Page 6 of Nora's Kraken

Maybe I should have given Elias more of a chance.

Standing in my kitchen Monday night, washing the last of my dishes from dinner and looking out the small window over my sink into a dark, rainy night, all of it bubbles up to the surface.

It was raining just like this the night I arrived in Seattle, a little over three years ago.

I’d been fresh off a Greyhound, fresh off the worst relationship of my life and the riskiest decision I’d ever made, and I’d been terrified. It’d taken me months to just find my balance again, a whole year to stop looking over my shoulder every time I left the house, wondering if that would be the day my ex, Daniel, caught up with me. And even now, three years out, I have to be honest enough to admit all of that baggage is still coloring the way I live my life.

It’s coloring the way I saw the kraken, too.

It was there, under the weight of Elias’s hot, possessive stare, that another set of eyes came to mind. Light green instead of ocean blue, and always looking for a fault or some new way to ding my self-confidence. It was there, in the idea that some new man had come into my life thinking he could possess me, control me, treat me like an object that belonged to him.

I don’t know Elias. I don’t know what it actually means for a kraken to consider someone his mate. And even though I can recognize my history makes me somewhat less than objective in this situation, it doesn’t negate the fact that I have some good reasons to be wary.

There’s nothing on this planet that would tempt me back into a situation like the one I took such a gamble to leave, so why open myself up to the risk?

Those thoughts hound me out my door on Tuesday morning. The weather is gray and drizzly as I hop on the bus a couple blocks away from my apartment and head downtown to the bookstore. Twenty minutes before my shift starts, I get off at the stop down the street from Tandbroz and look left and right surreptitiously.

No krakens in sight.

The bookshop’s only a half-block away, but there’s one more important stop I need to make before I clock in.

It’s Tuesday, and I need my chai latte fix.

There’s another coffee shop, Driftwood Coffee Co, a few blocks over from Second Cup. It’s not my favorite, and their chai really doesn’t compare, but hopefully it’s far enough out of the way that I won’t accidentally run into anyone I would rather avoid.

Namely, the kraken.

He supposedly only saw me in the shop that one time, but I’m not taking any chances as I hoof it down the street.

The drizzle has picked up a little, but I’ve got my rain jacket and a good set of boots on, and I’ve never minded the rain. After growing up in Phoenix and going to college in Dallas before spending a few years in DC with Daniel, I never really expected how much I’d love the damp, cool climate and living near the ocean, but now I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Luckily, the line at Driftwood isn’t too long, and my latte comes out quickly. I’ve just made it back outside, pulled my hood up over my hair, and rounded the corner to head back toward Tandbroz, when I stop dead in my tracks.

The kraken is staring back at me.

To be fair, Elias seems as surprised as I am as he holds his hands up in either surrender or an attempt to calm me.

“Are you following me?” I ask, hand tightening on my cup and heart rate ticking up a few notches.

“No,” he assures me. “My office building is just up the street. I was… trying to avoid the part of downtown I saw you in before. I thought that might be best.”

He seems sincere. Still, I’m not quite buying it.

“Where do you work?” I hope it’s a fair question. I’d like to at least know the areas I should avoid in the future.

“Morgan-Blair Tower,” he says, something hesitant flashing across his face.

Looking up the street, Morgan-Blair Tower rises from the pavement in a monolith of modern glass and steel. I’ve seen the building towering over the city a thousand times, known what its name is since the week I moved here, but standing here, now, with a kraken staring me down, it finally sinks in.

Morgan-Blair. The wheels in my mind are more than a little rusted and creaky as I try to reason it out, but clarity hits me like a slap to the face.

“Who… who are you?”

His expression is so uncomfortable that for a moment I almost feel bad for him. At least until he answers the question.

“Elias Morgan,” he says with a self-conscious shrug.

“No,” I shoot back. “Absolutely not. Whoareyou?”

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