Destiny is too subjective, especially when it is placed in the hands of an all-powerful being. It’s too vague and nonspecific. But if I had to wager, a soulmate is the closest answer.
I tie the log off then grab another to continue building the roof. A commotion draws my attention back to the sea.
Vasz comes sprinting out of the water, barking, “Krakens! Krakens coming! Many, many krakens! “
The blood drains from my face. I launch toward the beach to grab my mate. “Cindi!” I roar. “Get out of the water.”
Brown eyes swing to mine with panic. She drops onto the board and quickly paddles back to shore, casting frightened glances behind her.
Vasz rushes besides me, panting, “Must protect.”
It isn’t until the first wave hits me that I sense them. There are at least twenty different scents contaminating the water. They’re close—too close. They’ll arrive in a matter of seconds.
They know Cindi is here. There’s no way they wouldn’t. Her own scent is strong from all the time she spends surfing.
None have ever dared venture this close to my island before, for fear of what I might do to them. Something must have changed. Someone could have seen Cindi, or her scent might have traveled further than it would have from the storm the other day.
I swim faster than I ever have before, lashing my tentacle out to suction onto her board before tearing her toward the beach. Vasz swoops beneath the water to help push her forward.
“Ordus, what’s happening?” Her voice shakes.
“Go to the den.Now.” Red tints my vision. They dare approach? Theydareput my mate in danger?
She stumbles onto her feet, narrowing her eyes out at the water. “What is that—? Holy fuck.”
Panic, raw and all-consuming, grips me by the neck. Our den is the only place they won’t be able to get to her. The enchantment only allows for me, Vasz, and my mate to enter. But how long would she survive down there if I died?
“Cindi,leave,” I snarl, putting every ounce of my desperation into the word.
But it’s too late. The first kraken appears above the waves. A hunter. Our strongest one. She carries out the most trips to the mainland to bring back game. Marussa is smaller than the last time I saw her, less flesh and more bone, with sunken eyes and pale skin.
One by one, krakens breach the surface, each looking as tired and starved as the last, all sporting the same faint, greenish hue. Females, males, they all appear, crowding my shore.
In the center of it all is Lazell, surrounded by the twelve other members of the Council and our few remaining sentries.
Vasz growls beside me, barking in warning. Cindi makes no move to run like I demanded. I force her behind me, my fury flaring. My chest and limbs expand, making myself bigger, primed for battle.
All eyes are directed on the human behind me.
I want to kill them. I want their deaths to be long and torturous, their organs littering my shores.
Lazell gnashes his teeth at me. “What is the meaning of this?” he hisses, nodding at my mate, speaking the kraken tongue.
“I should be asking you this.” My rage lashes at the kraken who’s been pining for my death since the moment I was born. “You are trespassing on my island. Leave before I kill you all.”
“Some king you are, threatening your people,” he spits. A chorus of agreement echoes through the crowd. “You brought ahumaninto our territory. You let her see our kind.Youbroke your family’s own rules.”
“Lazell was right,” Mailien, another Council member, starts. “You’re consorting with humans. Have you learned nothing from the Witch?”
“They should have killed you,” another jeers.
“Vermin!”
“The humans will come for us!”
“Seize him!”
Each cry is another knife in my chest. It’s like I’m thirteen years old, swimming back home with my latest catch. I can feel their phantom hands clawing at me, the pierce of the hook into my ribs that narrowly missed my lungs. Their words echo in my head, clanging against my skull before striking again, over and over.
