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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 .”