Chapter 9

Kai strode across the river bridge that linked the marshes to the docklands and through the busy quayside precinct, ignoring the nudges, the heckling and wolf whistles, before remembering he was supposed to play to it all. He switched on the charm, the smiles, took the notepads and pieces of torn paper and autographed them. Posed for a photo or two.

“My cousin is going to beat ya,” grinned a burly minotaur. “Nils will take you down, mate. Purple Lantern district team.”

“His fat bovine hooves will get stuck in the mud in the first minute.” Kai grinned back. It was all good-natured banter, all for show.

Pose. Pose. Pose.

Act. Act. Act.

Finally, the group thinned out.

A goblin still lagged behind, wanting to chat. “I ain’t in a hurry to go back to my shit job,” he muttered. “Treat you like dogs in that fucking warehouse.”

Kai’s ears pricked. “I don’t suppose you know a human who works around here. Woman. Does warehouse packing.”

“Why d’you ask?”

“Ah—just… I spoke to her the other day at Sweet Clams, she wanted my autograph.”

“That’d be Luna. But she wouldn’t think highly enough of anyone to want their autograph.”

Yeah, thought Kai, that fit.

“Maybe she wanted it for a friend,” he said. “But she didn’t have paper, so I said I’d do it next time I saw her.”

His companion laughed. “Well, apart from Marrick and Harper, she don’t have no friends either.”

Her soft moans and cries came back to Kai and his breath stuttered in his throat. What they’d shared was a hell of a lot more than friendship.

Pull yourself together.

“Come with me, I’ll show you,” the goblin said. “It’ll make me popular, rolling up with the kraken contestant.”

When they got inside someone shouted at the goblin to get his lazy ass back to work and he speared off with a thumb over his shoulder. “You’ll find her in zone D.”

Kai made his way toward the D sign, dodging a lifter as he walked. Gods they moved this shit around fast. So much shit. Stuff that humans were sending out in ships. Ships that avoided the kraken waters, but for how much longer? And all of this industry dropped pollution into the ocean. It had taken years to clean up Thedaka from the muck that spread out from East Motham these past two centuries. Only in the last decade had it started to return to the grandeur of old, its structures gleaming once more, its coral and plant life rejuvenating.

He was crazy to be seeking out a human, after the animosity of centuries between their species.

“What you want mate?” a burly centaur asked as he shifted crates.

Kai took a deep breath. “Is Luna around?”

“Yeah, she’ll be somewhere…” Then it clearly dawned. “Eh fuck—you’re the kraken this year, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

“What you want with Luna?”

Kai repeated the line about her wanting his autograph and, like the goblin, the centaur’s lip twitched in amused disbelief. “She’s probably on her break right now. If you can’t find her, go look out in the staff courtyard, door at the back.”

“Thanks mate.”

“Hey, while you’re here—” The centaur took a notebook out of his pocket, a pen from behind his ear. “Scrawl your autograph here, so we can laugh over it when you get beaten.”

“That won’t be happening.” Kai grinned as he signed.

When he reached the door to the courtyard, he paused. What the fuck was he going to say to her, even if she was here?

Warn her off. Tell her to get the hell out of his games. Or she’d get hurt.

Nothing to do with your bruised ego?

Oh, fuck no, he was over her, wasn’t he? This was just about calling out her shitty behavior.

If she wasn’t alone, he’d turn and leave, Kai told himself. Cautiously, he moved through the open door, peered into the lunch area. There was a makeshift shade cover on poles over a long table and mixed stools. A straggly pot plant was trying to climb the mesh fencing, but clearly no one watered it.

And there she was, right up one end of the table, her straight blonde bob shining bright in a shaft of sunlight that fell through a rip in the shade. She was sipping a can of high energy drink, eating a sandwich and staring into space. Her legs were twizzled around the legs of the stool, and he could see the defined muscles of her shoulder and biceps in her tee. Strong, wiry, flexible. Yeah, well, that would fit with the memory of her acrobatic moves as they made lov—fucked.

That’s all. Just fucked.

Kai was sure his hearts were going to hammer their way out of his chest as he strolled over. Not until his shadow fell over her did she look up.

Her mouth had the grace to fall open.

Her strange golden eyes widened, then narrowed as her mouth almost audibly snapped shut.

“What the fuck,” she growled into her sandwich, “are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you too,” Kai sneered. His hearts still hammered, but an almost incandescent rage filled his chest now. Caustic, bitter. Inside his torso, the rustle of his damaged tentacles whispered.

And yet… at the same time his cock, the thing that had gotten him into all this trouble, twitched. He tried to think up words of insult, of hate. But he couldn’t.

“Who told you I was here?” she grunted, lowering her head, a heavy slice of hair falling across her cheek.

“A centaur. I said you wanted my autograph.”

She let out a snort, ripped off a mouthful of the stale-looking bread and chewed angrily, still not looking at him.

Steeling himself, Kai sat down opposite her, and there they stayed in spiky silence for what seemed like forever.

Finally, unable to contain himself any longer, he burst out, “Why did you just disappear?”

“Aw, are you sad I didn’t give you a farewell fuck?” she sneered, still chewing. Her lip curled and she wiped a splodge of sauce away with the back of her hand. Why was he even attracted to her? Really, when you looked at her, she was nothing but a sharp-faced little human, with a sharp tongue to match. But… he was. He so was.

“Were you manipulating me?” he growled.

“What the fuck are you on about?”

“Trying to find my weak spots?”

Her brows arched. “Did I?”

They stared—actually more like scowled—at each other across the table. Kai’s breath came fast and shallow, the barely contained rage tightening his throat. His eyes stung. It struck him that maybe she was like a drug, one that he knew would harm him but that he couldn’t seem to keep away from.

He deepened his scowl. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

She stared back, unblinking. “I repeat—why the fuck are you here?”

“I found out you’ve registered for the games. And a few things fell into place.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Like what?”

“Why you were so keen for me to shift… when we—” He swallowed hard. “— that night.”

She dropped the crusts of her sandwich onto the paper bag, licked her fingers. “I just felt like tentacle sex, is all.”

He wanted to grab her by the front of her tee, pull her up to face him, nose to nose, chest to chest. Fucking smack that pouty rude little mouth—or kiss it. Bite it. He didn’t know which, he just knew he wanted to hurt her the way she’d hurt him by leaving. By using him.

She stood up abruptly. “For the record, it was fun, but yeah, you’re just a notch on my bedpost.” She flung her sandwich at the bin. A perfect hit. “Tentacle play,” she made a tick motion in the air with her finger, then turned toward the door, that smirk pulling her small mouth sideways in a way that shouldn’t be the least bit sexy, but somehow fucking was. “See you in the ring.”

He stormed over to her, his sense of being manipulated, being ignored, playing into every other time he’d been belittled, made fun of. She was moving fast, but he was faster, blocking the exit, muscles pumped, his color deepening with anger. She stood barely inches from him now, as prickly as a fucking sea urchin, staring woodenly at the center of his chest.

“Let me pass,” she demanded.

Kai didn’t budge. “I don’t get you. When we… ” he growled in frustration. “It was good, for me… I thought… it was good for you too.”

“Ever heard of a hate fuck?”

Kai blinked, suddenly bewildered.

“How can you hate me? You don’t even know me.”

Finally, she met his gaze and the look in her eyes made him want to recoil.

“Not just you,” she gritted out. “I hate all krakens.”