Page 43 of Nora's Kraken

His booming laugh echoes down the shore. It’s loud enough that an older couple a few dozen yards away turns to look, startled, and I have to cover my mouth to keep from bursting out in laughter.

God, he’s gorgeous when he smiles.

And when that smile turns into a smirk, a raised eyebrow, and a kiss stolen from my smiling lips, he looks every inch the pirate he once was.

“No,” he says emphatically. “No, little siren, it wasn’t. It was a lot lessHollywood, and a lot more long, tedious days at sea and the endless work of keeping a ship and crew running smoothly and not tempted to mutiny.”

“Did that happen?” I ask, far too intrigued by this. “Did you ever have to, like, sword fight people? Or, I don’t know, shoot canons?”

Elias smiles again, but there’s a thread of sadness in it this time. “Occasionally, yes. And that’s what led to Blair and I giving up that life for good.”

For the next half-hour, he tells me more about those days. The places they sailed, the treasures they found or stole. When he gets to the part about his own role as the kraken threat come up from the depths to scare human pirates into giving up their bounty, a bit of color blooms high on his cheekbones.

“I’m sure you were very fearsome,” I say mildly, patting his cheek.

He catches my hand in his and nips gently at my fingertips. “I was, I can assure you. Still am, when I want to be.”

The idea of that is… more intriguing than I thought it would be. What would Elias look like as that monster? What would it be like to peer into the depths of the ocean and see the shadow of massive tentacles rising from the deep?

I have to shake my head to clear away the image and the brief pulse of strange, improbable excitement it puts into the bottom of my belly.

Returning to our stroll down the beach, he tells me about meeting and inviting Blair aboard his ship, and all the misadventures they got into. As his story winds down, however, lines of tension appear on his forehead.

“Things came to a rather abrupt end after Blair met a woman,” Elias says. “He was ready to leave the ship, the sea, the crew, and set off with her on a new adventure.”

“She must have been amazing, if he wanted to give all of that up.”

“She was,” he says, the weight of centuries’ worth of guilt in his voice. “Her name was Lizzy. And Blair loved her.”

“What happened to her?”

He gazes out at the sea, studying the gently rolling waves and the islands in the distance. “She was killed. And it was our fault, the both of us.”

In a softer, sadder tone than I’ve ever heard from him, he tells me a story about a vibrant, lively young woman with raven black hair and an adventurous spirit who joined them for a journey back to England, only to be killed when they were attacked by a pair of French ships.

“He thought she was his mate,” Elias says, still looking out at the water. I’m not sure it’s this ocean he’s seeing, not sure where exactly it is his memory’s taken him, but I reach over and squeeze his hand gently to offer whatever support I can. He squeezes back, though the sadness doesn’t leave him. “All these decades and centuries later, Blair has never spoken her name aloud again, and I know there’s some part of him that will never forgive himself, or me, for what happened.”

“Even after all this time?”

He nods. “It will always be there, that guilt. And that grief.”

We walk in silence for a little while, the sounds of the waves breaking and gulls calling filling the space between us.

“I’m sorry, Nora,” he says quietly a few minutes later. “I shouldn’t have dumped all of that on you. Not when this day was supposed to be—”

“It’s alright. Really. I’m glad you told me.”

He seems unconvinced, and I reach up and cup his face, fingers lingering over the line of his scar. “It is,” I assure him. “I mean,allof this is a little strange. At least for me. So it kind of feels like normal second date rules don’t apply. I want to get to know you, so whatever you want to tell me, you can.”

Elias lets out a tense breath. “That means a lot to me, Nora.”

My stomach chooses that moment to grumble its protest at not having anything since breakfast back at Elias’s house. It breaks some of the tension of the moment, and even draws a chuckle from Elias.

“Come on,” he says, taking my hand again. “I know a spot we can get a late lunch.”

15

Elias

---