Текст книги "The saltwater course"

Автор книги: Avian St. Graves

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

27

Ordus

I can still taste her.

On my tongue, on my suckers, in the pores of my skin. I can taste her, and I feel complete. I was hopeful, but I never thought I’d ever be welcomed into her sex, or press her lips to mine, or hear her say my name with such demanding need.

I throw glances at Cindi as she surfs while I continue building the shelter to install by the beach so she can watch the waves even when the skies open.

I like a lot of things.

I like the meat in a crab’s legs. The smell of the air after a storm. When I put together the final piece of a project and it works exactly how I planned.

I like Cindi’s smile the most.

I like my mate. A lot. Even if she pretends not to like me back, I’d still like her. She’s a fighter. Strong. Smart. Observant. Snappy. When I get angry, she holds her ground—sometimes. Chaotic but organized.

Cindi prefers to sit and watch. That’s what I like to do too. And she’s a tinkerer as well. She has a workroom that’s messier than mine, with just as many unfinished projects.

Most of all, she trusts me.

I’ve spent all morning and afternoon distracted, replaying every moment I spent with my Cindi.

She laughed. I made my mate laugh.

And I made her moan. She was—is so beautiful.

I want to do it over and over again, because it was the most breathtaking thing I’ve ever seen. It is all that has played on my mind, an endless loop that fills me with more joy than I can contain. It was the sweetest melody, more potent than a siren’s song.

She used to always be so dour that her delight is the greatest blessing the Goddess could bestow.

My breeding arm hardens even more when I look at her again—my bulb has been leaking since last night.

Last night was perfect in every way except for the words that left my mouth. Asking her whether she wanted to return to the mainland was foolish. Of course, her answer would be yes. I was an idiot to think what we were doing would somehow change her desire to leave me.

Offering to take her back was even more foolish. She may smile at me and close her eyes when I purr for her, but nothing has changed. The moment we depart this island, she will be plotting her escape. She will run at the first opportunity she gets, and I will drag her back here so she can spend the rest of her days despising me while my territory becomes uninhabitable.

I’m failing my siblings, their deaths meaningless in the name of my mate’s freedom to choose whether to marry me or not. I could’ve spent the past few weeks convincing her to bond to me to save my kingdom, but I couldn’t bring myself to mention it even once. I don’t want to manipulate Cindi into doing anything she doesn’t want to do. She’d only resent me more.

And kraken-kind might die for it.

I understand now why I’m considered a monster, because only a monster would be willing to allow the hundreds who remain to die.

I want my mate more than I want my people to survive. I can only imagine the look of disgust on my family’s face over my selfishness. I have failed at every kingly duty I’ve been given. What’s one more? The gravest one.

If I’m unveiling the full truth to myself, I’m not even certain marrying Cindi would end the Curse. The territory might be too far gone for anything to be done, and Cindi may not be the destined bride—even if she is my soulmate.

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? They dare put 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 a human into our territory. You let her see our kind. You broke 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.

Hands grabbing me. Hitting me. Snarls. Jeers. Taunts. Sharp pain in my side as a chain is wrapped around me.

Make it stop.

I heave for air. They’re screaming, louder and louder. I’m going to die. And my mate—I need to protect my mate.

Make it stop.

“Silence,” I roar, breathing hard. Think. Think. I bare my teeth and slash my tentacles across the water. Krakens jump out of the way. I want to hit skin—need to see blood.

“You told me to pick a bride, so I pick this one.” I motion to my mate, whose burnt scent permeates the air. My fury multiples tenfold.

When Mailien barks “It’s hideous,” I lose it.

No rational thought takes hold. The ugly beast inside me rears its head. The hatred and pain curdles, boiling until it breaks out of my skin. Years of hate, a lifetime of cowering, the grating silence—it all comes out.

The cage is broken. Only blood will settle the beast.

I’m bigger. Faster. Stronger. Mailien’s head is ripped clean from his shoulders before he can blink.

A sentry lunges for me, staff raised, and I dodge it easily, cracking his body beneath my tentacles.

The world is tinged red. Blue bleeds from the krakens onto the shore. I can’t hear their screams, can’t see the disdain written across their faces.

More.

They all need to die for what they’ve done.

I prowl forward, claws poised to tear into skin. Only the softest voice coming from behind me stops me in my tracks.

“Ordus.”

Cindi.

The beast halts long enough for a single thought to break through: if I kill my people, more will come.

They’ll circle the island so we’re trapped until we’ve finished our food reserves. Once I’m weak from starvation, they’ll attack. I won’t risk Cindi’s safety by attempting to swim for the mainland. I can’t kill them.

“You want me to be a monster? Then I am your monster,” I snarl, chest rising and falling, looking every kraken in the eyes. Some bow their heads in fear while others raise them in challenge. “Does anyone else dare insult my mate?”

Lazell glares at me in mortification, blue splatter on his striped skin. “Your mate? Have you gone mad? The Waste has gotten to you.”

The rest of the Council are stiff in their spots, glancing between me and Lazell. They’ll flee the first chance they get. The krakens before me are no true warriors. Some may have fought alongside my brother and sister, but they’ve weakened since then. I may not be afflicted by Waste, but I have had no issue with hunger or sickness.

Still, they’ll be hard to take as a group. Too many for me to ensure Cindi remains protected, even with Vasz’s assistance.

I wrap a tentacle around her, needing to know she’s safe. “I marry her, or I marry no one.”

“Even if mates exist, the Goddess would not curse a land creature to be your mate.” Lazell scoffs, and my limbs flex. One day, his hearts will stop beating beneath my hands.

“I recognize my own mate,” I defend. Her scent may not call to me as the tomes described a mate would, but I feel her in my chest. A pull. A thread connects me to her, even though our scriptures only describe matings between krakens, never a human.

“Please,” Lazell sneers. Krakens cast nervous glances between us. I’m sure they’re wondering if they’re burying another friend today. “You are an abomination who calls himself a kraken. You don’t recognize your own reflection, yet you think you’d recognize your mate?” A snarl rips from my throat. He ignores it. “Since you are incapable of logic, let me put it in simple terms for you. The Witch would have never forced a human to suffer the fate of marrying the very kind that killed her offspring. You have one chance. Do not waste it on pests.”

My nostrils flare. I have no rebuttal. Other than my grandmother, a mating of any kind between a kraken and human is unheard of. There is nothing for me to go off.

“Watch how you speak of your future queen. It is an affront to the Goddess to question her will. Is that what you intend to do? Offend Edea?”

“The Goddess has no domain over humans, Your Majesty.” He says my title in mockery.

“Had you not cowered in the palace and continued your schooling, you would know this.”

Again, nothing.

I have no basis to deny his claim beyond personal belief. The Goddess has taken the life of many humans, both in the water and on land. Our teachings only ever concern krakens and our worship of Edea. It makes little sense that she reigns over every being in the sea, yet her powers end with the souls of humans.

Lazell continues. “There are krakens for you to choose⁠—”

I’ve heard enough.

“I have decided!” Cindi is my mate. This is not a point of debate. “Or have you forgotten the Curse requires the bride to be willing? That I be willing. We have one final chance, and I pick my mate.”

“Mate?” He arches a brow, dragging his blatant perusal over my torso and the notable lack of marriage mark. “Yet you have not bonded with her.”

My teeth grind. “I will not be rushed.”

“We are starving, and you want to take your time with the human female?” He hisses. “You will never deserve to be king.”

“We’ll kill her,” a kraken barks. I snap my attention in their direction, unable to pinpoint the culprit.

Counselor Ronet nods her agreement. “We will not bow to a human.”

My blood burns. I shift forward to gut every kraken on this shore for threatening my mate. I forget I’m holding Cindi, her small hands falling onto the width of my tentacle, halting me in place. It’s a silent reminder she’s alive and my stupidity would be the death of her.

My response to their claim is simple. Certain. The weight of my venomous glare falls on Counselor Ronet. “Then I kill myself, and all hope will be lost.” She shifts her weight, referring to Lazell for his support. “Then there will be no saving these lands.” I hold up two fingers, a reminder to everyone that even though my hands are different to theirs, their existence is in the palm of mine. “You have two options, and I suggest you think carefully about your response. Leave and never return, or learn why I am just as deadly as Chlaena.”

A collection of sharp gasps echo through the crowd. Their last hope is the two things they despise most.

That would be the Witch’s last laugh.

“Kraken-kind will be eradicated because of your selfish delusions,” Lazell states, cutting Ronet off before she can speak.

My lips peel back, and I bring Cindi right up to my side for all to see me stake my claim. “Decide. Die by my hands or the Witch’s. One is more certain than the other.”

I tuck my mate tighter against me when everyone’s attention falls on my woman. There’s a pregnant moment of silence. Cindi sinks her nails into me. No amount of pumping my venom into her makes her relax. Finally, Lazell speaks.

“You have until the full moon in eleven nights. If the Curse has not ended by then, we will come for the human, and our kind will finally be rid of you.” He turns and begins his descent into the water.

The blood drains from my face. Eleven nights? Cindi will not be any closer to loving me by then.

Or I could leave, reside on the mainland with Cindi where we’ll be safe. But then, all of kraken-kind will be damned, making my family’s death meaningless. They would have died for a kingdom I’m too selfish to try to save.

One female at the cost of an entire race, and the memory of the only ones who ever cared for me.

I snarl in frustration. I want to save my territory. I want any cub I may have to see the beauty of our land—the land every person I’ve shared blood with has sacrificed to save. I want to look my mate and my offspring in the eyes and tell them a whole kingdom is at their fingertips. A kingdom I, my brother, and my sister all brought back to life.

I address Lazell, making all krakens pause to look back at me. “Then a blood oath, here and now. If the Curse is broken, no harm will befall my female or me.”

I can’t lose her. It can’t all be for nothing.

He stops but doesn’t grant me the respect of turning his body to speak to me, angling his head to the side.

“I will not spill my blood for you, most definitely not for a human.” Before he dives into the water, he repeats, “Eleven days, King Ordus.”

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28

Cindi

I dig my trembling fingers into Ordus’ meaty limbs. They’re looking at me. The fucking krakens are looking at me.

They say there are only two responses: fight or flight. But freeze needs to be added to that list.

Shock made me stupid.

I should have run for the cave the moment Ordus told me to. Instead, I’m out here being stared down by actual creature-of-the-night monsters.

Monsters stare me down like they want to eat me alive and gnaw on my bones like a drumstick. I’ve seen that look on the Gallagher men a hundred times. But now, I have no doubt I may very well be turned into octopus chow.

They could be talking about how to season me right now, and I wouldn’t have a clue. Nothing in their language sounds remotely similar to anything I understand—not Indonesian, Thai, or English. There’s a lot of weird clicking and gulping being thrown around.

I wouldn’t stand a chance against them. With every fiber of my being, I trust Ordus to protect me, but one against thirty isn’t exactly a fair fight.

They’re frightening. Hideous-looking. The stuff of real nightmares. Not a single one of them has Ordus’ beauty—shit, if I didn’t have context, I could be convinced they’re an entirely different species.

They have elongated oval skulls that protrude well over the top of their spines. Their heads look squishy. If I were to poke one, it’d cave under my fingers as I imagine would happen to a real octopus. I think it’s called a mantle—something Ordus most definitely doesn’t have hiding beneath his hair.

The similarity with Ordus starts with eight tentacles and ends with two arms and a humanoid torso—minus the webbing between their ribs and biceps.

It’s a good thing. A very, very good thing. If any of them showed up at my house and kidnapped me, I would have put a blade through their chest, and I wouldn’t have missed.

No two kraken look the same, other than the general attributes of their bodies. Some have spiked ears like Ordus, others are tube-shaped like Shrek. Hell, some don’t look like they have ears, just a hole in the side of their head.

That’s not the worst part.

A couple don’t have lips that close, so their sharp, toothpick-shaped, yellowed teeth are on display. My skin prickles imagining what those incisors would feel like turning my skin into ribbon.

There’s no two coloring that’s the same either, but they all remind me of the octopuses I’ve seen in the area; the blue-ringed octopus, coconut octopus, reef, mimic, and a bunch I can’t name. Deedee is obsessed with them and always took me out to snorkel.

But none are nearly as big as Ordus. A few are my size—one male who’s at least a foot shorter than me, with a face weathered with age.

The females are differentiated from the males by the small lumps on their chests and the—dare I use this word—softer, more feminine faces. Although, their build isn’t impacted by sex. They can be as big and burly or as small as the males.

One woman at the very back of the congregation has a protective hand over her rounded stomach, pressing herself to a male’s side every time Ordus speaks. She flicks her sunken eyes between me, Ordus, and the lanky kraken who keeps talking. It doesn’t land on Ordus and I with hatred. The same goes with the male beside her.

It’s fear.

Not of Ordus, but for themselves. For the life growing in her.

Even from this distance, I can count her ribs poking out against her baby belly. The edges of her bones stick out against her taut, pale skin. My heart aches as I study each bony finger and deep ridge of her collarbones. I may not be familiar with kraken biology and anatomy, but there’s no way she has enough meat on her to be carrying a baby. It can’t be healthy. It must be a miracle she was able to conceive, let alone carry the child this far along.

None of the krakens here look like they’re well-fed. All of them have the same exhaustion written over their gaunt faces, with bodies that consist of more skin than flesh. The evidence of their starvation is clear in their emaciation.

Yet Ordus looks like he spends three hours at the gym each day, hits his protein goals, and meets the necessary sleeping requirements. He couldn’t be more different from his subjects even if he tried.

Is this…is this my fault? These people—monsters—will die because of me? My selfishness.

I glance at the pregnant kraken. Oh, God. There would be children as well. Kids, little babies, would be dying because I can’t say yes to Ordus. I’m so in my own head over what I want to do with my life when there are people who want me dead and people who will die.

An entire species has been turning to flesh and bone while I’ve been playing fucking house, caring for chickens and tending to a garden on an island in the middle of nowhere. And what else have I been doing? Complaining I haven’t been getting enough attention, that I want to go back to the mainland when I don’t at the same time. Worrying about a marriage proposal that isn’t being forced upon me.

This is too much.

There’s no way I’m supposed to save them when I can’t save myself.

I make eye contact with one of the women off to the side. My cheeks burn. It’s hard to look at any of the women when their nipples are pointed right at me with not an ounce of shame. It’s even harder to stare at any of the men when they’re looking a lot like the Gallaghers.

I drop my gaze, which was a big fucking mistake. Bile lurches up my throat at the empty eyes staring back at me. A lone head bobbing in and out of the beach floats along with the waves. Dark blue ink seeps from the hole into the water, washing out into the sea—the same ink splattered over Ordus and smeared across my skin from his tentacles.

My breathing comes out in shudders. Oh, God.

I think I’m going to puke.

Movement from the crowd stops me from losing it to hysteria. The talkative kraken turns, and the others follow suit. A few grab their fallen friends and the severed head. The talkative one throws one last barbed comment before diving beneath the waves.

I can’t move a muscle, frozen even when the only creatures in sight are Ordus and a growling Vasz. Dread seeps into my bloodstream, poisoning me until the fear leaks from my pores.

He’s going to force me to marry him.

He’s going to force himself on⁠—

No. No.

I can’t live like that again. I won’t do it. I refuse.

A hand clamps over my mouth. I scream, kick out, thrash my entire body against the tentacle tightening around me. We’re flying through the island, between the thickets of palm trees and shrubs, heading west toward the tunnel into the den.

He’s really going to do it. He said I had to be willing. He lied to me. Ordus lied, and he’s going to prove my fears true. He’s just like Tommy, manipulative and violent. They take, take, take, even if I don’t want to give.

I let my guard down. It crumbled to the fucking floor, and I spread my legs and let it happen. I let him in without remorse, and now, he wants to sink in his teeth.

I’m so stupid.

It’s happening again.

I didn’t learn the first time.

“Calm yourself, Cindi,” Ordus growls against my ear.

Angry, frightened, hot tears spring from my eyes and trickle onto fingers muffling my cries for help. My reality turns bleaker with every tree we pass, descending deeper into the island.

No one’s coming to save me. No one ever does. Not anymore.

Vasz is barking and nipping at Ordus, but what can a shark-dog do? He can’t get me out of here or keep me fed. He won’t be able to fend off a kraken at least quadruple his size.

Kristy died a long time ago. I should’ve begun digging Cindi’s grave the moment I stepped foot in Indonesia.

Ordus is going to kill me the same way Tommy did, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

The cave entrance glimmers under Ordus’ command. He lunges for it. Vasz sprints back toward the shack to get to the tunnels. His hand leaves my mouth, and I suck in a breath. A chorus of “no, please,” and “don’t” fall from me. My cries and pleas echo through the dark tunnel. I angle my head toward the light, reaching for it. It’ll be last time I see the sun.

I’m being taken into the basement again. This time, I won’t be let out.

No one will check on me. There will be no escape, no solace, nothing but a monster who will take his pound of flesh.

“Please, Cindi,” Ordus rasps, rubbing his hand all over my back and arms in a move that’s too reassuring for the fate I’m about to endure. “Please.”

I whip my head side to side. “You can’t. I won’t let you. Please, don’t do it.”

We make it out the bottom of the tunnel faster than we ever have. Panic shreds me to pieces, frozen and scorching. My vision is blurry from the tears, voice raw from screaming.

I got out. I was free. I was surviving.

Ordus turns me to face him, cupping my cheeks in his big hands. “Listen to me.”

Black hair morphs to blond, brown skin to white. It’s Tommy, back from the dead to haunt me, lips twisted into a crooked smile—the type that promises a world of pain.

Logic and reason escapes me. I can’t summon the image of Tommy lying dead on the floor, because he’s here right in front of me, touching me.

“Please. I will not hurt you.”

Tommy can’t purr. He doesn’t have tentacles. He doesn’t live in a cave with bioluminescent algae. He doesn’t give reassurances or promises not to cause me harm. But it doesn’t matter how loud I scream it in my head—I can’t escape.

I choke on the memories. The feel of the silk sheets against my cheeks as Tommy pushes me down and yanks my skirt up around my waist. Tommy’s rough, calloused palms that grate against my cheek followed by the smack.

The man before me grabs my hand and places it over his heart. I struggle against him. I don’t want to touch him, but there’s no getting away.

The rumbling in his chest grows louder than the blood roaring in my ears. His pulse is erratic beneath my hand, and I’m only vaguely aware of the suckers pulsing hard against my flesh. I screw my eyes shut, trying to push everything out of my mind and focus on the feeling, on the vibrations coming from him, because tentacles don’t hurt. They never hurt.

“Kristy,” he begs, tentacles holding my thrashing arms still. “You are safe.”

“That’s not my name.” I gasp for breath. It’s not. She’s dead. She doesn’t exist anymore.

Tommy—Ordus tips my face up, coaxing me to open my eyes. I shake my head. If I look at him, I’ll see Tommy.

“Listen to me, Cindi.”

Cindi, not Kristy.

Cindi, Cindi, Cindi. Tommy doesn’t know that name. This isn’t Tommy.

His eyes waver between green and blue, hair flickering between long and short.

Yes, that’s right. My name is Cindi. Kristy is dead.

Tommy is dead.

I try to stabilize my breathing, focus on pulling oxygen into my lungs. When I was younger, there was a cove Dad would take me to after school if I got a really good grade on a test. He’d take the afternoon off and get us a snow cone and a hot dog, and we’d sit and watch the seagulls swoop and squawk. Sometimes, a seal would bark at us, and I’d squeal, insisting Dad let me pet it. If the weather was good, he’d let me swim there.

When I breathe in Ordus’ ocean breeze scent, filling my lungs until I’m completely consumed, I can almost feel the love and safety I felt hanging out with Dad. It’s that irreplaceable, childlike trust in someone. I know I can throw myself over the edge and there will be someone there to catch me.

I inhale deeply. There’s no hint of cheap cologne or the lemony cleaning products I used to clean the mansion’s marble kitchen, only Ordus and the musty cavern air.

When only the occasional shudder racks my body, I brave peeling my eyes open, and I shiver once I do. Before me stands a man with worry lines all over his face, concern in every divot and fold of his spotted tan-and-brown skin. The intensity would’ve knocked me off my feet if he weren’t holding me upright.

“Please, Cindi,” Ordus says like it’s a question. He’s asking if I’ll give him a chance to explain. “Listen to me. I promise you, I will not harm you. I swear it on the Goddess and my family’s honor.”

My fingers shake against his chest. If he wanted to force himself on me or make me marry him, he wouldn’t have waited for me to get a hold of myself.

If those krakens planned on killing me today, there would be more dead bodies on the beach.

“Why were they here?” My voice is hoarse, like it was whenever Tommy choked me.

Ordus’ gaze drops to my hand on his chest, working his jaw. “The Curse.”

“They want to kill me.” It was clear in the way they watched me. My anxiety spikes, flashing back to dinners with the Gallaghers, men with guns who’d leered at any woman who walked into a room or spoke without being spoken to.

His purr shifts into a displeased rumble. “I will not let them.”

“You can’t stop them.”

A haunted expression casts over his face. “I can. I am their king,” he says with conviction not even he believes.

“It didn’t look like that mattered to them, Ordus.”

Ordus nostrils flare, one hand falling to my shoulder. “They need me. They will not…” He can’t even look at me.

“What did they say?” I prompt when his eyes grow tortured.

Ordus suddenly sets me on top of a smoothed-out stone that acts as a makeshift table. The loss of warmth and stability rocks me to the core, and the panic rises up my spine.

His pacing only makes it worse. He’s rubbing a hand down his face and batting away hair that refuses to stay put. His anger and fear leaves a pungent note in the air I can taste in the back of my throat.

“Ordus, you’re worrying me.”

There are a million things they could have discussed. Every idea I have is worse than the last.

My heart lurches when something emerges from the tunnel, calming when Vasz’s panting echoes faster than my racing pulse. He and Ordus gnash their teeth at one another before Vasz takes his spot beside me, lying alert on his stomach.

Ordus keeps opening his mouth and closing it, like every time he thinks he knows what to say, he changes his mind. “That…” He snarls, tentacle lashing out to hit the pool, and I flinch, swallowing a whimper. He’s not Tommy. He won’t hurt you.

Ordus halts his pacing and turns to me, guilt riddled across his face. He pulls his tentacles close to his body and forces himself to lower to my eye level. Still, he’s coiled tighter than a spring.

His throat bobs, like he’s trying to choke his emotions back for my benefit. “The only way to end the Curse is through me. They will not do us harm.”

Ordus’ delusions are irritating me. I don’t want to accept sugarcoating of a situation that’s going to hurt me. I burned my rose-tinted sunglasses for a reason.

“You can’t know that. They’re starving! Desperate. I saw them. They looked like they were dying right in front of my eyes. You said it yourself. The only way to break the Curse is to marry me. And they hate me. They hate me more than they hate you.”