Page 21 of Kept By the Kraken

“Yeah, Bjorn, I want to learn with you.” The ball of pressure in my chest untangles.

Chapter 12

Bjorn

“Little Violet?” I peek my head around the doorframe to find my lost mate curled up in an old wooden chair, her face buried in a book. “Ready to eat?”

Penelope responds in a flurry of action, slamming the book closed and returning it to the nearest shelf. “Shit! I’m sorry. I found the books and I got sidetracked. Did you already bring up the food?”

I quirk my brow at her. “We’re good. It needs to cool.”

She looks at her feet nervously, the metallic green polish flashing as she rubs a spot on the wood with her toe. Penelope said before she was lonely, but it’s hard to imagine her any other way than bold and surrounded by life. I see her hesitance now and it riles up my Beast. He wants to rip apart anything that makes that expression on her face.We’re in agreement.

Instead of demanding control, I share space with him as I did earlier this afternoon. But to my surprise, he nudges me to lead.

“Do you want to see one of my favorites?” I ask, hoping the discovery of something new will clear the cloud that’s settled over her.

“Yes.” She nods at me from behind the curtain of her hair, her wide smile returning.

I tug her hand and bring her through the spiraling library toward my oldest collections in the back. I don’t keep anything from my shifter life with my Clan except this. Penelope watches wide-eyed as I unlock the wooden puzzle box and remove the wooden tentacle.

“It’s a children’s book I found in a market long after The Shifter Wars. The seller thought it was a broken toy and traded it to me for fish. Each section of the appendage turns and is covered in carvings dipped with ink. It’s spelled to tell the story of the first kraken shifters.” I hold up the tentacle and twist the pieces to the right configuration to begin the story. “Are you familiar with Odin?”

She nods. “He’s a Norse god.”

“There are many gods and Odin is only a story now but to me and my people he was real. He created man, but after he left Earth, his son Thor, the great protector, was called to battle against a giant creature that threatened the people.”

Penelope traces the lines of the monster’s tentacles where they reach for Thor at the end of the first panel. She turns the wood, and I continue.

“Most of the humans had run in fear, but a few gathered to help Thor face the creature. They had few abilities, and many fell quickly. Seeing that even when he defeated the creature the humans would be unable to defend themselves, he decided to capture the creature. He combined his essence with that of the Beast and breathed it into the warriors, tasking them with the protection of the seas.”

With a look of wonder, she studies the final piece at the tip that shows the first kraken clan, flipping back and forth between the man and the Beast. “Does that mean you’re a demi-god? Is your Beast separate from you? Like a second soul in your body?”

“I don’t think of myself that way. Only as a shifter.” I shrug and place the wooden tome back when she hands it to me. “Thekraken and the man are meant to be whole. My bond with him broke when I lost my family, though I didn’t understand that then.”

“There are lots of things that seem unbreakable until they do.” She looks away from me and steps back, surveying the bookshelves that line the narrow walls. “Have you read them all?”

“When you’re as old as I am, you find time for a lot of reading. If it’s made it in this house, it’s been read more than once.”

She grins, and I notice the small gap between her front teeth. “An endless TBR, the key perk of immortality.”

I shake my head. “First, what’s a TBR? Second, I’m not immortal. We just don’t die easily.”

My hand finds the small of her back and I guide us back through the bookcases until we hit the main staircase of the lighthouse tower.

She explains as she climbs, the bounce back in her step. “A TBR is a To Be Read list. It’s a list readers keep of what they want to read.”

“Clever. I assume you’re a reader? What’s on your list?”

Penelope’s voice come out pitchy. “Mostly romance and fantasy. My mind is always going. I read journals and analyze data all the time for work. The stories help me shut it off and escape into another world for a while.”

My chest rumbles in agreement. Nights are long when you’re alone. “You’ll have to let me read your favorites.”

She turns on me, her eyes full of mischief. “Yeah, I don’t know if we’re ready for that,” she says, a sweet laugh bubbling out.

“Why not? I’ve had you in my tentacles. Surely we’re past being embarrassed by books.”

Pink patches bloom down her throat, but she smirks at me, eyes narrowing in defiance. “I read naughty stories about monsters.”

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