Alien Kraken’s Prize (Starlight Brides)

Chapter 4

CHAPTER

FOUR

brIDGET

Of fucking course I get my period the minute conditions are less than ideal.

Of fucking course!

I’ve stripped my sodden pants off, then pulled off my top as well, because if I’m going to bathe, I’m not going to ruin my only shirt in the salty water. I’m thirsty, I have cramps, I’m hungry, I’m grumpy, and blood is sticky in between my thighs.

Oh, and I’m currently in a goddamned terrarium instead of on my way to the riches of a cushy Starlight Lottery job.

Wallowing in self-pity is the name of the game.

I let out a small whimper as the cold water laps around my ankles, my toes immediately tingling from the frigid temperature.

“Lingering is not an option,” I tell the tentacle, which I’ve left on the shoreline. It humps up like an inchworm—one of the few Earth rarities we had at the shop where I worked, and one Aileen and I marveled over many times. I raise an eyebrow, amused in spite of myself.

“How do you even see where you’re going? Or hear me? It’s weird.” Sighing, I clench my teeth and force my body into the icy water, splashing it all over my thighs in an attempt to get the blood off. At least I will have the ridiculous heat of the lamp to warm me back up.

The thought brightens my shitty attitude, at the very least.

The tentacle continues to hump its way towards the water, and I hold my breath as I scrub at my legs. Goosebumps send all the hair on my body vertical.

The temperature of the water is no longer just cold, but actively painful, tiny spikes driving through every pore of my skin. My jaw aches too, from the force of clenching it to keep my teeth from chattering against each other.

Finally, I fully stand up, racing out of the water, or at least trying to. My movements are sluggish from the cold, and I’ve lost feeling in my feet. Rubbery-feeling and straight-up weird, I can’t quite get them to work right.

It’s not entirely a surprise when I trip over them and land face first on the gritty dirt.

A soft moan comes out of me because it’s so blessedly hot after the gelid water that I don’t mind lying here until the heat lamps dry me into a piece of human jerky.

The tentacle, apparently concerned by the fact that I’m simply lying on the ground, wraps around my calf.

I kick at it feebly, not really caring anymore about the fact it’s inching up my thigh, because at this point, the thing’s gotten up close and personal with my itty-bitty titty committee.

“We’ve been abducted together,” I tell it. “I know I should care about the fact you’re headed toward my no-man’s land, but—” My words cut off with a squeal of outrage as the tip of the tentacle teases at my crotch.

I flip over onto my back, kicking at the tentacle—and then freeze.

My blood turns to ice, and it has nothing to do with the temperature.

The tentacle attached to my leg isn’t my sentient tentacle.

And it’s not just attached to my leg.

It’s attached to seven more fucking tentacles and a huge naked male torso, the owner of which is staring at my naked body with interest that immediately turns the ice in my veins to lava.

“Uh-oh,” I croak. “I’m excited by the sudden appearance of an alien mer-octopus-man.”

His nose is weirdly flat on his face, nostrils barely apparent. His jaw is strong, and his eyes are completely arresting: a vivid blue-green that shifts like a kaleidoscope when he tilts his head at me.

A strange, garbled noise comes from his mouth.

“Ooooh,” I say, my eyes wide. “You can talk.”

Relief floods me, stifling some of the completely uncalled-for lust still attempting to make itself known.

“Listen,” I tell the octopus-man, “We are in a terrarium. Aquarium.” I pause, considering which word is correct, considering he’s an octopus. Maybe he lives below me? Maybe there’s an underwater portion?

He responds in his gibberish language.

“A cage,” I clarify, sounding out the word slowly. Of course neither one of us have universal translators. Why would we? That would make this shit too easy.

Sigh.

He tilts his head the other way. His hair—which is luxurious and definitely demanding to be touched—falls over one shoulder.

His other tentacles are thrashing around in the water, which does, in fact, hamper the sexiness a little.

The six-pack, no, eight-pack abs, though? Those aren’t hindering it. Not one bit.

I bite my lower lip, then my gaze dips lower, to where one tentacle is still waggling over me.

“Oh,” I say slowly, realization dawning. “My period.”

He says something guttural and incomprehensible, yet again .

I let out a seriously exasperated sigh. “I don’t understand you.”

Tentacles slither from the water as the octopus-man tentatively wraps a blue-ringed appendage around my ankle. His eyes drift from there back to the juncture between my legs.

Now thoroughly annoyed, I yank my leg back and do my best to cover myself.

“Some of us don’t have tentacles on the lower half,” I tell him, gesturing to my legs, “to cover everything up.” I block my boobs from view with one arm, sadly, not a hard feat, considering I wasn’t blessed with bazongas like Aileen’s.

No bazongas, no tentacles, what a shame.

His tentacle tightens on my ankle and I glare at him, until that delicious desire surges through me again.

It hits me all at once then, the realization.

I gasp, kicking the grasping tentacle away with my heel and scurrying back on the sand as fast as I can.

“You… you have some kind of sexy octopus secretion,” I wheeze, waggling my finger at him. “That is extremely naughty. Rude, even. I am on my period.”

I shake out my pants, cringing a little at the crime scene evidence in my underwear before coming to a quick decision. Bra on. That takes care of the teeny-weeny tatas. The shirt will have to do. I keep my gaze fixed on my new octo-man companion and rip the shirt into strips, wrapping them around my underwear before shimmying back into my pants.

“There,” I say, embarrassingly out of breath. Never had time to work out on the space station. “Now all I have is time!” I tell him.

His tentacles do that weird slithering again, and he comes farther out of the water.

“Oh, oh . You’re a big dude,” I say, staring up at him. He’s still got half his tentacles hanging out on the ground, and he’s easily several feet above me. His shoulders must be twice as broad as mine, too.

Okay. He’s large.

In charge too, from the looks of it. Heh.

He’s got sexy-time mucus secretions, just like the slug aliens had on the space station, when they wanted to, at least.

We’re both in a cage, and we don’t speak the same language.

The timing of this period is the annoying cap to this fan-fucking-tastic encounter.

He points a finger at my crotch, a questioning look on his face, then points to my nose. Right. It was bloody, too. From that incredibly embarrassing moment where I ran smack-dab into the terrarium barrier.

“You are worried about my blood?” I blink. Maybe he smells it in the water like one of those old Earth fish that ate people. I saw a vid about one once. Terrifying things. Huge.

He points at my lady business again, and my eyebrows shoot up.

My period, it turns out, is what’s worrying him. Though, I suppose I could be assigning human expressions to his very alien face.

He does, however, seem acutely concerned. Huh. Octopus-man and human expressions: not that different. Who would have thought?

Most of the non-human species on my old space station couldn’t stand us and certainly didn’t look anything like us. This guy, though—if I covered up his bottom half with my hand, he could almost pass for human. Almost.

A stream of unintelligible words comes from his mouth as he points at me again urgently, sliding closer to me.

“Lemme guess,” I say, slightly resigned, my hands on my hips, “your species doesn’t menstruate. Why would they? Why should anyone? It’s outdated. Very gauche. Very physical. You’d think we’d be past this, but noooooo.”

He tries to say something else, but I hold my hand up to stop him.

“Not interested in translation games right now. In fact, I am thirsty, and hungry, and very, very cranky. So unless you can get me the fuck out of this cage, I do not give a shit about what you have to say. And do not try to ooze sexy all over me again.”

I blow out a breath.

He’s staring at me with wide kaleidoscope eyes.

“Literally or figuratively,” I say, then shoot a finger gun at him. “Come back when I’m bored. Thanks.”

I touch my nose, which has blessedly stopped bleeding, and take my cranky self to the very edge of the beam of the heat lamp and curl up in a ball, ignoring my tank companion completely.

When my tentacle comes back, I give a long look at the octopus-man and tuck my tentacle under my head like a pillow.

What the fuck ever. I am not in the mood.

I am not in the mood for anything but a goddamned nap.