Alien Kraken’s Prize (Starlight Brides)

Chapter 8

CHAPTER

EIGHT

brIDGET

I’m fucking tired. Like bone-deep tired.

I’m panting in the water, even though I don’t technically need to, thanks to Mr. Cocktopus’ cum cloud of glitter that’s letting me breathe through my skin.

Weirdest shit.

Although, I reflect, staring up at the dark ceiling of the terrarium, my skin is warm, and soft.

This glitter jizz is better than any mucin I stole off my old slug of a boss.

Emphasis on slug. Literally an alien slug.

“Are you well?” Borumor asks, and honestly, I have to say, he’s been a good teacher.

“I am starving,” I tell him. “And I’m freaked out by having to be underwater. I don’t like the idea at all.”

“You are already underwater. In a bubble. An underwater bubble.”

I manage to flip myself right side up in the water, all the better to glare at him. “That doesn’t help.”

“You don’t want to be a pet in this cage, correct? I would not keep my wife here anyway.”

“Your what?” I ask, sure that was a translation fail. We’ve had quite a few of them, to both of our amusement.

Borumor is actually a pretty nice guy. I like him.

He’s good-looking.

Tentacles are skeeving me out a little bit, but I can’t say I’m not intrigued.

Maybe wife is just a bad translation of friend.

“My wife. Does your species not marry?” he asks, adorable brow wrinkling.

“We aren’t married,” I tell him with a choked laugh, because this has to be a joke.

“We were married as soon as I gave you my life-water.”

“Life-water?” I repeat, not understanding. “Oh. The shimmer jizz. The octo-baby-batter. Well, okay.”

Married to a kraken-dude who rules an underwater planet.

I could have done worse for myself.

“You aren’t angry?”

I purse my lips, sinking slightly, thanks to the raggedy motions of my legs, which are not nearly as well-equipped to swim gracefully with as eight freaking-fracking tentacles.

“I don’t want to live underwater.”

“Why don’t we take this one stroke at a time?”

When he says stroke, all I can suddenly think about is touching him. What is wrong with me?

Octojizztacular.

“One stroke at time,” I murmur. Oh. Step. Like stroke means step, one step at a time.

Got it.

“Food, rest, and then I will have my folk make you suitable to be seen in court.”

He’s very bossy.

Bossy about taking care of me.

For a moment, I wonder what it would be like to be his wife, really.

What would it be like to be his? To have someone look after me, to make sure I had food, make sure I was safe, clothed… taken care of?

Tears unexpectedly sting at the back of my eyes, and I find myself swimming towards him. Awkwardly, to be sure, but swimming nonetheless.

I cough on some water as I close the distance between us, and he pulls me into his body, desperately warm against my skin in spite of the barrier he’s created for me.

“You’re a good teacher,” I tell him.

“You are a clever student,” he replies, smiling down at me.

I let myself study him for a moment, really look at him.

He’s very, very handsome. His features are alien, but familiar enough to my own that I find myself reaching for his face.

He holds nearly completely still for me as I trace the flattened angle of his nose, the faint ridges on the sides of his eyes and forehead. It’s fascinating, how similar his face is to mine and how different.

My fingers trace lower, until I find his lips, softer than the rest. The tentacle around my waist flexes slightly, pulsing, and I can’t help the answering smile that tugs the corners of my own mouth up.

It is nice to be wanted by someone who has been kind and is very, very good to look at.

“Does your species kiss?” I ask softly, tilting my head.

“Yes,” he says emphatically, and pulls me up even closer, suspending me in front of him. It’s like the warmest, safest hug I’ve ever had, and we stare at each other for a long moment as desire ripples through me again. “Are you telling me you would like to kiss?”

I squint at him. “Are you using the sexy secretions on me right now?”

He tips his head back and lets loose a throaty laugh. “No. Are you telling me that you are aroused?”

“Yep,” I say.

I cup his face in my hands, and the rumble of laughter resonating against my chest settles as I pull his face down to mine.

When our mouths meet, I feel like a research scientist. His lips are smooth, supple, tender and salty tasting. Save for the mass of tentacles writhing around me and holding me tight, it’s almost like kissing the few others I’ve kissed.

Until he groans, his rough hand gripping the back of my neck as he deepens the kiss, setting off an inferno inside me. My legs wrap around his waist, and I moan when his tongue slicks against my mouth.

Wow.

Wow .

He breaks off the kiss, and I make a small squeak of disappointment.

“Your stomach is making a strange noise.” With no further explanation, he tucks me tight into him, and dives.

I want to scream the moment I’m completely submerged, but I know—I know—that will just mean I end up swallowing a shit ton of water.

The urge to breathe is incomprehensible. My lungs want to pump air through my bloodstream, even though whatever stuff is in his… stuff has made me able to take oxygen through my skin straight into my bloodstream.

None of it makes a lick of sense to me, but I hold onto him, and I bury my face in his shoulder, and before I know it, the zig-zagging nature of his swimming evens out into a more normal pace.

The fear of drowning still nags at the back of my mind, but my curiosity, as always, has overridden my good sense.

Slowly, I force my squeezed-shut eyes to open and look around.

“Holy shit.” The words are audible, though muted to my own ears, but Borumor looks down at me with clear amusement dancing across his face.

I roll my eyes at him, but I’m smiling too.

“Are you alright?” he asks, squinting at me.

“I keep wanting to breathe,” I tell him. “It’s bizarre.”

Everything sounds weird, too, different and muffled under water, distorted.

Borumor, however, looks perfect. This is clearly where he belongs, his hair floating around him in a blue-tinted cloud, whatever sunlight is coming from the surface illuminating his skin with iridescence that’s breathtaking.

Well, it would be breathtaking, were I breathing.

Weird.

“I don’t think I’m suited for living underwater,” I tell him. “I don’t like this. I feel claustrophobic.” I do, in fact—my skin is crawling. I hate it.

Despite the fact the accommodations where Borumor lives are something out of a fairytale I read, with shell-studded spires reaching high, high above me and a rainbow garden of corals with incredibly vivid fish darting in and out of it?—

I feel sick to my stomach with being underwater, and panic begins to claw at my throat, the need to breathe taking over every single brain cell I have left.

“I don’t like it, I don’t like it,” I start chanting. “I need air, I can’t do this, I need air?—”

Borumor doesn’t wait, doesn’t try to calm me down or talk me out of it.

He just grabs me again, and I squeeze my eyes as he races back through whatever tunnel got us here in the first place.

By the time my head bursts through the surface of the now-familiar pool of my habitat, I’m sobbing, sucking in great, heaving breaths.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I tell him, embarrassed and relieved and still so panicked I might throw up the little I’ve had to eat. “I can’t do it. My brain knows rationally I’ll be okay, but I just can’t do it, I can’t do it?—”

His mouth meets mine, cutting off my plaintive cry with a decadent kiss that leaves me wide-eyed.

What is happening between us?

“Do not apologize, little sea star. You are not made for the depths. That doesn’t mean you weren’t made for me.” His hand tracks down my face, and I realize I’ve been crying. “I will bring you a feast here, anything you like, and I will fetch the tentacle.”

I nod, as it’s obvious he’s waiting for an answer from me. “Okay.” I sniffle, grateful to feel the air inflating my lungs again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak out.”

“You would not even be here were it not for my meddling court.” His brow furrows, this time in real anger. “I think they have a reckoning coming.”

He kisses the tip of my nose, and my toes curl slightly.

Into his back, because I’m still wrapped around him and trembling with leftover panic.

“Go, warm yourself under the lamp. I will get some things to make your, ah, new home more appealing.”

He doesn’t make me swim; instead, he carries me sweetly to the shore, depositing me on the edge of it.

He watches me for a moment, then, apparently satisfied I’m not going to run headfirst into the terrarium walls again, he finally disappears into the murky water.

Then it’s just me, alone with my thoughts, my hunger, and the fear that I might be trapped in this damn tank forever.