Chapter 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

LEVI

“Well, fuck.”

Kris hung limply wrapped in two of my tentacles while two others held the gods-damned tree that had started this whole mess when it had attempted to fall on Kris. Obviously I couldn’t let that happen, and my body did its thing without any real input from me, my tentacles snapping off my skin and my body going into a partial shift just in time to grab the trunk before it fell on Kris.

The tentacles holding the tree stretched, dropping the tree into the bed of the ATV’s little trailer while other tentacles gathered the shredded remains of my coat and laid them out so I could gently lay Kris on the ground.

The whole time we’d been at the KELPS party, I’d been replaying Marvin’s words in my head. Since we’d met, I’d known deep in my core that Kris Kringle was a great guy, but getting to see him interact with his family last week and his friends earlier that night made me fall a little harder for him. He looked like a gruff and grumpy lumberjack—and maybe the grumpy part was kind of true in some ways—but he was also unfailingly kind and compassionate, and as we drove out to the tree farm, I’d more or less made the decision that I was going to tell Kris I was a kraken tonight. Marvin was right. He deserved to know.

But it wasn’t supposed to go down like this.

In my fantasies on the drive over, I was hoping he would swoon over the fact that I was the living, breathing embodiment of his nautical mythology study, and then we could swim out into the sunset.

Okay, that was maybe a little overly romanticized and totally unrealistic, but still, I didn’t think springing it on him while saving him from being crushed by a falling evergreen was a real possibility either, yet here we were.

Now that my tentacles had fully come out to play, wrangling them into submission took an epic effort. Several were twining around my body, suckers up, catching snowflakes on the sensitive pads, and I mentally promised them more snow time if they’d just stand down for now.

By the time they were tucked against my skin again, Kris was starting to stir, a faint groan falling from his lips.

I knelt by his side. “Kris?” I brushed a hand over his cheek which was now wet with melting snow.

“Uh…” He brought a hand to his head like he was trying to hold it in place. “What happened?” His eyes flew open, and he looked up at me, his mouth dropping open when he realized how close I was. Backing off, I gave him some space, and he scrambled into a sitting position and looked me over from head to toe. “You… I saw…tentacles.”

My eyes fell closed and I tipped my head to stare at the snow on the ground while I took a breath and prepared to rip off the proverbial Band-Aid. I couldn’t bear to look at him while I told him the truth in case he freaked out even more than he already had.

“You’re right. I promise your mind isn’t fucking with you. I’m a kraken. The sea monsters you teach your students about? Yeah, we’re all real, and there are a lot of us living in Lifeboat.” In for a penny, in for a pound.

He gasped, the sound swallowed up by the wintry stillness around us.

I kept my eyes trained on the ground, counting the pine needles scattered around my shoes while I waited for him to start screaming or something. Honestly, I’d never had to tell someone I was a kraken before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

It sure as hell wasn’t Kris’s tentative fingers running over the lines of my tentacles where they lay against my skin. I was still too much of a coward to look at him, though.

“These aren’t tattoos?”

His inflection said it was a question, and I shook my head. “No.”

His callused fingertips traced one tentacle from my wrist up to my elbow. “Can I see?”

Finally, I lifted my head and met his eyes. The fear and trepidation I expected to find there was missing. Instead, Kris’s eyes almost glowed with curiosity.

“Uh, sure.”

Kris was kneeling on the wet ground, so at least if he passed out again he wouldn’t have far to fall.

It didn’t take much to partially shift, and I watched Kris’s face the whole time as the tentacles that rested against my arms lifted from my skin. I kept them close to my body, but the one wrapped around my left arm slid over Kris’s hand where it was still touching my wrist.

“That is so fucking cool.”

The tentacle preened at the praise and wrapped more of itself around Kris’s hand until it looked like we were joined together.

In the back of my mind, I wondered if maybe my tentacles knew something I didn’t as a voice that felt like it came from somewhere in the middle of my hearts whispered mine .

“Don’t you need to be in the water?” Kris asked, his voice tinged with concern.

“Yes, if I want to take my full form. I can partially shift like this on land. I can actually take a half form that’s a little more than this. My body and face remain vaguely human but my arms and legs shift to their true form as additional tentacles.”

“Will you show me your full form?”

I swallowed back the nervous laugh that threatened to climb up my throat. “If you want me to.”

He nodded. “I do.”

“Are you freaking out right now? I can’t tell.”

He smiled, his beard twitching. “No. I’m good, I think. I’m actually a little embarrassed I fainted.”

“In your defense, I can imagine being saved by a pair of tentacles probably wasn’t on your Saturday evening bingo card.”

Kris laughed, his body vibrating with the deep, rich sound, and I felt it in each of my hearts and a little lower. Now that my tentacles had been revealed, the need to get all my appendages all over Kris that I’d been repressing surged to the surface again, making my cock thicken and my hearts beat triple time with anticipation.

“Can’t say that it was.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. Things in Lifeboat are different than they are in Baleen. I never had to hide there.”

A strong gust of wind blew through, bringing a thick swirl of snow, and Kris got to his feet. I stood too. “We need to get back, but will you explain what you mean on the way?”

“Of course. You deserve to know, and Calder Delmar and his family have been doing their level best to keep the humans in Lifeboat from knowing the truth.”

Kris’s face dropped into a scowl. “I really hate that guy.”

“Feeling’s mutual.” We gathered up the pieces of my ruined coat, and Kris frowned. “Aren’t you freezing?”

I shook my head. “The coat’s just for show so I can blend in. I can regulate my own body temperature. It’s a kraken thing, an evolutionary advantage that makes it comfortable for us to swim in water that’s any temperature.”

“So freaking cool.” The words were muttered, and I wasn’t sure Kris had even meant to say them out loud.

True to my word, I explained the oceanic ley lines and haven towns to Kris on our way back to the barn.

“I’ve recently learned that my family was appointed to protect Lifeboat by the magic, but due to circumstances involving leadership in Baleen, they left. Apparently, it’s a big deal I’m back in town.”

“If it means getting Calder Delmar out of the mayor’s office, I’m here for it.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy. Marvin was telling me?—”

“Marvin?” Kris took his eyes off the snowy trail for a second. “My Marvin?”

“Yes. This is what we were talking about earlier.”

“How does he know anything about any of this?”

Technically, Marvin’s identity wasn’t mine to reveal, but he’d given me permission earlier. It still felt strange to be the one to tell Kris that a man he’d known his whole life wasn’t what he thought he was. “He’s a kelpie. An old one. He’s been here almost since the town was founded.”

“Shut up.”

I hoped this wasn’t the thing that pushed Kris over the edge. “It’s true.”

“I would never have known.”

“As shapeshifters, it’s easiest for kelpies to pass as human.”

Kris’s eyes narrowed as he presumably mentally scrolled through his nautical mythology notes, pulling forth everything he knew about kelpies, then nodded. “Yeah, that makes total sense.” He tipped his head my way. “Sorry to interrupt. Go ahead.”

“Marvin was saying that the Delmars saw the vacancy left by my grandfather and took advantage of the opportunity to enact their own plans, which meant driving out as many humans as possible and making it so the sea monsters in town hid their true selves away. But that makes the ley line magic unstable. I’m not sure why. I’m going to have to contact my grandfather for the specifics, but regardless, it puts the town at risk for attacks like the one on my shop.”

“Wait. What? There was an attack on your shop?” His fingers clenched tight on the steering wheel, his knuckles going white. “The window.”

“Yes. It wasn’t a random act of vandalism or kids messing around. It was a sea wraith attack.”