He entered the infirmary without slowing. A sharp, sour odor struck his nose. Several of the beds were occupied, but his attention moved to the one directly to his left.
Dracchus froze. His hearts stopped.
Macy sat next to the bed, elbow on her knee and face propped on her hand. Her hair hung in front of her face. Her other arm was draped over the side of the bed. Jax, bearing a sickly pallor, stood behind her with his body bent to rest his head on the bed beside its tiny occupant.
Sarina.
She was utterly still apart from the shallow rise and fall of her chest.
Macy turned her face toward him, her eyes tired and filled with worry. Then she looked past Dracchus. A fierceness like he’d never seen lit within her eyes. She leapt up from her chair and ran toward him, face contorted in fury.
“You monster!” she screamed, shoving past Dracchus. He turned in time to see her slam a fist into Kronus’s face. “You evil fucking monster! How could you do this? You hate us so much that you’d kill innocent babies?” She struck him again, and then grabbed the shaft of the harpoon and yanked upward on it.
Kronus cried out in pain, sagging against Brexes and Vasil.
Jax was there an instant later. He pried Macy’s hand off the harpoon and wrapped his arms around her, dragging her back. Despite Jax’s superior size and strength, she nearly broke his hold several times, shouting at Kronus throughout.
“Macy!” Jax called. “Macy, look at me!”
She turned her face toward Jax, and her anger dissipated in an instant. “He could have killed them, Jax! All of them. All of us.” She threw her arms around him and buried her face against his neck as tears flowed down her cheeks.
“What the fuck?” Randall asked, stepping farther into the room. Ikaros followed close behind, whiskers up, and released a trembling whimper.
Dracchus looked over the other beds. Aymee lay curled on the bed beside Sarina’s, a sheen of perspiration on her grayish skin, with Jace in her arms. Arkon stood beside them. The next bed over held Melaina. Rhea leaned over her, stroking the girl’s cheek soothingly. The color of both females was muted, just like Jax’s.
His heart stopped when he saw the occupant of the fourth bed. Larkin was in the same state as Aymee, hair damp and plastered to her face, skin glistening with sweat.
Randall ran toward the last two beds. His gaze shifted between his sister and his mate, torn between the people he loved. He brushed his palm over Larkin’s forehead and frowned before turning to embrace Rhea.
Ikaros stood on his hind legs, propping his front paws on the bed to lay his face next to Melaina. She reached up weakly and patted his head.
Dracchus moved to Larkin’s bedside and sank down to put his head at her level. He reached forward and placed his hand on her cheek. Her skin was cold and clammy. Her brows drew together at his touch, and her eyelids fluttered open.
“Dracchus,” she breathed when she saw him. “They’re okay.” Her eyes drifted shut again.
His hearts constricted with a combination of relief and dread. She was alive, but how poor was her condition? Why had he chosen to leave her behind? He’d allowed this to happen to his mate, to his people. His family.
“What the hell happened?” Randall demanded.
“Blue needler venom,” Arkon said, undisguised anger in his voice. “It seems likely that the fish we had today was contaminated.”
Blue needlers were amongst several dangerous, venomous sea creatures that could kill even a full-grown kraken.
Dracchus looked over his shoulder, fixing his gaze on Kronus. “This is your doing?”
Kronus lifted his head; it bobbed with his rapid, shallow breaths, but he held Dracchus’s gaze. There was a gleam of sorrow in his eyes. “I had no part in this.”
“Liar!” Macy shouted. “Who else would do something like this? You’ve hated us from the beginning, and what have we ever done to deserve that besides exist?”
Drawing in another labored breath, Kronus winced. “Your kind has no place here. We claimed it, long—”
“I don’t care! Stop living in the damn past! This is now.” She pulled away from Jax, though the kraken kept a tentacle around her waist. “And right now, that’s my child on that bed, my baby. Arkon’s baby, Rhea’s daughter. Your own kind! Look at what your hatred has done!”
“I want you gone from the place my people have called home for generations,” Kronus said through clenched teeth, “but I will not stoop to harming kraken females and younglings to see that happen. Our kind can thrive without you, but we will not survive if we are killing one another.” His gaze shifted toward the beds, and something in his expression softened. “There is no honor in this. Poisoning is a coward’s tactic.”
“So what, you’d rather just stab us while we’re looking?” Macy demanded.
“I would look into the eyes of my enemies, yes. Treat them as though they are my equal, even if they are not.”
“When are you going to realize that we are not your damn enemy, Kronus?” Macy turned away from him, into the shelter of Jax’s arms.
Kronus looked first to Randall, and then the harpoon in his gut. Features strained, he bowed his head and said no more.
“Take him to a bed,” Aymee said, voice raw, as she pushed herself up on shaky arms.
Arkon placed his hands on her shoulders and guided her back down. “I will tend to him. You’ve taught me much, and you need to rest. At worst, it will only be as much of a mess as I made of Macy’s leg.” He twisted to watch as Brexes and Vasil lifted Kronus onto a bed, positioning the ochre kraken on his side. “Perhaps a bit worse.”
Arkon pressed a kiss to Aymee’s head before joining Kronus and Brexes. Vasil moved away from them and came to a halt when his eyes caught on Melaina. He stared, silent, his brow lowering and mouth falling into a deep frown.
Finally, Vasil shook his head. “I will go and keep watch.”
Dracchus returned his gaze to Larkin as Vasil departed. She hadn’t stirred since first opening her eyes. “Will they recover?” he asked, gritting his teeth once the words were out. Part of him didn’t want to know, fearing the answer would be too painful.
“It will take time,” Aymee said. “Being kraken is all that saved the children. Had they been human, they would have died before they received the antitoxin. And if Macy had eaten…”
A chill ran up Dracchus’s spine. The thought of losing the younglings, of losing Sarina, and Macy’s unborn babe, of losing Larkin — it was too much. Larkin was here, right in front of him, suffering, but what could he do? The poison that had harmed her wasn’t something he could fight. His prowess meant nothing in the face of this.
A hand settled on his shoulder.
Dracchus turned his head to see Ector just behind him.
“They are strong,” Ector said. “Much stronger than they look. And your mate…she is a warrior. She rests now, but she will be ready to battle soon. We must ensure that the ones who did this — the real ones — are the only ones who pay for it.”
“What good is my strength if it cannot help them now?” Dracchus looked back at his mate and brushed her hair away from her face, carefully hooking it behind her ear with a claw.
“It’s a different sort of strength they need from you now, Dracchus,” Ector said gently, “but it is one you have in abundance. Be here for them now. Do not yet act upon your anger. That is not what will help them through.”
My anger?
He hadn’t allowed himself to feel his anger, hadn’t allowed the full force of it to rise from the depths and crash over him like a wave. Dracchus believed that Kronus had nothing to do with this. He’d seen the attempts, as of late, to restrain Neo and the others. Just before the humans had fired upon the kraken hunting party, Kronus had attempted to sway Neo from attacking.
Kronus was misguided and hateful, but he had shown no desire to throw away kraken lives needlessly.
This was Neo’s doing. He’d insisted on the hunt, having never led one
before. He’d insisted on waiting out the sandseekers rather than using bait. And he’d abandoned his comrades once he realized the danger to himself.
A cry broke the quiet of the room. Though he’d never heard her in such pain and discomfort, he knew it had come from Sarina, and it was as relieving as it was heart-wrenching. Dracchus twisted to look toward them, watching as Macy soothed the youngling, but Larkin’s shivering drew his attention back to his mate.
Her eyes were open, clearer than they’d been the first time. She covered his hand with her own. “Best picnic ever,” she murmured, “apart from the poison. Are you okay?”
“I am fine,” he replied.
“He has a harpoon through a tentacle,” Ector said.
“What?” Larkin raised her head.
Dracchus guided her back down, casting a glare at the elder. “It is nothing.”
“I will join Vasil,” Ector said. He departed quietly.
“Why is there a harpoon in your tentacle?” Larkin asked.
“Rangers,” Randall replied, approaching Larkin’s other side. He placed a hand on her arm and squeezed. “They went a little crazy on the fishing gear.”
“Dad?”
Randall’s face fell, and he dropped his gaze. “Don’t know. Could’ve been.”
Larkin turned her head toward Randall. “He probably thinks we’re dead.”
“If he didn’t think I was dead that whole time, Elle, he’s not going to start thinking it now.”
She glanced past Randall. “How are Melaina and Rhea?”
“They’re getting by. Just got Rhea to finally lie down. She’s almost as stubborn as you sometimes.”
Larkin’s chuckle was cut short; she winced and pressed a hand to her stomach.
Dracchus frowned and leaned over her, covering her hand with his. “You need to rest, female.” He looked at Randall. “No more jokes.”
A pained snarl cut off whatever response Randall might’ve made. Dracchus’s gaze followed the sound to Kronus’s bed.
Arkon handed a blood-smeared harpoon to Brexes, who wrapped it in a cloth and set it aside. “That was the easy part,” Arkon said as he shifted the overhead scanner into place. “It might be best if you don’t attempt to retain consciousness.” He folded another piece of cloth several times and held it to Kronus’s mouth. “Bite down on this. It will help, if only a little.”
“Just do it,” Kronus growled before clamping his teeth over the cloth.
“Think Arkon purposely forgot the anesthetic?” Aymee muttered.
Kronus’s muffled cries of pain might once have brought a twisted sort of satisfaction to Dracchus, but now they only grated on him, vibrating through his bones and constricting his chest. If asked a few days ago, he would’ve said without hesitation that Kronus deserved to suffer.
Here, now, that seemed like the wrong answer.
“What’s going to happen now?” Randall asked.
Vengeance. Bloodshed. A reckoning…
No. Ector’s wisdom had been sound; those things would not help Larkin and the others, not now.
“We rest,” Dracchus said, running the pad of his thumb over Larkin’s cheek, “and recover. Together. Once we are well, we will call all our people together. This treachery will not go unpunished.”
Chapter 21
In all his years, Dracchus had never seen the Mess so full. The room had always seemed spacious, even with a few dozen gathered inside, but now it felt small and cramped. His mind wanted to dismiss the number of kraken in the room as some sort of deception, as an illusion, an impossibility.
But these were his people. Not all of them, but more than had ever come to such gatherings. Even the females had come in great number, many clutching younglings — of which there were still too few.
Uncertain silence gripped them, broken only by the occasional, indecipherable murmur. Many of them knew what had happened by now — that two human females and five kraken, including three younglings, had been poisoned — but none had been told the purpose of this meeting.
Larkin moved to his side, pressing a warm hand to the small of his back. “They’re here.”
His gaze followed hers down the narrow path leading to the doorway. Kronus entered first, a telling distance between him and the kraken who once followed him. The only evidence remaining of his harpoon wound was a puckered scar.
Neo and his supporters came after, in a tight cluster, faces drawn in suspicion as they took in the crowd.
It’d been six days since the incident. Six days of worry spent at Larkin’s side as she recovered, six days of feeling powerless to help the people he cared about. That time had been broken only by a brief trip to the kitchen with Randall and Ikaros. The prixxir had shied away from the meat in the cold storage room, and Arkon’s scanner had confirmed it was all tainted. They’d disposed of it all, disposed of dozens of hours’ worth of hunting and gathering, forcing a small party of trustworthy kraken — led by Vasil and Brexes — to go catch more fish.
The afflicted had eaten little during that time. Dracchus glanced at Larkin and frowned. She tired easily and still looked paler than normal.
Despite his gentle efforts, it had taken three days for her to agree to eat anything. After she’d vomited up those bits of food, she’d gone another full day before her next attempt.
Her appetite had yet to recover — even now, when she did eat, it was in portions tiny enough to scarce satisfy a newborn.
Thankfully, the younglings had made a more complete recovery. Jace and Sarina were likely to forget the incident. Melaina, on the other hand, was old enough to remember what had happened. To remember that her own people had done this. Dracchus could only hope she’d develop the wisdom to understand that those who’d done her harm were part of a small group that did not represent all kraken.
Kronus moved to a place opposite Dracchus and stood with his head bowed, oddly calm and quiet. Neo flashed crimson as he glared at Dracchus’s companions, but it was Garon who spoke.
“Why are the humans here?”
“Because they are our people,” Ector said, the voices around them lowering as the elder kraken spoke. He was positioned in the center of the open area along the wall — Dracchus’s contingent occupied the space to his right, while Kronus and Neo’s group filled in the left. Ector was flanked by three other elder kraken, two males and a female.
“They are not kraken,” Neo growled. “They do not belong here.”
Ikaros stepped forward with a low growl, but Randall placed a hand upon the prixxir, calming him. “Stay.”
“Take your place,” Ector said to Neo calmly, waving his hand to the left. “Grievances will be presented soon.”
Dracchus locked his eyes on Neo. He concentrated on not allowing his skin to change color, on keeping his expression neutral; it was among the most difficult endeavor’s he’d ever undertaken. Rage roiled inside him like the sea thrashing during a storm.
They’d been mistaken to think Kronus was the true threat. Kronus had lost control.
Kraken gathered behind Neo; Orphus and Garon foremost, with Leda slipping in beside them. Kronus remained apart from them, alone until Aja, another female, moved to stand with him.
“What is this about, Dracchus?” a male kraken asked from the crowd.
“You have not heard?” another replied.
The female elder, Ceres, raised her arms. “All shall be told,” she called, and the crowd fell into silence. She looked at Ector.
“I have seen three generations of kraken grow to adulthood in my time,” Ector said, moving forward, “and I have taught countless males how to hunt, how to survive, and how to conduct themselves with honor. Never in all those years have I borne witness to anything so cowardly and vile as what happened six days ago.
“There are many opinions about the humans who have shared our home. I understand the wariness. We have been taught they are our enemies since before our grandsires were birthed. But the majority of us agreed that they have done nothin
g but good for our people.”
Ceres moved to Macy and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. She smiled at her. “The human who saved a youngling by slaying a razorback on her own. She nearly lost her life in the act.”
The next elder, Faro, approached Aymee. “The human who defied her own people to protect ours, and saved the lives of two kraken—” he paused to look meaningfully at Kronus “—with her healing. She has worked selflessly to ease our injuries and ailments over the last year.”
Parus, the final elder, moved to stand before Randall. “The human who fought his own kind in defense of our people and has worked as hard as any of our hunters to provide us with food and security.”
Ector’s movements weren’t as powerful or smooth as Dracchus remembered as he moved to Larkin; the years — and the last few days — were taking a toll upon him. “And this huntress. She was the one who captured Dracchus, Vasil, and Neo, but she was also the one who brought them food and water. The one who risked fire and the fury of a storm to set them free when she realized that our peoples should not be enemies.”
Ceres motioned to the children in Macy and Aymee’s arms. “Two younglings have come, and a third grows inside Macy. Kraken younglings.”
The elders returned to their original places, with Ector at their front.
“These are our people,” Ector said. “We have declared it many times, and they have earned their places. They have brought laughter and joy to these corridors and have shown us new ways.”
“They violate everything we are!” Neo growled.
“How?” Dracchus demanded. His hearts thundered, and his throat was tight, but somehow, he kept his voice steady. “These are not the humans who were enemies to the kraken, and we are not our ancestors.”
“Two of them hunted us!” Garon said, moving forward. “She was the reason you were put in a cage and beaten!”
Neo’s skin pulsed red at the reminder, but he didn’t look away from Dracchus. “What does this have to do with us, elder?”
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