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But humans?
How could anyone be mated to one? They were shallow and fickle and oftentimes disastrous.
Except for Elle.
Who was not.
Who was perfect for me.
I just didn’t know if she would ever realize it—and there was no one else around who could help.
For the first time in my long absence away from my people I missed the ’qa. Because if I’d been closer to another kraken, I could’ve reached out, and they would’ve shared my burden. Given me advice, or quiet understanding.
I wouldn’t have had to suffer like I currently was, alone.
I looked back into the darkness, where I knew the lab to be.
Was Elle also hurting?
Thinking that she was going to have to say cruel things to me?
Pain was the knife with a million different blades. Was my affection cutting her as well? Was she weighed down by the knowledge that she needed to speak to me?
I both wanted to swim closer to hear her thoughts, and wanted to swim far enough that I’d never be hurt again, which was why I’d gone up to the Cold Upper Sea to begin with.
If only Balesur had left me there—but then I wouldn’t be here, with my heart in my hands, holding it out to a human.
I loved her.
And I was mated, even if she was not.
Mates did not run away.
chapter 26
ELLE
I decided to go to dinner with the others, rather than sit in my room alone wondering why a kraken had a crush on me. My presence thrilled Donna, but Marcus much less so.
She and I chatted about pets we’d had growing up, times we’d been to the same cities: New York, LA, and Chicago, how weird it was to miss weather, because everything was permanently temperature controlled down here, and at the end of it, when I was helping her clean up, she stopped me.
“Thanks.”
I looked around ALRI’s small galley, as though there were someone else nearby she might be talking to. “For what?”
“For hanging out,” she said, giving me a tight smile. “Things always get weird with you all here. Marcus likes to pretend it doesn’t happen, whereas I just dive into the awkward.” She grabbed the nearest plate and began scrubbing it. “You’re gonna get all busy soon and forget we exist, and while I don’t want you to feel bad that you do—I just want you to know how nice it’s been to have another woman to talk with. It’s been a dick festival down here for months.”
I almost choked on my own tongue and then laughed out loud, not just in my mind. It felt good—like I was talking to Lena.
“It just gets so boring, you have no idea,” she went on. “I’ve read all the books I brought twelve times already. I’ve watched all of Friends, Homeland, you name it. I think I can recite the whole first season of Grey’s from memory. But it’s not the same as talking to someone new, you know?”
“Yeah,” I said, and then thought around. I couldn’t feel Ceph nearby, and Donna was as close as I was going to get to a confidant down here. Plus he wasn’t technically mission related—hell, they’d both seen him. “Donna?” I asked, and she looked over. “Would you date a kraken?”
She stared at me as her eyes went wide, and then she got a serious look. “Girl, I have been down here so long I would date a fried fish sandwich.”
I giggled at the preposterousness of her statement. “How would that even work?”
“You tell me!” she said, laughing back. “Love is love, baby! But—a kraken? Really?”
