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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.”

I’m itching to jump off the rock and pace like he did.

I want to scream, because maybe then he’ll hear me.

This will be just like before, when I told him to take me to the mainland or else I’ll die, and he still didn’t listen.

History has to stop repeating itself.

He stares at me with big blue eyes filled with too much for me to pick apart.

“What happens if I say yes and the Curse ends?” I continue, barely blinking so he’ll see how fucked this is from every angle.

“They’ll have no need for me, and I’ll never agree to a life where I’m subjected to a cave, only seeing the sun through a hole in the wall.”

I feel like I’m about to explode.

Ordus might not even listen to me.

He might shove our problems under the rug again because his priorities and relationship with himself and his own kind are all twisted.

“What do you suggest we do?” he asks.

I blink. “I…”

He doesn’t confirm it.

He doesn’t deny it. He’s just as unsure as I am.

That should scare me more, but instead, it’s taken a weight off my shoulders.

There’s a problem. He recognizes it, and he wants to fix it.

Together.

Like we’re a team.

I’m stunned speechless.

There’s a tremble in his hand before he places it on my knee, rubbing circles around the cap like he’s trying to comfort himself from the toxic mixture of desperate hopelessness.

His throat bobs, voice strained.

“I will not force you to marry, but I meant what I said. I will follow you wherever you go. I don’t want to exist if I cannot exist with you.”

I suck in a sharp breath.

Is he implying what I think?

That he’d live on the mainland with me?

Even if that was the path I chose, I need to move countries.

I can’t stay in Indonesia anymore, but I can’t take him from his own kingdom.

How will he react if we moved away from the equator to colder temperatures?

What would he be like amongst humans?

I can’t imagine either reaction will go well.

He kills easily and without hesitation.

What about Vasz?

But why would I want to lock myself to a life surrounded by people who tried to kill a child just for looking different?

My mind conjures images of the pregnant kraken, only this time, she’s dead, all sinew and bone with a baby who never got a chance at survival—to be different from everyone else.

The woman and the male were scared.

They didn’t look on with hate.

There was a moment where something…

light flashed behind their hollow eyes.

A flicker of hope.

Not all monsters are monsters.

If I’ve learned anything, it’s that sharp claws don’t always cut.

A monster can be gentle, sweet, the light amongst darkness.

Monsters hold no fake veneer or twist words to hide their venom.

I don’t know if I could sleep at night imagining their dead bodies, knowing I could’ve prevented it.

What if I snuck away from Ordus after marrying him?

My stomach sours as soon as I think it.

He’s not Tommy. I can’t leave him out here for dead.

It’s not… I wasn’t raised like that.

Despite everything, Ordus is a good man—to me, at least. The universe was just pitted against him, and he had no one in his corner to help him out.

His mom died. His sister.

His best friend and brother.

I’d be adding mate to the list, and that thought makes me sick.

But I’d be doing the same thing to myself.

I lost all my friends and the one man who truly cared about me.

Maybe I don’t truly believe soulmates exist, that Ordus is mine, but fate has given me another chance.

I have someone who will always have my back, protect me, never leave my side, bend over backward to please me.

I’d be losing a man who lights up whenever he looks down at a hair tie on his wrist, who purrs for me every night until I fall asleep.

A monster who learned how to cook and brought an entire kitchen and a farm to a secluded island so I don’t have to eat the same thing day in and day out.

He’s building me a shelter so I can watch the sunset, handwove a hammock for me to snooze on.

He looks at me like I’m the only reason he’s still breathing when I’ve done nothing but fight him or talk his ears off.

I’d be losing my mate too.

The words I’ll do it are caught in my throat.

I can’t make myself say it.

“I don’t know,” is all I manage.

I need to process everything and think .

I just clawed my way out of one marriage; I can’t jump straight into another.

“I promised I’d take you to the mainland.”

My brows knit together.

I can’t believe I forgot about that.

At the time, I thought it was said in the heat of the moment, not a promise.

Ordus dips his head.

“Forgive me, I had planned on taking you after lunch, but it is too dangerous. My kind will likely be waiting for me in the waters.”

Something is happening again.

The familiar coil of paranoia wraps around my lungs.

The need to look over my shoulder hits me with full force.

But it’s not as potent as usual.

Before, there was the doubt, the never-ending question of whether someone hid around the corner.

Now, I know nothing’s there.

I want to check for peace of mind, because three sets of eyes are better than one, but no one would be able to sneak past both Ordus and Vasz, supernatural beings with heightened senses.

Still…I feel safe with him.

“Okay,” I whisper.

“Maybe tomorrow.” He looks guilty, and I can only guess why.

“I trust you.”

Ordus snaps back like I’ve struck him.

“You shouldn’t. I—they—” He’s back to his normal height, gliding up and down the short path of the cavern, fists clenched and stiff at his sides.

My fear spikes for only a moment before it ebbs.

It doesn’t stop my body from responding on its own, hunkering down to brace for something —anything—even if my head knows better.

The sounds coming from his chest are pure vicious.

Vasz matches them with his own warning growl as he searches the cavern for a threat that’s not there.

Ordus pauses in front of the pool we’ve slowly been adding fish to, like a makeshift aquarium with coral and vegetation we’re trying to harvest, but it isn’t going well.

Everything always dies within two days.

Three, if we’re really lucky.

A tentacle lashes out into the water to catch a fish, killing it with a crack of its head.

I wince at the sudden movement, and Vasz jumps up to his feet to check if the kraken needs backup.

I press my lips together, attempting to keep my breathing even.

I watch him snatch a knife off a nearby shelf and skulk toward a bench against the back wall.

Ordus’ hair falls onto his face when he hunches over the bench, beginning the process of skinning and filleting the snapper.

He’s vibrating, strung so tight, I’m worried if I blink, he’ll snap and the threads will turn into barbs.

His life is going up in flames too.

He’s got everything to lose.

That realization is a slap in the face, because I’ve spent every waking moment thinking the world revolves around me.

The swipe of the blade is jerky, and he slams the innocent creature against the table, flipping it over.

Streams of black hair spill in the way, and he releases a full-blown snarl, straightening to hit it away before curling over the short table again.

He repeats the process another three times, growls growing louder.

I hesitate for a moment before jumping from the stone and padding over to Ordus.

Hesitantly, I place a hand on his forearm.

He freezes midway through smacking his hair out of the way.

His jaw feathers, and he carefully turns to face me.

Like this, I barely come up to his chest. I roll onto the balls of my feet to curl my fingers around the inside of his elbow and give it a gentle tug.

“Let me help.”

His forehead wrinkles in confusion.

I flick my eyes at his hair draped over his shoulder in answer.

The rage dissolves. One by one, his muscles untense, and the stormy clouds of his irises clear into bright blue.

A tentacle latches onto my ankle, and I give him a small, sad smile that says, yeah, life is shit right now, but we’re in the shits together .

He moves his sprawling limbs out of the way and lets me pull him beside the pool.

“Sit.”

Ordus studies me head to toe, like any second I’m going to rescind my offer and agree I shouldn’t trust him.

But I’ve already made up my mind.

I’m doing this.

Like a frightened animal, he lowers himself to the kraken equivalent of sitting, and I stand behind him.

A few of his tentacles spill into the pool, some climbing up the surrounding walls while one stays firmly around me, coiling up my leg until there’s hardly any exposed skin.

We’re closer in height this way.

I can sort of see over his head, but not much.

He shivers the moment I brush his hair over his shoulders.

Otherwise, just like every other time, he stays stock-still.

I thread my fingers through his silken strands to carefully work out a few tangles.

I could get the comb on top of my shelf, but I don’t want to.

There’s something heady about seeing a powerful male all but kneeling in front of me, shivering and shuddering whenever our skin touches.

I guess I thought everything would change after what we did last night.

Maybe he’d become cocksure or arrogant or expect my total compliance, but he’s just as uncertain as he was yesterday.

The quiet of the cave—less Vasz’s gnawing on a coconut—is peaceful.

It’s comforting, even if it is the calm before the storm.

Ordus must feel when I’m getting to the bottom of the braid, because he offers me a scrunchie that has most definitely seen better days.

I nudge his hand back and show him the little black hair tie on my wrist I was using this morning.

I can only see his profile, but there’s no mistaking the way his lips part on a heavy breath.

Warmth douses my insides.

I could almost forget about this afternoon’s fiasco with how much he lights up from such a simple thing.

I tie the plait off and navigate his limbs, plus a tentacle holding me hostage, to stand in front of him under the guise of assessing my handiwork.

The blue-algae light kisses the high points of his cheeks and the curve of his pillowy lips.

Shadows dip around his broad shoulders and muscled chest, highlighting the definition in his abs.

“You look good,” I whisper without really thinking about it.

Our gazes snare like a deer in headlights.

Embarrassment flushes my cheeks, and uncertainty colors his.

Does he think I’m lying?

A stone drops in my gut.

That doesn’t sit right with me.

I’m tired of treating him like he’s the villain when he’s just another victim who didn’t get an out.

“I like the way you look,” I clarify.

“The other krakens were fucking hideous.”

His eyes glimmer like the sun reflecting off the water, and the corners of my lips tick up.

His do the same, though a little more hesitantly.

“Yeah?”

I nod. “It looked like someone stepped on them as a baby. The one who kept on talking creeped me the hell out. He was a real Eldritch Horror.”

Ordus’ gives me a small smile that doesn’t meet his eyes.

It makes my heart ache for him.

“Lazell,” he tells me.

“When I was younger, kraken females would swoon over him, even when Yannig was alive.”

I reach around to pull his braid over his shoulder in a covert move to touch him.

“I thought your kind had good eyesight.”

This time, when I meet his eyes, every sorrow and stress of the past few years washes away.

He’s looking at me in a way I thought only existed in books, like the purest form of love that could bring rain to a desert.

I take his hand and squeeze it, and it’s like every little thing is right with the world.

“Clearly not as good as my mate’s.” His deep voice makes my toes curl.

My fingers graze over the tentacle around my leg.

“Clearly.”

Because yeah, I guess I am his mate.