Page 2 of Kept By the Kraken

I try to sit up, but Odis, the boat captain, holds me down. “Not yet, Dr. Hart.”

I open my mouth to ask what happened, how he saved me, but the words come out as a jumbled croak from my abused throat. Through squinted eyes, I try to inspect my surroundings. I’m laid out in the back of the commercial fishing boat I’ve chartered for my data collection. There is no creature, and my equipment appears to be missing.

The older white man, with his bushy silver mustache and bald head, reminds me of a grandpa. His rich chestnut eyes are kind as he hands me a bottle of water. My attempt at twisting the cap proves feeble and he opens it for me, cradling my head and helping me to take a few sips.

“What happened?” I manage to rasp.

“I was hoping you could tell me.” He leans forward and studies me, knowing eyes sharp and measuring.What did you see,they seem to ask.

I look away, embarrassed by my wild imagination and my near brush with death. Turning away from his stare, I attempt to sit up. I’m woozy, the boat swaying beneath me, but I make it. “I don’t remember much. Some kind of animal attacked.”

He hums, a thoughtful sound. There’s no way he could guess what I’m hiding, but the sound is chiding all the same. It’s not like he can discover how my depraved mind works or that I conjured myself a sea monster when the reality is far more likely that I was attacked by some kind of cephalopod.

He doesn’t know you fantasize about monsters. Chill the fuck out.

Odis grabs a blanket and tosses it around my shoulders. “I was watching the water. You were due up the line, but you burst from the surface. Shot out like a cannon and landed face-down in the water. I had to fish you out.”

My eyes widen in surprise. Does that mean that whatever had me underwater let me go, brought me to the surface? How? Or more importantly, why?

“Did you see the animal? A dorsal fin? Tentacles?” Who knows what parts of what I thought and felt were real. At this point, it could have been a merman, a regular squid, or Poseidon himself.

Odis looks out at the choppy water. “No. I didn’t see nothing out there in those waves. But I’ve also never seen anything like that neither.” He turns back and looks at me for a long moment before mumbling a prayer under his breath. “It was like the sea spared your life.” The old man stands and offers me his open palm, pulling me up on shaky legs. “Better come on, Dr. Hart, before the sea changes its mind.”

He moves to the helm, and I brace against the side railing, wrapping myself up in the blanket to block the icy wind. I look out at the vast expanse of water only a mile outside of Claw Bay Harbor. It's desolate and lonely. Maybe the sea sensed a kindredspirit and Odis was right, maybe it spared me. My eyes scan the surface, searching the waves for a glimpse of crimson, but there’s only the white of a misty sky and the dark churning of a restless sea.

Chapter 2

Bjorn

The whirring of a motor rumbles in the water, and my claws and tentacles grip the bottom of the boat, plastering me against the hull. It reminds me of another boat in a faraway life, lost to me now in the currents of time. The boat races through the water, and the farther we head west, the more the tension in my muscles loosens. Familiar rocks and sunken markers of my territory ease the discomfort in my chest.

I ventured out of my bay today, pulled by some instinct that led me to the edges of my territory and into the open ocean.

The diver. A woman.

The ghost of her weight in my arms fills me with a yearning I don’t understand. My appendages stretch, sneaking toward her, breaking the surface. They slither closer to her. Even among the whipping wind and the splattering wake, I can taste her on the air. I yank on my control, forcing my limbs back. The feelers near my neck seem to hiss in protest, the little barbs nipping at the skin of my throat.

It’s much too dangerous for her to see me like this. I’ve already risked too much. My Beast protests when I push to take over. He does not wish to return my skin. For now, I let him remain in control, curious. He is content to follow her, to ensureher rise to the surface did not harm her. He is fascinated by the human.

I am at war with his reaction. A low warning gong travels through my limbs with every urge he has to go to her. She is not ours to collect and hoard. Not after we have proven ourselves incapable of protecting those who needed it most.

My kraken is oblivious to the danger. He knows only that she calls to him and so he prepares to stalk and chase.

The motor eases as we come into the harbor lanes, and my Beast waits impatiently until we arrive at the marina. My kraken detaches from the boat and glides under the dock, barely breaching the surface. He watches through sensitive eyes, the world too bright between the wooden slats.

She disembarks with the help of an older man. My limbs circle the pillars and squeeze, a flash of possessiveness that betrays my desire to rip him from her grasp. She rights herself, her soft melodic voice carrying on the breeze.

“But tomorrow then? First thing? I have to try to recover what I can.”

“Dr. Hart?—”

She is nothing but shadow and footsteps. My Beast longs to catch a glimpse of her face, pushing closer to the slats, searching. Their footsteps shuffle down the dock as they move away. Angling for a better view, he eases under boats and watches until she is lost on the shore.

When she is out of sight, my kraken takes off back toward the open ocean. His only thought is to recover her lost treasure and return it to her.

I hoistmyself onto the rocky edge, my body shifting as I emerge from the water. The runes along my skin glow with the receding magic as my kraken form is replaced by my human one. My tentacles become legs, my claws retract into human fingers. Pain sears through my body with each movement. With the change, hazy flashes of memory return, but it’s too fuzzy to make sense of.

When my kraken is in control, time is recorded differently. There is no memory as in my human form, only sensations and instincts that drive the Beast. I can partially shift if I need the use of my Beast on land, but for many years, I have kept him caged excerpt for short bursts.

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