My hand closed around the doorknob, and I hesitated for just a moment, drawing in a deep breath before pulling it open. The wind immediately caught it, swinging the door wider before slamming it shut behind me with a force that made me jump.
“Okay,” I muttered under my breath. “So it seems even the cottage agrees I need a trip to town.”
When I got back, me and this cottage were going to need to have a serious talk about who was in control here and who owned who, but right now, it seemed I was committing to this adventure down the cliff.
The air outside hit me instantly, whipping through my hair and sending golden brown strands flying in every direction until I hastily pulled it back. I already felt like a mess, I didn’t need to look like one too. Even if the owner was an octopus, I had a feeling he’d be able to sense exactly how much of a disaster I was anyway. No need to advertise it.
I pulled my coat tighter around myself and started down the path, careful with my footing because, of course, I had chosen to wear heels. They weren’t my best pair, so I didn’t mind if they got dirty, but moving forward, I definitely needed to invest in better footwear if walking up and down this cliffside path was going to be my norm. Sure, it would ruin my vintage aesthetic, but so would me tumblingmy ass down this path.
“Food,” I reminded myself quietly as I walked, my voice nearly lost to the wind. Then, after a beat, “And a massage, because you’ve earned it.”
I picked up my pace, not entirely sure if it was my stomach leading the way or the deep, aching pull in my muscles, but either way, I kept moving.
Head up. Shoulders back. One step at a time.
Chapter 2: Octavius
BY THE TIME MY last scheduled client left, I felt hollowed out from the inside, yet somehow filled to the brim at the same time, my body caught between exhaustion and the urgent need to release everything I had absorbed from today’s workload. Or rather, from the relentless stream of clients who had come through in the last few hours, one after another without pause. It always hit like this when I didn’t pace myself, when I let the tide of Crescent Cove’s burdens roll in unchecked, trusting I could carry it all without consequence.
Suctions & Serenity Spasaw its heaviest traffic in the late afternoons, when Crescent Cove seemed to collectively remember that living by the seadid not, in fact, make anyone immune to tension. The day had started slow, deceptively so, the quiet almost lulling me into a false sense of ease before the floodgates opened without warning. Clients came in one after another, carrying the weight of their lives as if it had nowhere else to go—except here, in my shop, it did.
My first client had been a sea witch, already rubbing at her temples the moment she stepped inside, probably from brewing too many weather potions in too short a time. By noon, a merfolk had stumbled in, shoulders knotted from hauling nets through the morning’s rough currents, muscles wound tight from fighting tides. And then there had been the selkies, not one, not two, butthreeof them drifting through my door in silent succession. Two carried the usual aches and pains, the kind that camewith long swims and longer days, but the third... the third had been something else entirely.
Their grief clung to them, thinly disguised beneath polite words about stiff backs and sore necks, but I felt it the moment my tentacles brushed against their skin. The sorrow ran deep beneath the surface, pouring into me without resistance and settling into an ache that had nothing to do with physical pain and everything to do with loss. Their partner had recently passed, and that grief had nowhere to go, trapped in every part of this poor selkie, inside and out, with no release except... into me.
I knew I was the only one in Crescent Cove who could truly take that kind of pain from them. While I wasn’t the only octopus shifter in town, I was the only one who could offer this kind of service, that kind of ease, even if it meant carrying it myself. No matter what brought them through my doors, they all wanted the same thing in the end.
Relief.
A temporary reprieve from whatever life had sunk its hooks into and refused to let go.
My tentacles handled the visible work, easing through muscle and tension like any ordinary massage parlor might, but that was never the real reason they came to me. Being an octopus shifter had its perks, and yes, having eight extra limbs helped, but it was what those limbs could do beyond the surface that made my business thrive.
My tentacles could work magic in ways that, even in a magical town, people were still awestruck by. With each appointment, as Iwent to work, my tentacles couldquite literallytake emotions away. I could feel the sadness, the fear, the anger, and even, at times, feelings that echoed close to love. I could completely pull those emotions away if that was what the client wished, my suckers pulling theink stainsfrom their lives and into my own body.
I could absorb it all and feel it on their behalf—for the right price, of course—but even then, there was always a limit. Absorbing too much, too quickly, was dangerous, something I had learned the hard way long before Suctions & Serenity had ever opened its doors. But I had control now, having learned to drain it properly over the years when my tank felt too full.
And where better to release emotions that crashed like waves than the ocean itself, in my secret cove that was always right at my disposal.
Releasing it was the only part of this work that ever felt clean. I would stand at the shoreline, the tide pulling in and out like a steady breath, and let it go. The stress, the fear, the grief, all of it leaving me in slow, glowing ribbons, bleeding into the water in shimmering hues of blue and silver. The sea took it without hesitation, transforming something that could be so ugly and painful into something so beautiful.
No one knew just how much the absorption took a toll on my own body. It was easier for them to convince themselves it was just a transaction, that I took what was requested, held it, and disposed of it with no harm done, leaving them to walk out as happy, stress-free clients. I never let anyone see how much had built up inside me or how it lingered beneath the surface.
It had a way of bleeding into everything, though. Sometimes I couldn’t even tell if it was the weight of my work or just who I was thatmade me seem like a broody asshole.No, not seem—I corrected myself. Iwasa broody asshole, one who preferred his privacy outside of work.
