Page 13 of Drown Me Gently (Flipped Fairytales)

Auren clung to Elias’s words like they were his last morsels of sustenance. Like they were the only thing keeping him alive from one moment to the next.

“You’re more beautiful than the legends. I wish I could etch you onto canvas so I’d never forget the shape of you.”

“Every night, I come back here and hope. And every time you appear, I forget how to breathe.”

“What are you made of, my beauty of the sea? Salt and silk? How can you be real and not wreck me?”

They echoed in his mind, soothing the ache Ulric left behind.

As Auren completed his duties in the palace, anticipation thrummed through him.

The promise of “more” from Elias ignited a flush on his cheeks that wouldn’t go away through the long court proceedings.

When he finally slipped away, his heart was pounding so hard he thought he might be able to use it to break through the wall of the city.

He pressed his palm to the hidden stone on the outer wall.

Nothing happened.

“Damn it, Ulric,” Auren muttered, realizing the sorcerer had blocked the passage. Undeterred, he navigated his old tunnel, scraping himself as he went, cursing Ulric with every sting. He hoped Elias wouldn’t mind a few extra bruises.

Emerging near the coast, he prepared to whistle for Iska when a pulse of water vibrated behind him. Auren darted into a hidden alcove, pressing against the rock, waiting for the patrol to pass. The Deepguard passed, none the wiser to Auren’s presence.

But something loomed behind him in the darkness. It stretched on all sides, as though to cage him. Before he could react, a tentacle seized his tail, pulling him further into the shadows.

Auren didn’t have time to scream.

One moment he was alone in the water, and the next, his back slammed into stone, the impact knocking the breath from his gills.

Tentacles wrapped around him in an instant, like coiling serpents.

One clamped tightly around his torso, trapping his arms at his sides.

Another looped around his throat—not enough to choke, but enough to hold.

A third slithered up his chest and latched around his hips with an unforgiving grip.

Auren lost track of how many limbs gripped him. As he was about to cry out, another wrapped over his mouth, thick and rubbery. The suction cups clung to his skin, pinching, pulling, as if the strength of the coils wasn’t enough.

He thrashed wildly, tail whipping against the rock. But the grip didn’t loosen. It only held him tighter. Then the darkness shifted, and a face materialized from the inky gloom.

Ulric.

His eyes glowed like volcanic glass still cooling. It was powerful and furious and… Auren went still as he named the uncharacteristic glint in those eyes, the angle of his thick brows.

It was desperation.

Auren’s breath heaved against the tentacle across his mouth.

Heart pounding like a war drum, strong enough that he knew Ulric must feel it.

The sorcerer glared down at him, jaw clenched so tightly a muscle jumped in his cheek.

The sharp line of his beard framed a mouth drawn in a grim line.

His hair was partially pulled back, the rest loose in dark waves.

Moonlight from above filtered through the cracks in the rock, dappling his face with shifting light.

Fury tightened every line of him, but underneath that? A hunger Auren dared not acknowledge. He couldn’t.

Ulric’s body was taut to the point of snapping—a weapon held at bay by a single strand of snail-silk. And yet the way his tentacles wrapped around Auren told a different story. It was tight, yes, but not painful.

The tentacles looped around him again and again.

It wasn’t necessary—Auren couldn’t have moved if he tried—but Ulric still wrapped more of himself around Auren’s shape.

Possessively. Like some part of him couldn’t help it.

Slick and strong, curling with the kind of strength that could crush pearls or snap bones.

But they didn’t.

And for a maddening moment, Auren didn’t want to escape.

Not yet. Not when it felt like Ulric’s very soul was unraveling between them.

Not when he could feel every inch of heat between their bodies.

The sorcerer’s skin against his. The strength in his tentacles.

The thrum of a Kraken’s magic. It called to the magic still dormant in his blood.

Ulric didn’t speak, but he was so close Auren could feel the shake in his breath as it ghosted across his cheek, making the small hairs on his jaw rise. His scent was everywhere—black water and volcanic stone. Heat and brine. Familiarity and… want .

There it was, curling at the base of his spine and betraying him.

Ulric was too close. So close, Auren could see the uneven line where his beard faded toward his neck. Could see the glimmer of a scar just under his collarbone.

And gods help him… Auren wanted to be even closer.

He wanted to lean in just a little and feel the scratch of Ulric’s beard against his cheek. To feel those powerful arms—not tentacles—wrap around him and never let go. His stupid, traitorous heart still ached for what had been denied.

“You have to stop this,” Ulric growled. His voice was hoarse, scraped raw. “I’ve let it go on too long. You’re taking too many risks.”

Auren struggled, and the grip on his body eased enough for him to shove free. He smacked away the appendages.

“So now you care?” Auren snapped. “Now, after all this time?”

Ulric’s expression twisted. “I never stopped.”

“Then why did you leave?”

“I had to. I had to get away before?—”

“Before what?” Auren interrupted, eyes burning. “Before your reputation was tarnished? Before I embarrass you by existing?”

Ulric’s eyes darkened. “You don’t understand?—”

“No, you don’t understand!” Auren shouted. “You don’t get to wrap yourself around me like I’m yours and then vanish into the black. You don’t get to show up after all those nights I waited for you and act like I’m the one who’s wrong!”

Ulric’s eyes flashed. “You have no idea what this is doing to me.”

His voice was rough and frayed at the edges. Then, he moved. No more shouting. No more anger. Just the sound of their breathing in the water. He closed the space like someone approaching a wounded creature—aching to touch, terrified to be bitten.

Auren’s chest rose and fell with shallow, panicked gulps of water, gills fluttering. His body screamed to back away, but he didn’t.

And Ulric’s hands found him.

One slid up the curve of Auren’s spine, a light touch gliding on skin, until it reached the nape of his neck.

Fingers slipped gently into his hair, curling around the roots, thumb brushing against the soft place just behind his ear.

The other hand pressed to the small of his back, pulling him close.

Auren’s mouth parted in a shaky breath. He didn’t understand this—this gentleness. The shift between them was seismic, but Ulric’s touch was so agonizingly careful. Ulric leaned in until their foreheads touched, breath ghosting over Auren’s lips.

Ulric closed his eyes.

Auren did too.

And for a moment, there was no war between them. No anger. Just skin and silence, and a heartbeat shared between bodies.

“Forget everything that happened. Forget those moments. Forget me .” Ulric whispered, voice so soft Auren barely heard it, “I’m begging you… Stop this.”

Auren couldn’t breathe, overwhelmed by the proximity, the scent, the memories.

He didn’t mean to.

But before he even realized what he was doing, his arms lifted and wrapped around Ulric’s waist. It was instinct.

A reflex from some aching, unguarded part of him that had never stopped wanting this.

Needing it. His fingers pressed into the firm muscle at Ulric’s back, his cheek brushing the Kraken’s stubbled jaw.

And for the briefest moment, Auren let himself fall.

Let himself lean into the warmth and weight of that embrace.

He let the fear slip. Let the bitterness go.

And then?—

Ulric shoved him.

Hard .

Auren’s body jolted, crashing into the alcove wall with a dull thud. The side of his head cracked against the stone, and his vision went white. He blinked, stunned, and lifted a hand to rub his skull, fingers coming back with dissipating whisps of blood.

“Auren, I… I’m sorry I didn’t mean to….” Ulric was panting, his tattoos flashing rapidly, his face twisted in agony.

The tears welled before Auren could stop them. His voice trembled as he spoke. “You’ll never choose me,” he said, each word like a blade between his ribs. “Elias did.”

Ulric flinched as though he were the one bleeding, but the shock faded quickly, features hardening into a fathomless cold.

“You leave me no choice, then,” he said, and the glow in his tattoos went out. His voice dropped to a low, aching rasp. “Hate me,” he said, eyes unreadable. “Hate me for what I must do.”

And he vanished into the dark. Leaving Auren alone in the alcove. Shaking. Ashamed. And bleeding. But the worst of the pain came from a wound nobody could see.

Auren’s entire body ached with the ghost of an embrace that had almost meant something, before shattering his heart again.

He blinked away the tears now flowing freely to join the sea.

He drew in a shaking breath and whistled, calling for the one soul who could take him where he needed to go.

He needed Elias. Desperately. Needed to feel arms around him that didn’t recoil.

Needed to hear words that didn’t twist like knives in his ribs.

Needed someone to love the hurt out of him like a sickness.

But no sound answered. No familiar shape broke the gloom. Auren waited. He whistled again, more frantic this time. The sound echoed off the stone and drifted into the dark, but there was no response. No distant chitter. No thrum of water. No dorsal fin slicing through the sea.

Iska didn’t come.

Auren’s throat clenched. Tears spilling in earnest. His shoulders curled in as the truth settled heavy in his gut.

She wasn’t coming. Ulric had done this. He’d sent her away.

Or blocked her. Or taken her far enough from the outer reefs that she couldn’t hear him.

Without her… without her speed, Auren would never reach the harbor before dawn. Tonight was lost.

He crumpled to the sand floor of the alcove, curling in on himself, arms wrapped tight around his middle. His tail lay limp in the silt.

“Fuck you, Ulric,” Auren sobbed into the sand. “Fuck you.”

He stayed there a long time, shivering in the quiet, his body wrung out from rage and grief alike. But as the first rays of light touched the reef far above, Auren lifted his head.

He wouldn’t lose another night.

Even if it meant swimming the long distance on his own, he’d do it. Because nothing, nothing was going to stop him from seeing the only person who ever saw him back.

Not his mother.

Not tradition.

And not a bitter old Kraken drowning in his own skewed sense of obligation.

Auren wiped his tears with the back of his wrist, squared his shoulders, and faced the distant glow of sunrise.

Tomorrow night, he’d be in Elias’s arms. And nothing was going to stop him.