Page 1 of Captured by the Cthulhu (Monster Mates #3)

Chapter 1

Things That Go Splash in the Night

Ashe

“And this right here is the crown jewel of the Cape Tempest Lighthouse—our third-order Fresnel lens.” I gesture to the gleaming brass and crystal apparatus like I’m Vanna White, presenting a particularly spectacular washing machine. “Originally installed in 1874, it’s still in perfect working condition thanks to careful maintenance.”

The three guys who comprise my last tour of the day stare at me with the glazed expressions I’ve come to know well—the look of tourists who pre-gamed at The Salty Dog Tavern before deciding a lighthouse tour would be, like, totally cultural.

“So how many light bulbs does it need?” the tallest one asks, swaying slightly.

I bite back a sigh. “It’s not exactly a matter of light bulbs. The Fresnel lens is actually an incredibly precise array of prisms that—”

“But, like, you just flip a switch, right?” His friend, wearing a backward baseball cap, snorts. “Like, the whole job is basically just turning a light on and off? Pretty sure my little sister could do this gig.”

A younger me would have bristled at that. The current me—the one who’s given this tour approximately eight thousand times—just smiles. “Well, why don’t you try it yourself? We keep the mechanism well-oiled, but it still takes a careful touch.”

Baseball Cap stumbles forward, cocky grin in place. “Sure, how hard can it be?”

Five minutes later, he’s sweating over the brass knobs like a raccoon trying to solve a Rubik’s cube, having somehow managed to jam the rotation gear despite my detailed instructions. His friends aren’t laughing with him anymore—they’re laughing at him, and I allow myself a small moment of satisfaction while I readjust the mechanism.

“Maintaining a lighthouse is actually a 24/7 job,” I explain, keeping my tone friendly. “Between the mechanical systems, the weather monitoring, the structural maintenance…” A crack of thunder punctuates my words perfectly, making Baseball Cap jump. “And of course… keeping the monsters at bay.”

That gets their attention.

The tall one tries to play it cool, but I can see him edge closer to his friends. “Monsters? Like, from the old days? When this place was all about hunting them?”

“Oh, the hunting’s illegal now,” I say, polishing a brass fitting with my sleeve. “But that doesn’t mean they’re not still out there.” I pause, glancing at the darkening sky through the gallery windows. The storm’s rolling in faster than predicted, clouds the color of bruised plums swallowing the horizon. “Especially on evenings like this.”

“But you’re not, like, scared?” the third guy, who’s been quiet until now, asks. “Being up here alone?”

I stare off into the storm clouds, really hamming up the “quirky lighthouse keeper” act before turning back to answer ominously, “No. Not as long as I keep the light on. As long as the light’s on, we’re fine. It’s when it goes out that you need to worry…”

Another well-timed thunderclap sends them scrambling for the stairs, the three of them suddenly very interested in beating the rain.

I call out from the top of the landing, “Hey, take it slow! The last group of tourists who ran like that ended up being regulars on the ghost tour!” Their nervous laughter echoes up the spiral staircase, followed by the heavy thud of the main door closing below.

Blessed silence settles over the gallery like a familiar blanket. Well, almost silence—there’s always noise in a lighthouse.

The steady hum of machinery, the whisper of wind through century-old windowpanes, the distant crash of waves against the rocky shore… I’ve learned all the sounds by heart over the years, the way you learn the creaks of your childhood home.

My fingers trail along the brass railing as I make my slow circuit of the gallery. The metal is warm from the day’s tours, smooth from generations of hands before mine. Outside, the storm approaches like something alive, eating up the last strips of sunset. Purple-black clouds roil and twist, and the wind has that specific howl that means I’m in for a long night.

I should start my evening checks. There’s a whole checklist of things that need doing—testing the backup generator, securing any loose equipment, checking the weather radio.

Instead, I linger, pressing my palm against the cool glass. The lighthouse feels different after hours, more itself somehow. Like it can finally exhale after a day of playing tourist attraction.

Dad used to say lighthouses were for the people who were comfortable living on the edge of things—not quite land, not quite sea.

Maybe that’s why I feel so at home here, in this space between worlds. I’ve never quite fit anywhere else, always a half-step out of rhythm with normal life.

Lightning splits the sky, illuminating the churning waters below. The waves are getting nasty, white-capped monsters clawing at the rocks. In weather like this, it’s easy to understand why the ancestors of Cape Tempest mounted monster bones and preserved tentacles on the pub walls.

A gust of wind rattles the windows, and I start humming “The Drunken Sailor” under my breath. The tune echoes oddly in the empty gallery, mixing with the growing storm until it sounds almost like—

The crash from the boathouse hits like a thunderclap, but worse. Different. Wrong. I freeze mid-hum, my heart suddenly trying to climb up my throat.

“It’s just the wind,” I tell myself, the way I always do during storms like this. Just the old boathouse settling, or loose equipment I forgot to secure. If I turn off all the lights and crawl into bed, everything will look normal in the morning, like it always does.

Except.

Except I’m the daughter of James Morgan, who dove into the darkest waters without hesitation, and Katherine Morgan, who to this day is off discovering the ocean’s secrets on expeditions across seven seas. They didn’t raise me to hide under my covers when things go bump in the night.

“Dammit,” I mutter, already moving.

The emergency kit is exactly where it should be, by the door to my private living quarters. I’m nothing if not organized. Rain gear, heavy-duty flashlight, and a flare gun. Standard lighthouse keeper equipment.

Lightning strobes across the sky as I make my way to the main entrance, each step feeling heavier than the last. The wind’s really picking up now, screaming around the lighthouse’s stone walls like something alive. Something hungry.

Another crash echoes from the distant boathouse as I grab the door handle, and this time there’s something else—a sound that vibrates through my chest, something between a groan and a roar that absolutely, definitely isn’t thunder or waves.

I check the flare gun one more time, tighten the straps on my raincoat, then push open the door.

The storm hits me like a wall. Rain lashes sideways, driven by the wind, and the beam of my flashlight barely penetrates the darkness. The boathouse is only fifty yards away, but it might as well be miles. Each step feels perilous, my boots slipping on the moss and wet rocks.

Another inhuman sound cuts through the storm, louder now. I sweep my flashlight toward the boathouse, but the rain diffracts the light into useless scattered beams. The boathouse hunches against the coastline like a wounded animal, its salt-worn walls almost luminous in the storm-light.

It’s then that something moves inside—a massive form displacing the darkness, making the old structure groan with its weight.

I pause, rain streaming down my face. The old boathouse has always been creepy at night, with its looming shape and the way storms make the timber creak.

But this is different.

Something’s inside, and the air feels wrong, electric, like the moment before lightning strikes.

Five more steps. I force myself to breathe slowly, deliberately. The wet rocks are treacherous under my boots, and the last thing I need is to slip.

Two more steps. The boathouse door swings back and forth in the wind, each movement revealing a new slice of impenetrable darkness within.

One more step.

Something scrapes against the wooden floor inside—something heavy. My flashlight beam catches the door, illuminating deep gouges in the wood that weren’t there this morning. They’re fresh, still splintered, each groove wide as my thumb.

The wind dies for just a moment, and in that sudden quiet, I hear labored breathing. Not human breathing. Not even mammalian. It’s a wet, desperate sound that raises every hair on my body.

My hand shakes as I reach for the door, making the beam of the flashlight dance wildly. Inside, something massive shifts in response to the light. I catch glimpses: a gleam of shiny skin, the curve of something that might be muscle or might be tentacle, the glint of what could be blood.

Lightning splits the sky, and for one frozen moment, I see everything.

Fishing nets, tangled and twisted around a creature that defies explanation. His torso is startlingly human-like—powerful and bare, with skin the color of deep ocean waters that shifts with subtle bioluminescent patterns.

Where human legs should be, six massive octopus tentacles spread across the boathouse floor, writhing against the ropes that bind them. His powerful, muscular arms—surprisingly humanoid despite their clawed hands—struggle against the netting. Inky blood streams from a deep gash along one of his lower tentacles, spreading across the wooden floor.

But it’s his face that stops my breath entirely—an otherworldly fusion of human and octopus. His eyes are dark and speckled like a galaxy, and smaller tentacles frame his face, writhing like a living beard. Beneath this writhing mass, I glimpse what appears to be an actual mouth with lips, hidden behind the curtain of smaller appendages.

There’s an impossible grace to his features, something both terrifying and mesmerizing, like staring into the heart of a storm.

Then darkness crashes back, leaving me with only those eyes. They’re gold-flecked and ancient. Intelligent. Desperate with pain. And somehow, impossibly, human in their plea for help.

They hold me transfixed. They’re not the mindless gaze of a monstrous beast. There’s something in them—something that makes my chest ache with recognition.

I should run.

Every survival instinct I have is telling me to abandon him here and lock myself up in the safety of the lighthouse.

Instead, I step inside.