Page 64 of The Kraken Bride

“My king.” Throwing my arms around him, I demanded, “Kiss me.”

Chapter

Twenty-One

When a kraken tells you to run, it’s already too late.

–An Incomplete Guide to Kraken Survival

Sebastian devoured my mouth, a starved man who’d discovered a banquet. I ravished him right back. We were husband and wife, now bonded, always and forever, whatever may come.

There in the cave, our cave, with the dome light flashing in time to our racing heartbeats, he tossed me onto the bed and gave me his body. I gave him mine. And oh, the things he did to mine. Pleasures I had never known. When I screamed his name, my voice echoed through the cave. It could have echoed across the dome, but I wouldn’t have cared. Let the whole underwater kingdom hear. Torrent after torrent of ecstasy crashed into me.

When I collapsed atop him hours later, I vibrated with sublime satisfaction.

Ragged breaths sawed between my lips. A fine sheen of sweat covered me. And to my immense delight, he fared no better.

“You exhausted me, woman.” His words sounded as if they’d been dragged over sandpaper. He kept his arms banded around me, ensuring I remained draped over him.

My smile spread so wide it hurt. I crossed my arms over his chest and rested my chin in the center. “Don’t worry, my precious. You might not have a dancer’s stamina, but you make up for it in other ways.”

He barked out a laugh, and I couldn’t help but giggle. That amusement tapered to quiet curiosity, and he frowned. “What is this…cozy feeling?” His volume grew softer. “Why are my eyelids so heavy? Muscles melting…”

I watched, amazed, as the man who claimed he couldn’t sleep drifted off, his lids sliding down. And staying down. As his head lolled to the side and his breathing evened out.

My smile only widened. Utterly content, I traced my fingers over his face. The face of my husband and firebrand. We had one day and one more night before the convergence. Absolutely enough time to save his heart, and mine, and crush Jokull.

That, at least, was the fairy tale I hoped for. But I had a niggle…

I was missing something.

I tried, oh, I tried, to catalogue every detail he’d shared about his mother’s experience with the rune. About runes in general. About the convergence. But Sebastian was just so warm, and my own eyelids had become a little too heavy.

Exhausted myself, I offered no resistance. I let myself sink deep, deep into dark, peaceful waters.

One Day Until Convergence

I awakened still cuddled up to Sebastian, clutched protectively in his arms. An internal light immediately switched on. No gradual remembrance of everything since slipping into oblivion, but sudden awareness.

We were married. I was his queen. We had agreed to search for a way to destroy Jokull without giving Sebastian’s heart to the rune.

And there must be a way. There just must. Because my niggle hadn’t gone away.

Tender and aching and so glad for it, I scanned our surroundings. Oh. His bedroom. No, our bedroom. I remembered us sleepily returning to the palace last night.

Head filling with fairytales, I smiled. He could have deposited me here and gone back to his war and his maps, but he hadn’t. He’d stayed. Because he hated the thought of either of us waking alone. I sensed his residual longing, as if an invisible rope now tethered us together.

Whoa. I knew what he felt. Not just longing to be with me, but an insatiable craving for me. Goose bumps spread over my skin. I even knew what weighed on him. The worry threaded through his hope. How a part of him feared he hadn’t set me up for success but failure.

But he was wrong. I would never be better off without him. And oh my stars, the cave’s azure glow had followed us here. More shocking, the runes on the ceiling and walls were no longer a mystery.

Sebastian had said they would open to me, and open they had, weaving into the matrix of the world. Not as a replacement, but a counterbalance. Where he’d once stood defense alone against the tide, now we guarded this thriving realm together.

Those runes thrummed, each whispering a different language that told the same story. A living anchor. Blood-forged. Realm-bound. Strength taken for weakness, weakness exchanged for strength. A burden for one, breath for the other. Survival entwined.

The meaning presented itself: the dome did not protect him; he sustained it. We protected it. Endlessly. Relentlessly. Its weaknesses became ours. Our strength we shared with it. Together, we kept our people safe.

Well, well, well. I had indeed bonded to the dome.