Page 70 of The Kraken Bride

He smiled. “Go ahead. Touch it.”

I plucked the stone from its pedestal. At the moment of contact, power slammed into me, stealing my breath and bowing my back. It overflowed, searching for an outlet. I didn’t protest as it surged along my bond to Sebastian. Didn’t cower when my dragon roared, as if I’d hooked her to a new battery. For one blissful second, I contained the strength of the whole universe. A taste of what could be.

Even as it faded, I knew. Ja, this power would kill Jokull. It would kill him dead dead. He just didn’t know it. I laughed, and perhaps I sounded a bit crazed. Not that I cared.

Sebastian’s mother had given it a broken heart. I would not. Mine was stronger than ever. Give more, get more. Wasn’t that how it worked?

Well then. Decision made. One of us would have to cave, and it wouldn’t be me. I would willingly, happily welcome the rune. For my husband. For our people. And Sebastian would have to let me.

If the rune operated as everyone claimed, I would live, married and bonded, a queen. But I would feel nothing for him, while he still felt everything for me. A cruelty, ja. But with it came what I wouldn’t have: hope for better.

Maybe Jokull now realized he’d made a mistake. The color had drained from his face, and I realized he’d felt the power, too. Perhaps for the first time, if Sebastian’s mom had been unable to contain its full breadth.

“What was that?” he demanded.

“That was your doom,” I pointed out with confidence. “Lady Harpa. If you’ll be so kind as to join me.”

“But there are still cupcakes,” she whined.

Deep breath in. “Bring them with you,” I said as politely as I was able. “And bid our host farewell.”

“Oh, very well.” Harpa stood and claimed the tray, asking the primordial, “You didn’t think this through, did you, primmy?”

Primmy?

Any hint of Jokull’s lazy amusement vanished. He tracked our every movement. “I will not let you go.”

The older woman smiled, oh so crafty as she approached my side. “As if you can stop us. Seems I plotted the same escape route as Bron, which means she thinks like me, which means there’s two of us, which means you never stood a chance.”

Slowly, menacingly, Jokull stood.

“While you thought to taunt us by having dinner here, you provided our escape. The runes I left behind.” Her grin turned sugar and spice. “You swore we’d leave alive, whole, and with the stone. You never said how. Bronwyn, darling, please do the honors.”

I’d never done this, never used a rune to travel through the dome, but my connection to Sebastian had somehow downloaded instructions straight into my brain.

Running my palm along the wall, the carved symbols bloomed under my fingers, glowing for me, opening, whispering. Blood-forged. Realm-bound. Survival entwined. Pulling. Pulling hard. I latched onto Harpa’s hand.

The dome filled my veins. My bones. And every carving in every stone in this ancient sea loved me as they loved my husband. I found the right mystical door just as Jokull exploded in our direction.

I stopped resisting the pull, letting it suck me and Harpa through. The manor vanished and a palace vault appeared around us. A space with stone walls and a dirt floor, empty save for the man standing in the center of it.

Sebastian. He didn’t move or speak. Just breathed and looked blankly. But I… I couldn’t feel him anymore.

I frowned and extended the stone, a peace offering. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

“The rune is letting me taste its power.” His tone was flat. Emotionless. “It’s already fading, but slowly.”

Air snagged in my lungs. It had gone through me and stayed in him. Desperate, I scrabbled deeper for our tether, the way I had a hundred times since the cave.

Nothing.

“This is who you will soon be married to,” he said, his expression blank. Then he walked out.

Chapter

Twenty-Three

The kraken does not break his word. He breaks you and keeps the pieces.