Page 10 of Kept By the Kraken

“You’re keeping me?”

Her question is said with a kind of breathless terror that strikes like the blunt edge of a rusty knife, hacking away at my insides. I cannot keep her. She cannot be mine, no matter how much I crave her. But of course, that isn’t what she meant. To her, I am only her captor. That fear will serve us both well.

I ignore her question and repeat mine. “What university?”

“You’re scaring the shit out of me. You can’t come in here and ask that without telling me what the fuck is going on. I know you think I’m going to blab. Let me go, and I won’t tell anyone. I’ll destroy the files. It will be like it never happened.”

The files from her camera that my Beast delivered to her. Without thought, I move to her and fist my hand in her silky hair. She sucks in a sharp breath at the sting.

“You will destroy the files. You will email what I tell you to. Until I believe the danger has passed, you will do as I say or risk all our lives.” I tug on her chin and force her to look at me.

Fresh tears pool in her eyes. “You didn’t have to do this. I would have helped you if you’d explained. You still don’t have to do it. Untie me, and I’ll do what you ask.”

My kraken fights me for control, causing my skin to vibrate with the need to shift. I grit my teeth. “If you run, I will hunt you down, catch you, and bring you here. If I untie you, this is not your freedom.”

Her lips tremble. “Untie me.”

“Say you understand.” I brush my lips near her ear, and she shivers, her scent a mixture of trepidation and lust.

“I understand,” she says on a shaky breath. “I won’t run. Untie me.”

I toss the laptop on the bed and kneel between her legs, reaching over her to work my knots until her arms are free. Her wrists are irritated from where the material has chaffed her skin in her attempts to escape. I want to kiss them, but instead, I rub the abused flesh, massaging her wrists briefly before letting them go. She pulls her arms to her chest, holding herself as if her hands might shield her from what comes next.

Reaching behind me blindly, I grab the laptop and thrust it in her face. “Email. Work. Your ex.”

I’m too on edge near her scent and body heat. The desire to claim her is nearly overpowering.

She opens the laptop and sits up, scooting to the edge of the bed. I move with her, putting myself between her and the door. My eyes track the screen as she goes to the university website and clicks around. She starts with the email to her ex, and after a moment of furious typing, she holds the computer out for me to inspect.

In only a few sentences, she has explained away her findings as a discovery of a fake gold coin from a local party cruise.

“A party cruise?” I ask skeptically.

“I saw the ship in town at the docks today. It’s believable.”

“What the fuck is a party cruise?”

She turns to look at me, scrunching her button nose. “You go on a boat. Drink too many cocktails. Maybe fish a treasure from the sea or fight with inflatable swords. Like any party cruise but Viking-themed.”

My jaw tics at the absurdity, but it’s an intelligent lie. The self-deprecating tone of her email, however, grates on my nerves. The way her ex-husband talked to her on the phone leads me to believe she’s used to criticizing herself. I hate it, but I haven’t treated her any better. She wears my marks on her wrists.

“Send it.”

She does, then begins on a second email.

“Who is this?” I demand.

“My boss.”

This time, she writes that she will be out until she recovers from a bout of sickness after her dive. I nod my approval when she is finished and take the laptop from her.

“To delete the files, you need your computer? Your camera?”

She gives a sharp nod.

“We can worry about that later. I’ll leave you untied, but I’m warning you now that if you try to get away, I will chase you down.”

“Yeah, I got it. You’re a dangerous mountain man. I’m not an idiot.”

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