A lie would have been easy — the easiest response, perhaps, and the most likely to result in the outcome Arkon wanted. But even now he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was adept at half-truths and withholding information, but an outright lie felt wrong.
“No. I believe it will work, but I cannot say for sure.”
Nothing is certain.
Somehow, Dracchus’s frown deepened. Once, that would have given Arkon a smug sense of satisfaction, but now it only compounded his guilt.
I have always done my duty, regardless of how the others viewed me. I should feel no guilt for seeking out my own contentment, not after all this time.
“We will try your way. I will have the two of you wait on the bottom while the rest of us guide the fish into the area.”
“You do not want to participate in the kill?” Jax asked.
“It would bring me joy,” Dracchus admitted, “but you are both faster. You are more likely to make the kill and drag it clear before chaos erupts. I will not be far, in any case, and can lead the others to take down outlying targets beyond the first.”
They submerged and returned to the hunting ground. Arkon lowered himself to the rocks beside Jax, and they both took up the long, metal spears they’d brought from the facility. Changing his skin to match the stone, he watched Dracchus direct the others with a series of quick, concise signs.
The hunters rose from their waiting places, spread out in a wide formation, and swam slowly toward the reef, keeping close to the bottom. Their confusion was apparent — and Kronus’s rage undiminished — but they had accepted Dracchus’s leadership by following him after the challenge. Inquiries would be saved until they were home again.
The kraken moved like a closing net, slowly drawing their formation tighter. Startled by the approach of predators, many of the fish panicked and fled; the kraken served as a funnel, guiding the fish toward the open patch of sand.
Adjusting his hold on his weapon, Arkon thrust aside all other thought; it proved more difficult than ever before, but he could focus only on the hunt now, only on the kill. He and Jax crept closer to the edge of the rock.
The shadow of the approaching fish darted across the bottom a moment before the creatures passed overhead. The kraken kept on the fish’s flanks, holding their formation. Their weapons gleamed in the sunlight. They were too high, though, to make a killing blow — sandseekers had to be attacked from beneath.
The sound of rushing water produced by the fleeing creatures was suddenly overpowered by something deeper, something felt more than heard — the sudden displacement of a large amount of water.
A few body lengths ahead, a sandseeker leapt from the bottom. A cloud of sand rose with it, particles streaming from the crevices on its armored back. Its broad, flat belly fins paddled frantically, pushing it toward the approaching fish.
Arkon darted forward, trusting Jax was directly alongside him. He came into the shadow of the sandseeker, his vision obscured by the sand, and twisted. He was just able to see the underside of its jaw in the murk.
He thrust his spear upward.
The sandseeker thrashed as Arkon’s spear connected at the same instant Jax’s weapon plunged into its soft underside. The creature’s upward momentum shifted. It bent its broad body, angling its mouth down — mandibles spread to the sides to reveal its jagged teeth — and directed itself straight at Jax and Arkon.
Barely keeping hold of his spear, Arkon shoved himself away as the sandseeker’s mouth hit the sand, sending up another cloud in its thrashing. Arkon wrapped two tentacles around the haft of his weapon and pushed it forward, twisting the head inside the creature. Jax entered his peripheral vision, took a firmer grip on his own spear, and the two of them used the leverage of the weapons to force the sandseeker onto its back.
Its struggles were short-lived; the other kraken swarmed the beast, hitting it with more spears.
Arkon felt the thrumming movement of water again as another sandseeker emerged nearby.
Dracchus and three other kraken — Kronus among them — rushed forward as the beast leapt high, parting its mandibles to sweep a cluster of fish into its toothy maw. Before it sank, the kraken hit it from below with spears and harpoons fired from guns. Its blood mingled with the sand in a miasma of crimson and gold.
As more sandseekers erupted from the seafloor, the kraken hurriedly dragged their kills to the rocks, away from the agitated predators. They pulled their weapons free of the carcasses and bundled them with ropes to be hauled home, working quickly and without instruction.
Dracchus signaled his approval to Arkon, who nodded in acknowledgment.
Now that the hunt was successful, he wanted nothing more than to go to Aymee. There was still time.
But at this point, his sudden departure would only rouse suspicion. He wasn’t ready to have the sort of confrontations Jax had gone through with the other kraken. Impatience was no reason to cause potential future trouble for Aymee; he wanted one day to bring her among his people to tell them all with pride: She is my mate.
He’d have to wait until the kill had been returned to the Facility.
It was the longest journey of his life.
Chapter 7
The sun had set by the time Arkon moved onto the beach, and the reflection of the first rising moon shimmered on the surface of the ocean. He hurried through the surf, hearts thundering and muscles tense.
There was a chance she’d waited, wasn’t there? A chance that, despite him being hours late, she had lingered, held in place by her desire to see him?
The sound of the waves was amplified more than usual by the overhang in their meeting spot; the tide was rising with the moons. He slowed his pace. The water had nearly reached the base of the cliff, and there was no sign of Aymee on the shrinking swath of dry sand.
Exhaustion jabbed at the edges of his consciousness. It had been a day of soaring hope and anticipation, and those hopes had been smashed. The rational part of his mind, usually the dominant portion, insisted this was no reason for disappointment. He’d missed an hour or two in her company. That was insignificant, viewed against the larger picture.
But the rest of him — the side that had been gaining strength over the last few months — deemed every moment precious, and any moment spent with Aymee invaluable. Time had no finite weight to it. The seconds of his day, though each equal in length to the next and the previous, were not equal in their importance.
He craved the sound of her voice and laughter, her unique scent, her soft, bold touches. After a lifetime spent searching for deeper meaning in things others considered trivial or foolish, he could not help but feel Aymee was the key to something greater. She’d lead him to experiences beyond his imagining.
He wanted her. Wanted to make her his.
Frustrated, he moved out from beneath the overhang and followed the beach, the surf flowing around his tentacles.
Despite his constant questioning of kraken traditions, he knew his people had one aspect of relationships correct: she had to choose him.
Arkon didn’t want a mate for some fickle span of time. He wanted a life mate; he wanted what Jax and Macy had. Security, dependability, companionship. Even before he’d known that was a possibility, no female before Aymee had caught his attention — and caught was too mild a term. He was ensnared, enthralled, wrapped up so completely that his infatuation was likely to crush him.
But he couldn’t make the choice for her any more than he could force her decision. All he could do was present himself as appealingly as possible and hope she found him worthy.
No easy feat, considering the limited time they had together. When their visits amounted to only a few hours over the course of a week, every minute counted. And he’d missed her today. Missed out on the opportunity to know her a little better and show himself — his true self.
He swept a pair of tentacles aside in frustration, splashing water, and released a growl.
“Arkon?”
Though the oc
ean did its best to drown out that voice, he’d heard it.
He turned his head to see Aymee sitting upon the rocks just beyond the beach, past the high tide line.
His chest swelled, and his elation and relief were so powerful it seemed he’d burst.
She had waited for him. Though he’d hoped she would, it had been a hollow hope, meant only to assuage the anger he harbored for himself. Yet here she was.
This exhilaration surpassed both the thrill of the hunt and the fulfillment of completing one of his works.
She gingerly stood up. The wind pulled at her clothing and tousled her hair.
Arkon made his way toward her, sped forward by the tide. When the water retreated, he dug his tentacles into the sand, anchoring himself against the pull, before continuing. She smiled and extended her arms as he neared.
“It’s about time,” she said.
He helped Aymee down from her perch, a tingle running across his skin when she grasped his shoulders to steady herself. “You waited.”
“Against my better judgment.” She held onto his arm as they moved along the beach, her grip tightening when the water splashed around her legs. “It wasn’t very smart of me.”
“With everything that is going on, it’s not likely smart for either of us to be here to begin with.”
She frowned. “It’s not. Is that why you’re late? Do you want to end the exchanges? Our visits?”
“No. No!” He stopped and faced Aymee, keeping himself positioned between her and the sea. “I do not want to stop. I would see you every day were it not so dangerous.” Reaching forward — hesitantly, as he wasn’t sure of the rules for such contact — he brushed hair out of her face with the backs of his fingers, careful to keep the tips of his claws from raking her skin. “A hunt was called, and I could not refuse.”
She turned her face toward his touch. Her smile returned, and his hearts thumped at the sight. “Was it fruitful?”
“Yes. Though I would much rather have arrived here on time than contributed to it.”
“You have duties, Arkon. I won’t hold that against you. I knew you’d ha—” She let out a shriek as water swept past them, pulling her feet out from beneath her.
Aymee clutched his arms, and Arkon slipped a pair of tentacles around her to keep her upright. She laughed. Once the water receded, he released her, and she stepped back.
“One moment.” She jogged up the beach, toward the larger, higher rocks well away from the water.
Tilting his head, Arkon moved closer to her, leaving the surf behind. He froze when she took hold of the fabric of her skirt, bent, and slid it down her long legs. She straightened and lay the skirt over the rocks, placing a heavy stone on top it. The hem of her long-sleeved shirt hung past her bottom; it flipped up in the wind, granting him a view of the small, triangular scrap of cloth between her legs.
Desire pulsed through him.
Arkon trailed his eyes from her feet to her ankles, over her shapely calves and past her knees, along her supple thighs and the curve of her backside. He swallowed. His shaft throbbed against the inside of his slit, threatening to extrude. The reactions Aymee stirred in him were uniquely powerful.
Was this a test of his restraint, or a testament to her trust in him?
She removed her footwear and placed it upon the rock. Looking at him, she smiled. “Take me swimming.”
A hundred arguments against taking her out surfaced in his mind — she was human, without one of the diving suits Macy wore when she swam; the tide and currents were especially intense this time of year; he had no idea how strong a swimmer she was.
He cast them aside.
“Only if you agree to one condition.”
She tilted her head as she stepped toward him, and Arkon couldn’t keep his eyes from dipping to the juncture between her legs. It was no mystery to him — he’d studied human anatomy through the computer in the Facility, and he’d seen Macy when he helped seal the wounds on her leg — but Aymee’s cloth covering added an allure he hadn’t thought possible. Even if he was familiar with the basic form of a female, he’d never seen hers.
“What condition?” she asked, stopping in front of him.
“You must hold onto me the entire time.” He feared, in that moment, that she’d somehow hear the rapid beating of his hearts even over the ocean’s restless murmuring.
“I can agree to that.” Grinning, she moved behind him. Her hands settled on his back and slid upwards slowly until they rested on his shoulders. “I was thinking the same thing.”
Arkon closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath; it was followed by a shaky exhalation. He welcomed the thrilling slide of her palms over his skin, though such contact was still unfamiliar to him.
“Wrap your arms around my neck.” He spread his tentacles over the sand, sinking down so she could reach.
She did as he said, pressing her chest against his back. “Like this?” Her warm breath and dangling curls tickled his neck.
“Yes.” A tremor ran through Arkon as he reached behind himself and cupped the backs of Aymee’s thighs; her skin was even softer and smoother than he’d imagined. He glided his palms toward her knees, lifting her off the ground.
Aymee wrapped her legs around his waist, locking her ankles at his stomach. The position placed her hot core against his back. His hands continued their slow movement until they settled over her calves; she shivered and squeezed her thighs tighter.
His shaft pulsed. Aymee’s heat flowed directly into him, gathering in his pelvis. Her heels were less than a hand’s length from his slit.
He needed to get into the water.
Arkon rose on his tentacles and slithered into the surf, trying to ignore the aching throb in his loins. Water sloshed around him, freezing cold compared to the fire raging through his body.
She loosed a peal of laughter as the incoming tide splashed her.
When the water reached his waist, Arkon leaned forward, reluctantly releasing her legs to paddle with his hands, and swam — first pulled along by the retreating current, and then battling against its landward flow. Despite the recent storm and rising tide, the sea was relatively calm.
Aymee held tight as his tentacles left the bottom.
The entirety of the sea stretched before them, the waves strips of black rolling through shimmering moonlight. Both moons had risen now, two huge orbs of light hanging in a surprisingly clear sky that was only a few shades lighter than the dark water on the horizon.
He kept his pace easy and soon had broken beyond the cresting waves and the inexorable pull of the tide. They floated in open water, a pair of tiny creatures drifting in the unfathomable expanse of the ocean.
Aymee stretched an arm and ran her fingers through the silvery reflection of a moon. “What do you see when you’re below?” She rested her cheek against his. “What’s it like down there?”
Suddenly, Arkon regretted having declined Jax’s many invitations to explore over the years. For someone who considered himself observant, he’d paid relatively little attention to the ocean as a whole, to the interesting locations scattered throughout. Too often, he’d kept his eyes downcast, looking for rocks and other small objects that might be of use in his works.
“It...it is open, endless, and liberating, and stifling and lonely all at once. It is deceptively quiet despite its constant sound, and you can never see too far in any direction. It lulls you into a sense of isolation. Reminds you how small you are, and how the possibilities stretching before you are as vast as its entirety.”
“That sounds…dismal.” Aymee pulled her hand back, flattening it over his chest, and was silent for a time. “Are you lonely, Arkon?”
He glanced down; her hand was hidden underwater. “That depends on how I choose to define the word.”
“How would you define it?”
“If I have friends, a home, people I interact with and hunt with, can I truly consider myself lonely?”
Of course I can.
“Do you
feel like you belong? Even when you’re with the people you care about, does it feel like something’s missing?”
They rose and fell with the easy rhythm of the surface, and Arkon searched within himself for the words. He already knew the answer, even if he’d never admitted it. Her questions reminded him of a conversation he’d had with Jax.
It is missing something, Arkon had said.
It needs...heart, Jax replied. Something in the center to give it life.
They’d been discussing the arrangement of stones in the pool at the time, but Jax’s words were oddly fitting now. Arkon had always been missing something. He’d spent most of his life trying to determine what it was, trying to locate the piece to fill in the hole. The thing that would make him truly content.
“Is that how you feel amongst your people?” he asked.
“Sometimes. It’s strange how you can be surrounded by people who love you, and yet, still feel like no one sees you. Like no one really understands you.” She rubbed her nose against his cheek and nuzzled his siphon.
His breath caught in his throat. There was something so gentle, so intimate, about the way she’d touched him; it was beyond his comprehension, too far outside his experience. “I… They try. That means something, doesn’t it?”
“It does, but it’s not the same,” she said softly into his ear.
Arkon closed his eyes and felt her; the press of her body, warm even in the water, the smoothness of her skin, the tickle of her damp hair and the caress of her breath. The hidden strength in her lithe legs and the heat of her core.
Was that what he and Aymee had shared thus far? A mutual understanding so deep and natural that it hadn’t required voicing, that it had existed without his conscious acknowledgment?
“Arkon?”
“Hmm?”
Aymee hooked a finger beneath his chin and guided his face toward her. He opened his eyes the moment her lips brushed his; they closed again as a heady thrill spread through him. She cupped his jaw and deepened the kiss, parting her lips. His entire body tensed when her tongue flicked across the seam of his mouth.
The Kraken Series Boxset: A Sci-fi Alien Romance Series Books 1-3 with Bonus Exclusive Short Story Page 39
