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What is happening to me?
I felt her struggle with our bonding, and it hurt me.
“Elle of the Air—relax. Breathe,” I commanded her.
“I can’t,” she thought at me. She was holding her breath, still scared she was drowning.
Her drowning was imaginary. Mine was real.
All I wanted to do was be with her.
We would never touch again.
“You can,” I promised her. “Inhale for me.”
I took the breath with her, breathing for her, while cold inevitability began to crush my heart.
Elle trusted me enough to do as she was told...but that was it. There was no flare of new purpose from within her, no heat of love or lust.
She was an unmated human and I was doomed.
I was going to lose a second mate—and I already knew that it would kill me.
“I don’t feel like myself.” She didn’t say it, so much as she thought it, and I was able to catch the moment like a bubble rising nearby.
“I feel the same,” I told her, filled with concern. And then I had to know, “Are you here of your own volition?”
If she was not, if I was now mated to someone being tortured—I would have my people rip this entire structure from the bottom of the sea, and pull it slowly aloft in shifts for weeks until she was safe in the air once more.
“I am,” she said, then considerately asked, “You?”
I was now.
I would never want to be away from her again.
“Yes,” I said, relaxing a degree. “And I am pleased I do not need to summon my people to rescue you.”
I felt a brush of her amusement. “Me too.”
And then I saw what I’d seen before in other humans I’d bonded with—some images from a made-up story from their past, of a woman chained to a rock. “Your kind’s myths about my people are so interesting,” I murmured—which ruined things.
I felt her mind flit from image to image, trying to hide herself from me. I shook my head—it only made me want to chase her more.
And nothing about her could ever truly be hidden from me again, but I couldn’t tell her that; it would only scare her.
“Calm yourself, Elle of the Air,” I said, willing her to trust me. I needed to release her. My tentacles were dry, and accommodating the pressure change on her side of the wall was hurting me. I was pouring through my magic—but I wasn’t ready to let her go yet. “You have my word, as both your bodyguard and a kraken, that I will not pry into your mind without permission. It is just that both of our minds are very close to the surface right now, because of the bonding.”
I could tell she didn’t believe me.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Cepharius.”
Left unsaid: the kraken who is yours.
“Of the sea?” she said with a tease.
“If you like.” Because I liked it when she thought about me.
