Page 29 of Salt and Knot

I huff with amusement. “Yes, that too.”

“Glad to hear. I feel a parrot is critical to a pirate’s whole identity.”

Not if he’s a kraken. Air animals like parrots always feared me. They can sense shifters, and the kraken just below my skin meant the ones who did live aboard my ships usually stayed with my crew.

I keep that thought to myself.

“Did you really look for six hundred years?” She’s sobered. “That’s so long. I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” I say lightly, not letting on how it felt. “And I didn’t look for all of that time. I gave up after about four hundred years. It was…”

I suck in a breath. I was about to confess that my kraken side never stopped hoping. He’s been searching for her every waking hour.

“A watched mate never turns up naked near your house?” She attempts humour, and it’s awkward.

I laugh, because poor jokes are cute from my mate. “Come on, or we’ll still be doing this tour in another century.”

“It’s so big,” she says again, eyes twinkling, when we descend the spiral stairs. They’re stone, grey granite that glitters in the lights. Immovable as the earth.

My kraken stirs. At the far end of the pools, there’s the water door that the kraken brought me to when I was going berserk after he tried to drag her down.

“If you keep telling me that, I’ll have you over the nearest surface and feeling just how big it is inside you,” I warn playfully. “Again.”

“Ohhhh.” A pleased smile stretches across her face. “That would be such a pity. Such a hardship.”

“Siren. Temptress,” I murmur, and open the door to the gym.

She gives the modern equipment a cursory glance.

“There’s a wine cellar down here,” I tell her as we exit. “I used to trade wine—particularly fortified wine and brandy—with the French.”

“Trade?” She looks at me from the side of her eye.

I shrug. “Technically, it was smuggling at the time, yes.”

“Can I look? Do you have really old bottles of wine?” She’s sweetly eager, as though she’s never seen a cellar before. It flicks through my mind again that she wasn’t allowed to go to the seaside. Maybe she’s had a small life. Up until now.

We spend a long time wandering through the stone archways. Isla peppers me with questions about where I got the wine, and when. She’s amazed by the idea of me being so old.

And as I answer her, I realise that it’s been decades or centuries or perhaps never that I’ve told anyone the stories about the things I used to do. I haven’t had someone to share my life with, and Isla is thirsty for information about me, and every tale I can remember.

“I think that’s it down here. Just the seawater pools,” I add casually as we emerge from the wine cellar.

“Oh wow!” She drags me behind her as she goes to explore. I’m reluctant, because I can feel my kraken stretching under my skin, brought upwards by the proximity and scent of seawater. And Isla’s enthusiasm.

She stares at the enormous saltwater pool that I use for a quick swim if I don’t have time to fully-shift and go out for a proper hunt, and her eyes light up. There are also plunge pools and a large jacuzzi. It doubles as a meeting area for guests who prefer the water, because at the far end there’s a waterfall that screens the water door. It leads through to the deep pool with an underwater entrance down into the caves and then out to the open sea.

“It’s gorgeous,” she breathes. She keeps her hand linked with mine as she approaches the pool.

I suck in air and try to stay in my human form as my kraken fights to have me dive into the water, Isla with me. Just as he did when he first smelled her.

Mine.

Mine, mine. My mate. Bite. Bond.

MINE.

I grit my teeth.