“Where are we going?” Her confusion didn’t seem to affect her desire.
When he reached the end of the land, he turned and slipped into the water, sitting her on the edge. He sank down until his face was level with her pelvis. She propped herself on her elbows and watched as he placed his hands on her knees, spreading them wide, and guided her legs over his shoulders. It granted him a full view of her glistening sex.
“Oh,” she breathed.
He glanced up, and Macy averted her eyes. Her face was red, and she caught her lip between her flat, white teeth.
“Macy…”
Despite her hesitance, her gaze was bright with need. “I’ve… I don’t know what to…”
“You do not have to do anything.” Jax raised his front tentacles out of the water, running them up her legs and around her waist to cradle the small of her back. He moved a hand to her sex and slid the back of a finger along her folds.
She shivered and made a soft sound, lifting her hips.
With a second finger, he parted her sex, revealing the hidden petals within. Lured by her scent, he leaned closer, extended his tongue, and licked.
Macy bucked, digging her heels into his back, and put a hand on his head. “Jax!”
Her taste swept through his mouth and overwhelmed his senses; he needed more. His cock throbbed with aching need, his hearts pounded, and he longed to sink into her heat, but the discomfort was a small price for another taste of her.
He pressed his lips to her sex and kissed, flicking his tongue along her soft, smooth flesh and over the small nub at the top of her cleft. Macy dropped her head back with a cry, and her entire body jolted.
Curious, he did it again; the moment he brushed the nub, she came to life, pulling him closer with her legs as she sagged onto the ground. She withdrew her hand from his head, grasping handfuls of her hair.
Releasing a growl, Jax closed his eyes and delved into her, licking, nipping, sucking; drinking in her essence. She writhed beneath him, hips undulating against his mouth. He held her fast, allowing her no escape. The air was redolent with her scent and filled with her throaty whispers and moans.
He’d never heard such sounds from female kraken; his kind mated in the water. Macy’s passionate cries urged him on and aroused him so much it hurt, but he couldn’t stop.
Jax latched onto the small nub and sucked.
Macy screamed, quivering, and lurched up to wrap her arms around his neck. Her blunt fingernails grazed his skin as nectar flowed from her sex. He drank greedily, not relenting until he’d lapped up every drop, until her arms fell away and her trembling subsided.
He guided her legs off his shoulders and kissed the patch of hair on her pelvis, kissed over stomach, her breasts, easing her down as he worked his way up. Bringing more of his tentacles forward, he latched onto the island and pulled himself up. Macy cupped his face.
Jax braced himself with a hand to either side of her and stared down, sliding his hips up until his shaft pressed against her folds. Her heat flowed into him; he gritted his teeth, suppressing a shudder of pleasure. He didn’t know how long he’d last. Before he’d seen her naked body, before he’d known if they could mate, he’d dreamt of this. Of her.
He held her gaze; they both knew that nothing would be same after this moment. Whatever relationship they’d formed would be forever altered. She’d chosen him. She was claiming him as her own.
Macy raised her knees, opening to him. She smiled.
Inhaling her scent, Jax closed his eyes. Her body was soft, awaiting his touch, welcoming their joining. And he couldn’t wait any longer.
He pulled back and grasped his cock in one hand, guiding its head to her sex. His secretion combined with hers and eased his entrance as he slid into the tight heat of her channel. She tensed. Her inner muscles gripped him, and her hands fell to his shoulders, nails biting into his skin. He stilled.
“Keep going,” Macy wrapped her legs around his waist.
The pressure was almost too much, and it took everything to keep from spilling in those first few moments. She was stretching to accommodate him, to draw more of him in, but could he hold out long enough for it to matter? His entire body tingled with the feel of her; he smelled nothing but her; Macy was the very air he breathed.
Steeling himself, he withdrew slightly — unable to suppress a groan — and thrust in, burying himself until their pelvises came together and the feelers at the base of his shaft caressed her sex. Macy let out a choked cry.
Incredible heat surrounded him, squeezed him, consumed him. Excruciating need surged within him.
Jax gazed down at her and knew that he was lost.
Macy was on fire. Every bit of her skin burned with the longing to be touched, kissed, caressed. The pain of his entrance had been fleeting, swept aside by the feel of him filling her. Her inner walls pulsed deliciously around his shaft. She tightened her legs, pulling him even deeper.
Jax bared his teeth in a growl and closed his eyes, his face a mask of agony and pleasure. He ground his hips against hers. Macy moaned as one of the tendrils flicked over her clit. They moved constantly, brushing the sensitive folds of her sex.
“Jax,” she breathed. Her body strained against him, and she whimpered as the sensations built within. Her nipples grazed his chest as she arched her back. “Please.”
He groaned and pumped his pelvis back and forward, intensifying the friction, forcing her pleasure to new, impossible heights. Each thrust was deeper, harder, and faster than the one before.
A tentacle trailed along her leg, starting at her toes and sliding up to her knee before moving down again.
It started with a spark. When it ignited, it roared through her in a flash of light. Macy came with a series of cries, clenching Jax as she convulsed, and her consciousness shattered. Waves of pleasure crashed through her, powerful and potent, and she was lost in their depths, left with nothing but pure sensation. She writhed beneath him. She was no longer Macy; a wild, fiery thing had replaced her, bucking and clawing, fueled by pleasure and torn apart by it, its hunger insatiable.
Jax’s growl reverberated through Macy, heightening her climax as a new heat — his heat — flooded her. He pistoned his hips, slamming into her with fierce, desperate speed. A tentacle grasped each of her thighs, pulling her against him with more force.
Another orgasm ravaged her, more forceful than the last, and she screamed in rapture. Her sex quivered and clenched. She clung to Jax, drawing their bodies somehow closer as she rode it out.
Finally, they stilled, breath ragged and raw. Macy released him and eased onto the ground. She stared into his alien eyes, and her heart leapt.
He wore a faint smile, but the depth of emotion in his eyes was immense. They were filled with satisfaction, joy, possessiveness…and something more. He leaned down and kissed her.
Macy returned the kiss, brushing her fingers over his siphons and down his neck to settle on his shoulders.
She’d accepted Jax into her body, and she had no regrets.
Chapter 14
Jax swam along the seafloor, matching his skin to the terrain. He kept his eyes in constant motion; it was unlikely the razorback had lingered in the coastal shallows for two days, but the attack had caught him off-guard, and that was unsettling. When it came to Macy’s safety, he couldn’t allow himself any degree of carelessness.
Despite his dedication to alertness, he couldn’t prevent his mind from repeatedly returning to the prior day. What they’d shared had proven more fulfilling and meaningful than he could’ve imagined. Even thoughts of prowling razorbacks couldn’t overcome his elation. He didn’t know if Macy considered them joined in the manner of her people, but she had chosen him.
They were mates.
To kraken, it was an incredibly important — if fleeting — concept, a state that could change as suddenly as the tides during a storm. Because of that, he shouldn’t allow himself such excitement. Shouldn’t allow himself such attachment.
; But Macy had said humans didn’t view such relationships in the same manner. When they chose, they did so for life.
He halted and flattened himself to the bottom as he approached a potential hunting area. Each moment away from her was a new sort of suffering, a unique agony, but it was his duty to provide for her, and he’d not yet obtained tools to allow her to assist on hunts. Today, she would rest.
As he observed the nearby sea creatures, his mind conjured images from yesterday. After their joining, Macy had gone to the waterfall to wash herself; he supposed such behavior was another human oddity, one beyond his understanding. Jax had watched the water caress her bare skin. Had watched droplets roll down her breasts and gather, briefly, on the tips of her nipples before falling. He’d watched rivulets run to the hair between her legs, and lower. It had been no surprise when his willpower failed.
Jax had joined her, and soon their closeness led to touching, then kissing, and finally to another joining. They’d eaten afterward, and laid side-by-side as the stars eventually came out. Their quiet conversation had continued until well after the moons passed across the cave’s opening.
When he’d woken at dawn, he was still on land, with Macy enveloped in his arms and tentacles.
Now, he watched spinefish glide by with their long, flat tails, watched armored grayfish sink down into the sand to bury themselves with flapping fins, likely digging nests for their eggs. Silver, reflective fish drifted over the seagrass, using the light bouncing off their scales to attract smaller creatures. Schools of brightly colored fish with oversized, flowing fins swam by with irregular rhythms; their slow, nonchalant pace broken by seemingly random bursts of speed. A few hard-shells — Macy called them lobsters — trundled along the bottom, long feelers sweeping in front of them.
Jax crept closer. Most of these creatures did not stray far from the cover of rocks, coral, and seagrass; open water left them vulnerable. They wouldn’t come to him.
Though he wouldn’t dismiss an opportunity for any significant catch, his attention returned to the spinefish. Most of them were large enough, individually, that one would provide a satisfying meal for Jax and Macy both — especially since she had plants to eat with the meat.
Movement farther out caught his eye; a dark shape approached the area from the relative gloom that always lingered in the distance underwater.
No matter how well you can see, the old hunters had said, the sea never reveals everything.
As the dark shape drew nearer, he recognized it for a kraken — its tentacles flared and flattened, flared and flattened. Jax would recognize that uniquely graceful manner of swimming anywhere; Arkon glided along with seemingly little effort, tentacles always extending to straight lines whether they were trailing behind him or splayed in all directions.
Arkon drifted, turning his head from side to side as he searched the environment. He was clearly alone — when hunting parties traveled, they stayed close together, spreading out only enough not to hinder one another’s movement. They were less likely to be attacked in a group, and that closeness meant no one was completely undefended.
Why was Arkon this far from the Facility by himself?
Jax pushed up from the bottom, rising to Arkon’s level, and flashed orange over his skin.
Arkon spotted him and matched Jax’s brief coloration, but sent a pulse of green through it. He was agitated by something. Slowing, Arkon moved his hands and front tentacles in a series of gestures.
Need to speak. Surface.
Signaling his understanding, Jax scanned his surroundings for a final time and swam toward the glittering reflections that marked the barrier between water and air. They’d be totally exposed up there; Arkon would not take such a risk lightly.
Jax emerged first, and Arkon broke the surface a moment later.
“We must be quick. There was a razorback hunting these waters two days ago,” Jax said.
“You have been absent eleven days, Jax. I did not expect to find you so close after such a time. In fact, I hoped I would not find you at all.” Arkon’s pupils shrank to slits in the morning sunlight.
Of all the things Jax might’ve expected Arkon to say, he couldn’t have guessed anything close to those words. That was Arkon — he had his habits, his obsessions, as he’d say, but once he broke from them, he was entirely unpredictable.
“You hoped for my death, then?”
Arkon shook his head, brow falling. “Your brain must have been addled. Dracchus claimed you have returned at least once to the Facility since you and I last spoke, and that you departed immediately. When I called him a liar, he simply restated in his claim — without taking offense. I feared he was being truthful. I knew if I came looking for you, and couldn’t locate you, Dracchus was speaking false.”
“You came out here because of something Dracchus said? You’ve never much cared about what he thought one way or the other, Arkon.”
“And you, Jax, know of his persistence better than anyone. He must have demanded I tell him your whereabouts a dozen times, and insisted that your behavior when he encountered you was suspicious.”
“I’ve returned twice, Arkon.”
“And departed immediately both times?” Arkon blew air out of his siphons.
“Yes. I was retrieving old human devices.”
“For your collection?”
Jax clenched his jaw. He’d avoided Arkon because he didn’t want to lie to him. The trust they had in one another was strong, deep, unshakeable. Jax had never intended to endanger it, but he’d done so by deciding to withhold the truth. And even now, after everything, how much could he bring himself to say? If any kraken would understand — if any could accept what Jax was doing — it was Arkon.
He’d told Macy once that he couldn’t give her much information because he needed to protect the other kraken. This was no different; the choice was not Jax’s alone. She had a part in it. She’d be affected by it.
“In a way, yes.”
Narrowing his eyes, Arkon swam closer. “You have never been one to speak cryptically. What is it you are hiding, Jax?”
Jax’s stomach churned. Of course, Arkon would be suspicious; little escaped his notice. “I cannot explain it to you. Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because…it is better understood if I show you, Arkon, and showing you is not my choice to make.”
Arkon held Jax’s gaze. They floated in silence for many heartbeats.
“Is it worth the trouble you are stirring up?” Arkon finally asked.
“What trouble?”
“Dracchus. He distrusts you, and in this instance, I cannot blame him. You’ve given him good reason. You declined a hunt, Jax? For all your wandering, you’ve never once done that, and Dracchus knows it well.”
“As I have said before, to the abyss with Dracchus.”
The corner of Arkon’s mouth lifted in a half-smile. “I do not believe there is a hole big enough to swallow him.”
Jax couldn’t help his own smile. “And if there was, he’d likely want to fight it.”
Arkon’s expression brightened with humor briefly before reverting to its prior seriousness. “I don’t think he will back down this time. He’s wanted to prove himself against you since we were young, Jax, and for some reason, your recent behavior has pushed him to new levels.”
“I have deferred leadership of most hunts to him. I do not challenge him publicly, I do not attempt to sway the others in any way. What reason have I given him?” Jax’s hearts thumped, and anger poured heat into his veins.
“Dracchus’s concerns are…foreign to me, in many ways,” Arkon said, dropping his gaze, “and I cannot pretend to understand him any more than I can pretend to truly understand you. If I were to venture a guess, it would be an oversimplification, and that would avail us nothing.”
“It does not matter. I will deal with him when I must.” Part of Jax was tempted to return to the Facility now and issue a challenge to Dracchus. If Dracchus suffered another defeat a
gainst Jax, he would settle for a time, but it would never stop. Not until one of them was dead.
“That is what I am trying to explain, Jax. This time, it may well be more than you can deal with, if you leave it for too long. He has made no attempt to keep his opinions to himself. For all the respect they have for your abilities, you are no more normal to the others than I am. If Dracchus convinces them of your betrayal, the truth will make little difference.”
Jax tilted his head back and stared, unseeing, toward the soothing blue of the cloudless sky. Even as part of him wanted the fight, the rest of him — stronger by far — wanted nothing more than to return to Macy and never concern himself with these affairs again. He knew, had the situation involved anyone other than Jax, Arkon would have paid it no mind; he held no interest in social struggles.
Could Jax live without seeing the Facility again?
His immediate answer was yes. He wasn’t sure how to feel about his lack of shame for it.
“For now, I will not worry about Dracchus or the rest of them.” Jax returned his attention to Arkon. “I have betrayed your trust, and for that I am sorry. If you take the chance of trusting me one more time, I ask ten days of you. On the tenth morning, I will meet you at the Broken Cavern, and I will reveal the secret I have kept.”
Arkon searched Jax’s face and, after a short while, nodded. “You have my trust, Jax, as always. Ten days. But please…do not ignore the situation with Dracchus. It will grow worse the longer it is disregarded.”
“Warn the others of the razorback. May the stones fall as you would have them lie, Arkon.”
“And the currents carry you where you would go, Jax.”
“You’re quieter than normal.” Macy slipped a piece of fish into her mouth.
Jax picked at his food with the tips of two claws; he’d eaten little, thus far.
She had woken to find him gone, but it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes later when he emerged from the tunnel with a meter-long spinefish dangling from an extended tentacle.
Treasure of the Abyss Page 16
