By the time I reached the shoreline, night had fully settled over the cove. The world softened into shadows and silver, the waves lapping dark and reflective against the rocks. I stepped onto a flat stretch of wet stone and drew in a slow breath, filling my lungs with salt and night air.
Then, as if it were second nature, which by now it was, I opened the channels inside myself and finally let the day go.
Stress left me in dark, silken streams, unseen at first, slipping quietly from beneath my skin until they met the water and revealed themselves in faint, shifting light as the ocean accepted it without hesitation. Pale luminescence bloomed where the ink dissolved, growing brighter the more I released, spreading outward in slow, rippling waves of blue-silver shimmer that turned the surface into something almost celestial, as if the stars themselves had sunk beneath it and were trying to rise again.
I stood there, watching it expand and fade into the water, until my attention drifted to the cliff above, where Kara was probably already sleeping off the aftereffects in her crumbling cottage that stood just above the cove.My cove.
I drew my coat tighter against the wind and turned back toward town, feeling relief finally settle into my system as the last of it bled out of me. There had definitely been far too much for a single day’s work,most of ithers, and I knew deep down there was more to Kara than she was letting on.
I was going to see her again, if she took my advice about another session that was. And this time, I intended to pay closer attention to what she was hiding and who she actually was.
Chapter 3: Kara
FOR EXACTLY ELEVEN AND a half minutes after I left Suctions & Serenity, I was convinced I had died on that massage table. It was the only explanation that made any sense, because there was no earthly—or, given this town, possiblyunearthly—reason my entire being should have felt this light.
All the stress that had been lodged in my chest since I made that stupid decision to help my ex—the same decision that chained me to a contract with Zavier, that turned every day into survival mode in that hellhole gambling den—had followed me here.
Until now.
Because now... it was gone. Completely gone.
People in town hadn’t been exaggerating when they talked about Octavius’s magic hands, or more accurately, his tentacles. Tentacles that somehow unraveled years of tension like it was nothing. Tentacles that made me feel calm, like my body had finally remembered what it was supposed to feel like.
Tentacles I absolutely could not stop thinking about.Or imagining.
They moved with a sort of synchronized grace, each one like an extension of his thoughts rather than just his body. When they brushed against my skin, the sensation was nothing like I expected. Not slimy or unsettling, but soft—almost velvety, as they glided over me. The suckers didn’t grip or pull. Instead, they pressed in gentle pulses, each touchintentional, like he knew exactly how much pressure to use and never more than that.
Yeah, there was no way I was getting that out of my head anytime soon.
Because... wow.Him.
I mean, obviously him. It would’ve been impossible not to notice his presence. At first glance, he looked like some pretentious, man-bun-wearing yogi, but that impression didn’t last. There was a quiet intensity about him that completely erased the cliché. Even without the whole magical tentacle thing, he would have been memorable. Tall and built in a way that made the room feel like it adjusted around him, his dark hair and black clothing making him seem like a shadow that swallowed the space.
And then his voice. Fuck, he could read the dictionary and I would hang onto every word. Gruff but smooth and paired with a stoic expression that made it seem like smiling was optional and probably not worth the effort.
And yet, he had been kind. Well, kind enough, I supposed. He had taken me last minute when he could have just said no, and still he agreed. And now I felt like this, like I was finally free from it all.
He wasn’t the kind of person who would wrap you in comfort and tell you everything was going to be okay. That much was obvious. But there had been something about him that was very attentive, like he noticed too much and said too little, which in my experience meant one of two things: a very dangerous man or a very careful one. Possibly both, and I wasn’t sure which intrigued me more.
“You are not going there, Kara,” I muttered to myself, shaking my head as I trudged up the path. “This is how women make bad decisions, something I thought we had already learned from,” I scolded myself again. A stupid man was the reason I was hiding to begin with, so I was not about to develop a crush on the broody octopus shifter who very clearly had boundaries and had probably had to enforce them more than once.
He was a professional. A very attractive, very moody professional... but still.
I wasn’t special, and I knew I was absolutely not the first person to walk out of that place feeling like this, which meant I needed to get a grip.
