11. Thane

11

THANE

This time, I don’t leave the tower. I’ve tried to avoid the woman—to avoid this place—for weeks, and it took one encounter to have her wrapped up in me and cumming again.

Distance won’t work.

Maybe exposure will.

Even as I reason with myself, I know I’m looking for excuses to take what I crave. I barely recognize myself in these encounters with Catalina, but for the first time in five long years, I am not thinking about the past. Instead, I’m plotting the future.

Yes, that vision of the future ends with Catalina on my cock, but it’s still a change I’m not sure I welcome. Up until this point, pleasure has been something to seek in order to scratch an itch: a need like food or water or sleep. It hasn’t been something I’ve craved. I never thought I’d feel that draw again, and I can’t help the guilt that comes with it. Brant has been gone for years, but it feels like a betrayal to want Catalina this much.

It doesn’t matter. It’s inevitable.

I find Della in the kitchen first thing in the morning and relay my instructions. Perhaps I should leave again and return in twenty-four hours to enact my promise to Catalina, but there’s no point to a challenge that isn’t challenging. My presence seems to incite her as much as hers incites me. If she can manage to be?.?.?. good?.?.?. while spending the day with me, then I’ll reward her tomorrow night.

Anticipation licks through me, quickly followed by guilt. I shouldn’t be enjoying this woman. Her presence is something to be endured for the sake of the territory. She’s not a plaything to entertain myself with.

Even as I tell myself that, I make my way up the stairs to Catalina’s room. It’s different than the one from Ramanu’s first check-in. I had her moved to a lower part of the tower with a room better outfitted to serve her needs. If it also happens to be closer to the entrance pool, well, that’s simply coincidence. The door is a bit hidden when one is climbing the stairs, so she must have missed it during her first ascent.

I knock before I can find a reason not to.

Catalina doesn’t make me wait long, but when she opens the door, dark hair tumbled with sleep, clutching a robe around her, I wonder at the intelligence of this plan. She looks soft and touchable, but I must not touch her right now.

I move back. “Get dressed.”

She eyes the new distance between us and rubs her face. “It hasn’t been twenty-four hours.” Even her sleepy voice is enticing. Goddess, but I don’t understand what draws me to this woman. Why now, when I’ve finally settled into some semblance of normalcy?

“What is the point of a test if you’re not tested?”

She brightens, and the smile she gives is so true, it takes my breath away. “You’re going to spend the day with me? You mean it?”

My guilt grows, gaining layers. Guilt over letting her presence outshine the shadows of my past. Guilt for my obvious neglect. “I’ve ill-treated you, haven’t I? Why hasn’t the harm clause been enacted?”

“Oh, that. It’s not harm if it’s normal.” She waves it away, but she won’t quite meet my gaze. “I’m used to it.”

Used to it.

So much encompassed in those three little words. I can’t go back and change my actions in the past few weeks, but I can change them going forward.

Selfish. You want her, and you’re looking for an excuse.

Yes. Yes, it’s true.

“You shouldn’t be used to it,” I grind out.

Catalina tucks a long strand of dark hair behind her ear. “I don’t suppose we can leave the tower?”

“No.” I hate the way her face falls, hate even more the way she smiles to cover her disappointment. “Tomorrow,” I find myself saying. “I’ll take you out.”

She narrows her eyes. “Is there a caveat on this offer? Are you going to tell me to be good or that I have to scrub the entire tower before I can leave?”

“Do you view both of those things as equally impossible tasks?”

“Of course.” She turns and gives me a sultry look over her shoulder. “I think you’ll find I’m never good, Thane.” Catalina shuts the door in my face before I can come up with a suitable response.

It’s just as well. My only response would be to drag her to me and kiss that smart mouth of hers. I shake my head slowly. I tasked her with being good, but the true challenge might be for me not to give in out of sheer desire.

I head to the formal dining room that hasn’t been used in goddess knows how long. Five years. Annis waits there, her hands clasped in front of her. She squeaks a little when she sees me. “Everything will be ready soon, sir.”

“Please go wait until Catalina is ready and then escort her here.” I make my tone as gentle as I can, but she still jumps as if I poked her with a sharp stick.

I bite back a sigh and sink into a wide seat at the head of the table. Ever since I reached my age of majority and stepped into a leadership role within the territory, I’ve been achingly aware of the power imbalance between myself and my people. A power imbalance that my poor social skills only seem to exacerbate. I don’t have Embry’s easy charm. Ze is beloved by our people. Though they aren’t exactly counting down the days until I step down, there’s sure to be a celebration when I finally do.

If Azazel hadn’t issued his invitation that was impossible to refuse, it would have been this year. But Embry insisted I be the one to go. Ze is still worried about me.

Embry is ready. Truth be told, ze has been ready for years. I suspect ze encouraged me to keep my position solely because ze was afraid of what I might do if I didn’t have something to keep me going after Brant’s death. I wish I could say ze had nothing to worry about, but my grief in that first year made me into a person I didn’t recognize. I was never the most emotional person, but it was like losing him took away what little I had. I went completely numb.

It still hasn’t worn off. Not entirely.

Footsteps bring me back to myself. I look up as Catalina walks into the dining room. She’s somewhat tamed her hair, and she’s wearing a gown similar to the one she had on last night. This time it’s a pale gray, the clasps at the shoulders a pretty silver that seem to beg to be touched. To be undone.

She eyes the chair next to me and then perches awkwardly on the edge of it. Like all the chairs in this room, it’s made for someone with tentacles, which means it’s far too wide and sloped for a human.

“I didn’t bring you here to punish you.”

She looks up, startled. “What?”

“To the tower.” I motion around us. I don’t know why I’m doing this, but I don’t know why I’ve done anything in this woman’s presence that I have. She simply seems a bit lost, and I want to chase that look from her hazel eyes. “Henryk threatened you. I wasn’t thinking. I was reacting.”

“He was just angry. It really wasn’t that deep.”

There it is again. Her insistence that her health and well-being are somehow not worthy of note. “He had a knife.”

“He didn’t cut me.” She shrugs. “I didn’t need your interference. I would have handled it.”

Just like that, I understand something that had been bothering me for weeks. “That’s why the contract wasn’t triggered the first day.” By all rights, it should have been. We needed Embry’s healing magic to save Catalina or she would have died. There is no other way to define that except as harm, but Azazel only knew about it because I contacted him.

“What are you talking about?”

“You expect to be hurt, so it barely registers when it happens.”

Catalina flinches. “Wow, make me sound pathetic, why don’t you?”

“That’s not what I mean.” I scrub my hand over my face. I don’t want to lose my territory, but I am increasingly uncomfortable with how lackadaisical Catalina is about her safety, physical and otherwise. “Tell me what you need. I can’t promise that I won’t misstep, but I will do my best to ensure you’re provided for.”

“Pass.”

“Excuse me?”

She looks around the room, obviously not wanting to meet my gaze. “I might be willing to take a pity fuck from you, but I’m doing just fine, Thane. I don’t need a pity?.?.?. whatever it is you’re offering.”

She’s doing it again. I have to fight not to clench my fists. “I do not pity fuck.”

Catalina opens her mouth, seems to reconsider what she’s about to say, and twists a strand of her hair around one finger. “Okay.”

“You’re saying that like you don’t believe me.”

“Thane, you fuck me with your tentacles like you’re mad at me and yourself.” She holds up a hand before I can process that. “I am not complaining. That’s not what this is. I just don’t get the one-eighty you’re pulling right now.”

I don’t truly understand it either, but I’m not willing to take that conversational turn with her. Being here is challenging enough, but not because I don’t find myself enjoying her company. It’s the guilt. There’s both too much of it and not enough, and I can’t begin to untangle the mess in my head. “I am trying to make things right.”

“You know how you can make things right?”

I know I’m going to regret asking, but I find myself looking forward to whatever wild thing will come out of her mouth next. “I’m sure you have some suggestions.”

“An orgy.”

“Absolutely not.” The words snap out of me like a whip.

Catalina grins at me, her eyes sparkling. “Okay, if not an orgy, then a little bit of exhibitionism. We could—”

“You will not be fucking in public, Catalina.”

She pouts. “Spoilsport.”

I give her a long look. She’s inciting me on purpose, and we both know it, but that doesn’t mean I’m unaffected by this line of conversation. I don’t like the idea of her with someone else. At all. “I will not indulge this further.”

“Oh, come on, Thane.” She leans on the table and gives me sultry eyes. “Indulge me. I promise it will be fun.”

Of that, I suddenly have no doubt. I actually reach for her with my tentacles before I catch myself and force stillness. “Be good.”

Instantly, she straightens. “I’m always good. But I’ll behave.” She winks. “I couldn’t possibly pass up the opportunity for your cock.”

A bolt of sheer need goes through me. “Catalina,” I growl.

“What?” She’s the very picture of innocence. “Though I do have a few questions about the specifics.” She twists her hair around her fingers again, but the move is more flirty than anxious this time. “How do you even know sex with a human will work? Do you have an octopus penis? Do octopuses have penises?”

“A kraken is closer to a squid than an octopus.”

“You have suckers.” She points at the tentacles on my head. “A lot of suckers.”

This conversation is absurd, and yet I’m so turned on, I can barely think straight. “My people are capable of sex with humans. We always have been.”

“Always have been,” she echoes. Her eyes go wide. “Wait, you mean somewhere in the distant past, a human fucked a literal kraken? Not a half-human, half-kraken person, but a ship-killer giant squid kraken?”

“Yes,” I say slowly.

“Wow, and I thought I was adventurous.” She leans forward and eyes my lower half. “So you’ve fucked humans before.”

“Once or twice.” When I was younger and straining against my parents’ rules and so sure I knew best. I almost got myself entangled with a bargainer demon as a result of playing with a human under their protection. “A long time ago.” Before Embry and I became orphans in a war that ended with a whisper instead of a bang. Pointless. So much of the conflict in our realm is so incredibly pointless.

Ironic that I’m up to my eyeballs in a contract now despite escaping that one when I was young.

Catalina sits back, expression contemplative. “I’ll save my next question for later because you’re kind of a stick-in-the-mud and I don’t think you’d consider it being good.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to encourage her to be bad, but I bite down on the words before they can escape. What is wrong with me? “Why did you make your demon deal?”

“Oh. That.” She dims a little, but her lips curve in that wild smile. “Money.”

“Money.” I frown. “You gave seven years of your life for finances?”

“People give their entire lives for money. Their health and time and energy. What’s seven years?” She shrugs. “Besides, I didn’t have much to hold me where I was. No reason to stay, no reason not to take advantage of Azazel’s offer.”

She speaks with a breezy tone that reeks of lies. I have no business demanding to know the truth?.?.?. but I want to. It’s strange that I want to. My confusion makes my tone sharp. “There’s no one to miss you?”

“That would require them to care if I’m around.” She says it softly enough, I don’t think she means for me to hear it.

But I do.

Goddess, I do.

Suddenly I see Catalina in a different light entirely. She’s so bold and brazen and filled with light, but how many times in our short acquaintance have I wondered at the lie that is her wild smile? A mask, rather than a lie. I should have known it’s a mask.

But who is the woman beneath?

I crave knowing her with an intensity that takes me aback. “Tell me about your family.”

“Tell me about your husband.”

I jerk back. “Excuse me?”

She doesn’t move. “You heard me. If we’re going to start opening old wounds, we’re doing it together. Or not at all. Your choice.”

Under no circumstances am I going to talk about Brant with her. It feels strange and almost like a betrayal, though I can’t begin to say who I’m betraying. My long-lost love or the strangely fragile woman in front of me. I still haven’t unsnarled the guilt inside me, some of which is for Brant and some for Catalina, and attempting to do it in real time will ensure I accidentally speak out of turn. “I take your point.”

“I thought you might.”

We both fall silent as Della and Annis come into the room, each bearing half a dozen trays of food. Too much food, for all that it smells delicious. “Thank you.”

They set the trays on the table without a word and leave. I bite back a sigh. Della still hasn’t forgiven me for my sharp words after Ramanu arrived, and Annis has always been skittish around me. It doesn’t look like either situation will resolve itself tonight.

“What will you do with all this money you’re paying so dearly for?” A question I have no business asking, but that hasn’t stopped me yet when it comes to this woman.

Catalina pokes at a plate of food with a strange look on her face. “The usual. Live a life of luxury. Eat like a queen. Surround myself with beautiful people who want to make me happy.”

I frown. “Those people will only want you for your money.”

“What’s your point?” For once, she’s not laughing. Her expression is painfully serious as she sets down her fork and looks at me. “You’re the king of this territory.”

“Yes,” I say slowly. There’s a trap here, but I can’t divine the parameters of it.

“So you’re the most powerful person around. Power and money are the two main things that attract people in droves. How do you know every person who cozies up to you is pure of heart?”

Something uncomfortable takes up residence in my chest. “I don’t. Not until time has passed.”

“Exactly. You can’t tell the difference. I can’t tell the difference.” She picks up her fork again. “Which means the difference really doesn’t matter for my purposes.”

There’s a wealth of information in that single sentence. I don’t know what to do with it, though. Not yet. I’ll need to ponder Catalina and what it is about her life that brought her to this place where she’d happily surround herself with people who don’t care for her?.?.?. just as long as they’re there.

I care. I’m not entirely comfortable with the fact that I do, but I wouldn’t feel this conflicted about possibly betraying Brant’s memory if there weren’t some genuine feelings for Catalina involved.

I’ll ensure she’s with someone who truly cares, even if it’s only for tonight.