd stayed back, as I felt my anger and concern at the situation rising, and I tried to fight it logically.

Another two-legged had been here before and lived. My tentacles informed me that the rock wasn't that rough. She would probably be fine .

But probably wasn't good enough.

Not where the ocean was concerned—nor where my mate was.

I was pinned to the spot by a knifelike need to protect her. Cayoni had been a kraken, and thus had some agency beneath the water, but being mated with a human down here?

I would never know a good night's sleep again.

And then thoughts of Cayoni ambushed me and I felt a wave of sorrow over everything that I'd missed with her, and it reverberated off of this, my current betrayal and?—

"Cepharius? Are you all right?"

Elle's voice on the 'qa was timid, and I glanced up to where she'd paused, slightly looking back and at the ground, probably trying not to blind me.

"No. I am concerned. Tell your helper to release as much slack on your cable as he can to me."

"Give me a second," she said, then followed up with, "He says he will."

I started to pull her cable forward quickly, unspooling it from her habitat. It was hard work, the cable was almost as thick as a palm-span, and I wanted to do it quickly so that she could carry on with her mission—I wasn't entirely sure what it was yet, but I knew that it was important to her. Clouds of silt burst up from my movement, and I kept going until I heard Elle give a panicked, "Stop!"

I did as I was told, then physically carried the massive pile of looped cable to the rock's far side, where it could unspool much more safely.

I didn't realize until then though, as the silt settled down, that she'd come back to watch me.

I threw up one of my arms, to block my large black eyes—darting into the shadows would've just made it seem like I was hiding something.

"Sorry!" she said, quickly looking away—which made it easier for me to look at her.

The pale light she carried within her illuminated her face inside her helmet. It made her seem like a pearl trapped inside a shell, and I was filled with urges that the physicality of pulling her cable forward hadn't helped.

"I just need you to be safe," I said. I was breathing hard and my thoughts felt rough.

She gave a nervous laugh. "I want that, too."

Then confusing concepts burbled inside of her mind, and I dearly wished for clarity.

"What do you think of me?" I asked her before I could stop myself.

She snapped back to looking at me. Whatever her answer was instantly made her panic further, and I pulled my mind away from hers rather than find out things I didn't want to know.

But it was a good question.

I braced myself. If she found me horrific, better to know now than later.

I threw an arm up in front of my face to block the beams from her lights, as they landed at the height of my chest, then scanned higher as she looked up slowly.

And then all of her thoughts were a confusing jumble of things I didn't understand. "Oh my God—I'm sorry, you're—" she started, and then her voice and thoughts both faded.

The only thing that came through on the 'qa clearly was shame.

Same as when she'd thought of that other human man in the habitat earlier.

Why?

I lowered my arm slowly, as my eyes grew used to the brightness, letting her take all of me in. My large black eyes were made to see things in almost utter dark, and while my mouth was somewhat like hers, and my lips capable of smiling, I had a solid beak of bone instead of teeth inside it, and beneath that were the grasping line of tentacles that flowed down from my chin, which helped me hold living prey still to eat. "I'm...?" I pressed her, curious what she would answer .

"Pretty," she offered, and I saw her cheeks grow darker.

I, who was her height and half again, who had eight lower-arms instead of two legs, and who bore the scars of enemies they'd killed in battle? "Pretty?"

I sensed her anxiety and frustration. "I don't know what you want from me," she said as she averted her eyes, taking the beams from her helmet with them.

I wanted to tease apart her thoughts more thoroughly, but I knew if she felt my mind move against hers, I would lose all her trust and never regain it.

"Perhaps I can be," I said, letting myself flush a soothing green and creeping back into the periphery of her vision. "What is your favorite color, Elle of the Air?"

She'd regathered herself—and had some conversation with the humans she'd left back at the station. I waited patiently until she was finished.

"Royal blue," she told me, daring to look slightly up.

"Think on that color. Hard. And let me see," I told her, and she did, showing me an array of times she'd seen it—on items of clothing, feathers from birds, the paint on a favorite wall, and in the memory of that other woman's eyes. I caught a name from Elle this time: Lena.

I changed my skin to reflect that exact shade back at her, and she smiled.

"My people agree with you," I told her. "We like this color."

"Do you speak with your colors?" she asked, now fully distracted from her prior pain. I could tell she enjoyed this kind of topic, and made a mental note to revisit it again.

"Not fully—but we use them to share moods. The color you have chosen we consider sociable and calming. It is the type of color you would flash when seeing a close friend. So now you are right, I am indeed pretty," I said, retaking my place out of the light and at her side. "And as you are safe—we can continue."