Page 70 of Nora's Kraken

She nods. “It’s always seemed a little abstract to me, becoming a mom, but I think… I think I’d want that too.”

Something small and fragile and wonderful blooms in the center of my chest.

“It’s not something we have to decide anytime soon,” I tell her gently, tucking that feeling away for now. Keeping it somewhere it will be safe.

I shift back into my human form before carrying Nora from the pool to my bed. We’re both still dripping wet, but it hardly matters in the haze of exhausted, blissful satisfaction.

She’s relaxed in my arms, completely sated, and I can’t help but internally purr in pleasure to see her so undone.

My mate. Satisfied. Happy. Utterly fucked-out andmine.

“Alright,” she murmurs, curling into my side and settling her head in the crook between my neck and shoulder. “No kids right now. I’m, uh, also clean. Do krakens get STDs?”

“I’m immune from most normal human illness. Including STDs.”

“Oh,” she says. “Well. I got tested after I moved here, and there hasn’t been anyone since then.”

I look down, brow furrowed. I suppose it makes sense, given what she went through in her last relationship, but the idea she hasn’t had that type of companionship in so long is… well, hard to believe, for one.

On the other hand, the feral, kraken part of me hisses in pleasure that there are no other males walking around Seattle who have intimate knowledge of my treasure.

Nora, perhaps mistaking my expression for something else, blushes a little. “Which is just my clumsy way of saying I’m not seeing anyone else. Romantically. I mean, you probably already guessed that, but… I thought it might be worth mentioning.”

Her cheeks turn a darker shade of pink as she speaks, and the primal satisfaction in my chest grows even more pointed.

Good. It’s good there’s no one else. There won’t be from now on if I have anything to do about it.

“There’s no one else for me either, Nora,” I tell her. “And there won’t be, as long as we’re together.”

And even if we’re not, there may never be anyone for me again. I don’t say the words aloud, but they ring just as true in the back of my mind.

Nora laughs softly. “Does that make you my boyfriend, then?”

I have to laugh as well.Boyfriend. Gods. What a thing to be called by my mate, the piece of my own heart living and breathing and walking around outside my body.

“I’m whatever you want me to be.”

Mate, husband, boyfriend, friend. It hardly matters to me. As long as she’ll have me, I’ll be here.

“Whatever I want you to be…” she murmurs. “That seems like a pretty broad promise.”

If she only knew how broad the promises I’d make to her could be.

“What would you like me to be, little siren?”

Nora leans back and studies me. “On the first morning we spent together, you said we had all the time in the world for our relationship.”

“I did.”

“I was wondering if you meant that literally? Blair said something the day we met about krakens living to be a thousand years old. And I’ve read a few things about mating bonds. Kraken mating bonds, in particular, and how they affect humans who form them.”

Nora looks a bit abashed, like she’s confessed to doing something she shouldn’t. I just chuckle, leaning forward to press a kiss against her temple.

“I’m glad you’ve been curious enough to do some research. And yes, you’re right. A human who bonds with a kraken will have an extended life span. For lack of a better way to explain it, we would meet in the middle and live to be roughly the same age.”

I hadn’t wanted to drop that bit of information in her lap for fear it might scare her, and perhaps that fear was not unfounded. When I glance back down at her, Nora looks unexpectedly distraught.

“You’d live a shorter life because of me? That’s awful, Elias. Why would you want that?”

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