Page 11 of Kept By the Kraken

For a captive, she sure has a smart fucking mouth. My lips threaten a smile at her fierceness.

“What’s your name? Why are you in danger? What are you hiding?”

I ignore her questions and leave the room to snatch the skeleton key from the kitchen so I can secure the bedroom door now that I’ve gone and left her unbound. It was easy to hate my mate in the abstract because her very existence means I failed toprotect my family. But the more time I spend with the adorable curvy scientist, the more I don’t know what to think or how to feel. I’m finding her hard to resist. It’s as though she brought color into the world, and I don’t know if I can go back to only muted grey.

I slip the skeleton key in the lock, securing her inside, and walk away.

“What are you going to do now?” she shouts from behind the door.

Now isn’t that the fucking question?

Chapter 7

Penelope

Ishout uselessly at the door, banging against the wood with my hands. The stranger is out there. After the hefty click of the lock sliding into place, I hear his heavy footfalls thump down the hallway.

Stupidly, I try the handle, but it won’t budge. This house is ancient, with one of those old-timey locks. Unless I can get the hinges off the door or he unlocks it, I’m fucked. The reality of my situation twists my stomach in knots.

Shit. I’ve got to think. I need to find a way out of this room. He knows something about whatever was with me in the water that day, and it has this mountain of a man afraid. Something about my asking questions has spooked him. But why?

Focus. That’s the kind of thinking that got me here in the first place.

I don’t need to care about this stranger or what I saw in the water. It doesn’t matter that I feel a connection to him. I need to get my ass out of this house and haul my butt to the police. Despite knowing I should, the thought of involving the authorities adds to my unease.

Once I get myself out of here, I need to go back to studying lobster reproduction. Slightly boring. Stable. Veryadult. No fantasies or red flags. Absolutely no broad shoulders or monsters.

Straining, I listen for the sounds of the stranger, but the house is silent. I pace the small, threadbare bedroom. White plaster walls, no decor. A wrought-iron bed that may have been new when the house was built. White sheets. It’s so sterile it could be a hospital room.

The drawer in the small wooden nightstand is empty. No odds and ends under the bed that I could use to escape. I drag the wooden chair in the corner underneath the window. I’m average height for a woman, but this window is higher than modern ones.

I climb up so I can comfortably look out. A hysterical sound escapes me. This room is at the back of the house, practically hanging off the edge of a cliff. To escape through the window, I’m going to have to balance on a narrow ledge until I get to the drainpipe.

There is no doubt that if I breathe wrong, I will fall to my death into the crashing sea. I love the outdoors, but I’m not particularly graceful, and my odds don’t look great.

The horizon flashes with lightning, a storm right off the coast looming closer.

It’s now or never.

Opening the old window proves more difficult than I anticipated. It makes a racket, squeaking and groaning as I push it up. I wince, freezing on the chair as I pause to listen for the stranger.The house is still quiet. I wait a solid minute before I try again, pushing the window farther up until I can fit.

The window is narrow, but I hoist myself onto the sill and straddle it. I’m in rubber boots with no grip, so I go slowly and find my footing. It takes a lifetime to get out the window and onto the ledge. I keep stopping to listen for the stranger and to ensure my footing is secure before I move.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath of the briny sea air. My limbs loosen. I let myself focus on the sensation of the wind rushing through my hair. I can do this.

One shuffling step. Another. I reach the end of the ledge and go for it, grabbing hold of the drainpipe.The metal groans and shakes, but I leap anyway. I spider-monkey the pole for a moment before I can psych myself up enough to shimmy down a few inches.

Don’t die. Don’t die.

My arms burn from the strain, but I keep moving until I’m inching down past another window. I can’t hear anything but the wind and the sea, so I move more quickly, hoping he isn’t watching from inside as I scale down the wall.

When my feet hit the narrow rocky ledge at the back of the house, I almost weep in relief. I shuffle to the edge and duck down, creeping along the side of the house.

That’s when I hear the ax fall on the wood, and I curse under my breath. Peering around the side, I confirm that the stranger is back out front. Hunkering down, I wait for my chance to run.

We’ve been out herefor what feels like an eternity while I wait for an opening to escape, and the stranger throws his ax. The adrenaline from my earlier climb down has dissipated and now I’m tense with fear and sore from holding still for so long.

He stopped cutting wood when he ran out of lumber and has instead shifted to throwing his ax at a target mounted to a tree.He’s right in front of my car and has a clear view of the road, his back facing me. The muscles of his wide shoulders flex and bunch as he lifts the handle and throws the blade. It wouldbe hot if I didn’t think there was a possibility he might throw the ax at me if I ran.

---