Page 47 of Salt and Knot

“I love the turquoise,” I say eventually, and instantly he’s enhanced his colour to that of a tropical sea.

He feels like he’s playing with me. Trying to prove that he isn’t as bad as our first meeting suggested.

But though my head knows that wasn’t okay, my heart… I can’t find it in me to be fearful or upset anymore.

This is Dylan. The same man I’ve given myself to over and over since he helped me through that heat. It might be a different side of him, but he promised if I saw the kraken I’d be safe, and he’s kept to that promise.

The kraken slowly drops his raised tentacles, and slides them back into the water.

I’ve stepped forwards without thinking. I don’t want him to think I’m upset with him, because I’m really not. Even if I’m still nervous.

A bite from the kraken, underwater, and that would seal my bond to Dylan fully.

I bring my hand to the small, raised scar of my bonding bite on my neck, and it tingles.

That second bite is what I’m missing, I know it. But do I trust him?

Yes.

Even so, it’s with slow pads of my feet on the wet stone floor that I approach the pool. The kraken watches every movement, going unnaturally still himself.

“Hey.” Taking a deep breath, I stand on the edge, and reach out my hand.

Immediately, a single tentacle rises out of the water and reaches for me. Moving so slowly, but he was ready. The moment I showed him I wanted contact, he was there, and that makes my heart ache.

He pauses, tip outstretched, an inch from my fingers. It takes me a second to realise that he’s waiting for me to bridge the gap. To touch him, when he took liberties with me before.

I move, letting my fingers brush his wet, firm skin.

A bolt of longing goes through me so strong, I nearly stumble, and I know without Dylan telling me that this is how he feels. He’s been craving me. The need is so intense, I can hardly stand. Hundreds of years of loneliness, and sadness. Dylan has filled his time with study and parties and making money, but as a kraken, Dylan’s other part of himself has only ever wanted his mate.

I enclose his tentacle with my hand, and I notice it has suckers at the end. Not his hectocotylus as Dylan calls it, or his horny tentacle as I’ve been thinking of it. He’s really trying to be gentle and not assuming.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry it took so long,” I whisper.

There’s a pulse of time, when I gaze into his eyes and my heart is breaking for him.

The jet of water catches me by surprise, and I laugh as I’m drenched from the knees down.

“You used your siphon on me! What was that for?!”

But I know. Because I’m grinning, and the kraken is cycling through blue and purple and turquoise patterns again.

Playful. Happy.

The tentacle sucks onto my hand wherever I’ve clasped around it, and the sadness I felt from him has dissipated. There’s only joy.

“That isn’t fair,” I tease. “I don’t have any way to get you back.”

I kneel, still holding onto his tentacle, and try to splash him with my hand.

An even bigger spurt of water comes from him this time, soaking me from head to toe with salty, perfectly cool water. Giggling, I sit down onto the edge of the pool and dangle my feet into the water, my hand on his tentacle. I bring my other hand up to examine his extraordinary skin, and he changes colour for me again.

Something touches the arch of my foot, tickling it, and I flinch.

It’s immediately gone.

“That tickles!” I quickly assure him, and there’s another brush on the sole of my other foot. I laugh, and kick my feet, splashing at his big eye. He catches both my ankles, and within seconds I’m giggling as he tickles my feet.