Page 36 of The Kraken Bride

Aching all over again for the boy he’d been, I flattened my free hand against his chest, just over his thumping heart. “And I will help you.”

“You will.” His gaze dropped to my hand. Something in his expression softened. His fingers curled around mine, then abruptly severed contact with a curse.

Cold rushed in, swamping me, shattering the soft tenderness of the moment. “Sebastian?” I fought both sadness and frustration. This was the same kind of withdrawal he’d executed after the Tideweave. This man despised vulnerability; that much was obvious, even without Lady Harpa’s warning.

He raked his hand through his hair. “My enemies would love to exploit my woman. I cannot count the number of warriors I’ve watched fall because they chose romance over obligation. I will not—cannot—do the same.”

His grandmother was right. The man before me would never want to keep his firebrand long-term. But she was wrong about one thing: minds could be changed, even Sebastian’s.

“I’ve seen the opposite. In Ashmorra, dragon couples thrive, strengthened by their unity. Firebrands—” I said the word out loud, rather than gluing a pretty label over it “—protect each other.”

“Give them time,” he said, his tone bleak. “They’ll fall. They always do.” Head high, he started off without me. “Come. There’s more to see.” He disappeared around a corner.

I stood rooted, wondering how to proceed with him. If I wanted this man, I’d have to fight for him. That much was clear. The belief that love and firebrands were a weakness ran deep. Straight to the trauma he hoped to avenge. The death of his parents. The loss of his finger. But fighting for him meant putting my own heart on the line. Right now, only the mission mattered. After we won, he would offer to set me free from my contract, as our bargain stipulated, but I could say nein. I could maybe… stay.

Hopeful, I followed the path he’d taken, entering a vast chamber filled with awe-inspiring treasures salvaged from sunken vessels. Towering shelves and low pedestals displayed relics pulled from the deep. Jeweled goblets crusted with salt, shattered crowns fused back together with gold seams, navigational instruments frozen mid-calculation.

But it was coins that dominated the space. Mountains of them.

Ancient, foreign, and mismatched. Gold stamped with forgotten emblems, edges worn smooth by centuries of currents. They glittered softly under the bioluminescent glow, not polished to perfection but burnished by survival.

Oh, my stars. The dragon in me pleaded to hoard, hoard, hoard. “This is… I can’t even…”

Sebastian stood before a series of open wooden trunks with his hands in the pockets of his pants, watching me as I flitted from this selection of coins to that selection, exclaiming with wonder. The dragon purred with excitement.

“Kraken have a natural urge to claim their wealth,” he told me. “From the sea, from history, from the bones of empires.”

Once, twice, a dozen times, I almost reached out to trace my fingertips over the collection. “They’re so beautiful.” Had I slurred my words?

“I thought you might like these.” He grinned, more big bad wolf than vengeful kraken. “Go ahead. Touch.”

“Seriously?” Squealing, I dove my fingers into a mess of heavy trade coins. They were thick, irregular discs stamped with tide-marks and crowned beasts rather than the usual faces.

The mysterious berserker beside me had grown still. “What?” I asked, craning my face to look at him.

“Nothing.”

Nein, not nothing. “You’re smiling.”

He canted his head. “Am I?”

Nervous now and not sure why, I began to ramble. “Dragons are collectors by nature. I’ve been drawn to gold coins my whole life. At home, I store the bulk of my assortment in an underground cavern, but I keep a bowl of them on my nightstand. Nothing grand. Just one coin from every dragon province where I’ve danced. Proof I was there, I suppose.”

He absorbed my words, and I could almost see the wheels turning in his mind.

Lady Harpa’s warning surfaced. How he remembered everything and forgot nothing. I thought he might be adding details to the mental file labeled All Things Bronwyn and hid a grin.

“Did you know kraken and dragons once worked together?” he asked. “Above us, beyond the dome that protects my realm, are islands where the dragons lived. They used their fire to make gold, which drew the attention of humans. The kraken destroyed the ships, ensuring those humans never reached the islands, and in thanks, the dragons dropped gold into the ocean.”

I’d heard stories, certainly, but I hadn’t known we were so close to history. It made the dome’s enclosure a little less restrictive. But. Hmm. The coins began to hum faintly, a low vibration climbing my arms.

I chuckled. Dragon gold sang like this too, a resonance only my kind could feel, the metal remembering the fire that created it. Giddier by the second, I pressed my palm flatter against the pile, chasing the sensation. Hello, old friends.

Except, I also heard tapping. Tap, tap. Tap, tap. It cut through my thrill. Different from coins, coming from somewhere above. Like a servant at a door. Someone come to fetch us, perhaps, or announce the next wing of the gallery?

My ears twitched toward it. A second later, Sebastian went rigid.

Something was wrong.