Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 52553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
I gather her closer and let her breathing smooth out in sleep before I reply, “That’s the thing, Lina. I do care about you. I care about you much more than I realized.”
I want to keep her.
I have six years and ten months with her. It has to be enough.
18
CATALINA
The next block of time is one of the happiest of my life. I don’t even know how long it is. The days are normal enough here, but without any responsibilities to call my own, time feels fluid and insubstantial. And the nights? The nights are like a fever dream I never want to wake up from.
Thane still does have official responsibilities, but he makes time for me every day, even if only for a few games of not-chess before he takes me to bed and blows my mind seven ways to Sunday. The sex is outstanding and only seems to get more so as time goes on, but the quiet moments in the aftermath are my favorite.
The way I’ve found my favorite spot on his chest to cradle my cheek. How he strokes me absently as we talk, whether with a hand up and down my spine or a tentacle caressing a leg or arm. The conversations themselves, carefully curated topics that seem designed to avoid the pitfalls of my mother, my exes, and Brant.
I learn that Thane never wanted to be king, but because he was the eldest, he got the position. Not all the territories in this realm run like that, but both krakens and dragons do. In fact, for a pair of territories that seem to have the most conflict, they seem remarkably similar in a number of ways. Maybe that’s why there’s so much conflict. I don’t know.
When Thane is able to take full days for me, he shows me new places in the territory. We start with a series of underwater caves that open into a graveyard of ships dashed on the rocks above. There are so many ships, I could spend months exploring that space and not see them all. Thane is indulgent as he swims behind me, keeping an eye out for predators as I let my curiosity run free.
There are ships that look like they came straight from a pirate movie and ones that almost look like spaceships. And everything in between. It’s strangely delightful to discover how small my world really is. Maybe that would be scary for some people. I find it comforting.
Once I’ve exhausted my exploration of the ship graveyard, Thane shows me an underwater . . . reverse waterfall? I don’t even know what else to call it. It’s beautiful and slightly terrifying, and I love it.
Today we pay a careful visit to a spot overlooking an inlet that apparently serves as the breeding ground for the dobhar chu. They’re a strange mix of hound and otter, though the adults are nearly ten feet long. The babies, of course, are cute as shit. “Awww.”
“They’re very dangerous,” Thane murmurs. “They mostly keep their hunting to these waters, but they’ve been known to venture out farther. If you see one, get out of the water.”
I give him the look that comment deserves. Get out of the water. Right. Because there’s so much land in his territory to flee to. “Sounds like if I run across one of these, I’m dead.”
“No.” His voice goes sharp, but then he softens it. “You’re safe.”
This is one of those weird arguments we still have. He wants me safe, but he can’t understand there’s no real safety in this world or any other. Even locking me in a tower—there’s nothing to save me from falling down the stairs and breaking my neck or something equally mundane.
But I’m not going to give him shit for wanting to take care of me.
I watch the dobhar chu for a while longer, enjoying the way the babies bounce and frolic as babies of every species seem to do. They look cuddly, but I know better than to say as much a second time.
Thane doesn’t rush me. He never does. He simply waits at my side for my curiosity to run out. I like that. I like him. We spend every night together now, and though sleeping with a man who’s half tentacles was a strange experience at first, I enjoy it far too much now.
“Okay, we can go.”
He sweeps me into his arms, and his tentacles make descending the cliff significantly easier than my weak-ass human hands and legs. We descend slowly, carefully. Thane glares at the water that gets closer with every second, as if daring it to produce a monster like the ones we were just observing. “We’ll come back in two months when the young are old enough to start the fall migration. It’s a sight to behold.”