He moved to her toolbox, sank down to collect it in his free hand — that thoughtfulness alone undid her — and darted into the corridor. Her hair fell around her face, obscuring her vision except for the fast-moving tentacles below her as he hurried toward the elevator.
If Dracchus and Larkin saw what he’d done, they made no comment; Theo guessed they were somewhat occupied themselves.
Vasil stopped his frantic rush only when they were in the elevator. Though he remained in place as it rumbled up to the main floor, his tentacles moved restlessly on the floor, and the hand settled on her ass kneaded her flesh through her jumpsuit.
Theo hummed, the anticipation of what was to come flooding her with desire. She smoothed her hands down his lower back and massaged his powerful muscles. Turning his face toward her, he inhaled deeply.
Vasil groaned again. “I smell your need.”
The elevator came to a halt, and Vasil exited it the instant the door was wide enough to fit through. Doorways zipped by on either side, blurred by his speed as he raced through the corridors into the cabins. The sound of him slapping the button to open the door of their room was so pronounced that she was convinced he’d broken it.
Before the door was fully open, Vasil slipped through. He set down Theo’s toolbox, and she caught a glimpse of one of his tentacles pressing the button to close the door before he carried her across the room toward the bed.
Her world tilted once again when he lifted her off his shoulder and laid her atop the covers. She laughed, wiping hair from her face to look up at Vasil towering over her. His eyes were intent, alight with unmasked passion, adoration, and hunger. Arousal heated her core.
He tore at her clothing, his claws shredding the fabric to be torn away from her body piece-by-piece until she lay bare before him. His need for her, unrestrained and all-consuming, left her breathless.
Tossing aside her tattered clothing, Vasil curled his fingers around her inner thighs and spread them wide. His gaze trailed down her body, forging a blazing path over her skin, and finally settled on her sex. The hunger in his eyes intensified. He lowered his head and breathed in her scent, closing his eyes.
“Ah, female. I will never have my fill of you,” he growled before his mouth was upon her.
Theo gasped and tilted her head back as pure bliss swept through her. His tongue flicked first over her clit, then explored and teased the delicate folds around it. She clutched the bedding, desperate for something to hold on to, something to anchor her lest she float away on a cloud of pleasure. His lips nipped at her, and his sharp teeth grazed the sensitive flesh around her clit; the hint of danger those wicked points posed only increased her pleasure.
His tentacles coiled around her calves, twirling higher to lock her knees in place. He lifted a hand off her thigh.
Theo opened her eyes and looked down her body as Vasil raised his head, moved his hand to his mouth, and bit the claws off his index and middle fingers. He turned his head aside, spat the pieces away, and returned his eyes to hers. He held her gaze as he returned his mouth to her sex and lapped at her, slowly running his tongue from the bottom of her slit up to her clit. Her hips bucked, and a fresh wave of dew flowed from her.
Vasil flattened a hand over her pelvis to pin her to the bed and moaned as he drank from her. The vibrations from his chest only added the sensations building within her.
Panting, Theo kept her eyes on him. Her body was flushed with heat; she was so close. Her thighs trembled in her need, and every teasing flick of his tongue held her on the brink of release.
“Vasil,” she breathed, undulating her hips against his mouth.
He slid a hand along her inner thigh to her sex. A moment later, one of his fingers slid into her, followed quickly by a second. Her body clamped around them greedily as they pumped in and out.
He bit off his claws so he could do this to me.
Latching onto her clit with his mouth, Vasil thrust his fingers into her as far as his webbing allowed. Theo squeezed her eyes shut and cried out as cascading waves of pleasure crashed over her. She twisted and writhed, her moans filling the room. Each flick of his tongue and thrust of his fingers prolonged her climax. The manacle-like grip of his tentacles held her open to him, leaving her at his mercy.
Eventually, he withdrew his fingers and resumed his leisurely licking, trailing his tongue up and down her sex as though he couldn’t get enough of her taste. She eased down from the heights to which he’d lifted her. When she shifted her hips, he clamped his hands over them and growled possessively; the growl faded into a contented purr.
He seemed content to lap at her for hours, but she knew he needed.
Theo’s hooded eyes met his hungry stare. She reached down to caress his face, tracing his cheekbone with her thumb. “Make love to me, Vasil.”
Vasil rose over Theo, covering her body with his. She lifted her arms in welcome, wrapping them around his neck to draw him closer, but he stopped before their lips met and simply gazed into her beautiful, green eyes. Though his body ached with need for her, though his cock throbbed, and his blood flowed like fire through his veins, his frenzy had subsided.
Make love to me, Vasil.
Love.
He knew what that meant now, and he wanted it too. Wanted to enjoy her, all of her, to enjoy every moment they had together.
His mate. His.
Mine.
Vasil brought a hand up and threaded his fingers in her pale hair, cupping the back of her head. “You shine brighter than the sun, my fallen star.” He guided his cock to her slit. “My radiant, beautiful star.”
He pressed into her slowly, savoring her scent, the feel of her heat and softness. She cradled him with her legs, and her body welcomed him without restraint until she’d taken all of him in. Eyes locked with hers, he pulled back and thrust forward, again and again, rocking into her like waves rolling against the shore. He spread his rear tentacles to grasp the corners of the bed as his front tentacles drew her tighter against him, increasing the force of his thrusts, pushing him ever deeper.
Theo’s eyelids drooped, and her lips parted with breathy sighs. She clung to him; her dull nails scratched his scalp, her sex clenched his cock, and his tendrils delighted in the taste of her essence. Her body quivered against him. She was close, but Vasil didn’t increase his pace. He kept her there at the edge, relishing her reactions even as pleasure blossomed from his belly to spread through all his limbs.
This was his mate — more than worthy, more than he deserved, and he would do everything to keep her safe, to keep her happy, to keep her with him.
She’d saved the kraken’s home.
She’d given him purpose.
One of his tendrils found her clit, stroking and caressing it each time his pelvis met hers. She gasped and tightened her hold on him as her body suddenly went taut.
“I love you!” Theo’s rasped words were followed by moans of pleasure.
Heat flooded her core, and her inner walls contracted around his shaft. Vasil growled and slammed his mouth over hers, drinking in her cries as he ravaged her mouth. He quickened his pace, driving his cock deeper and faster into her body, pushing her to new heights, extending her release as his took hold of him.
With a final thrust, he drove into her as deep as he could go. The pressure inside him became too great at that moment; he burst. His seed filled her as his muscles tensed. He wrapped Theo in arms and tentacles, turning on the bed so he wouldn’t crush her, and held her with their bodies entwined, connected. One.
Theo broke the kiss and pressed her face against his neck. Her rapid breaths were warm against his skin, which was dampened by her sweat. Vasil did not release her; he ground his cock inside her, tendrils caressing her slit, eliciting another moan from her.
The pounding of their hearts eased over time. Vasil ran the tips of his fingers and claws through her hair and down the curve of her spine. He breathed in their combined scents as his suction cups kissed her flesh, granting fresh ta
stes of her.
Never in his life had he felt more content.
They lay together for a long while, the room silent save for their soft breathing. Part of Vasil worried that to speak might spoil the moment; what words could encompass the feelings shared between them, the experience? But he knew it was a foolish notion. What he and Theo had was not this moment, it was all moments, each as precious as the last and the next.
“We should travel to The Watch tomorrow,” he said.
She inhaled deeply and released the breath in a sleepy, soft, “Okay.”
There was no question in her answer. She trusted him to take her, to protect her.
He knew no delicate way to tell her what he needed to say next. “I have a youngling there.”
For a moment, she was quiet and still; the sudden tensing of her body told him when his words penetrated the pleasure-induced fog that must have settled over her mind.
“A what?” she asked.
“A youngling. A…child.”
Theo’s head bolted up, nearly clipping his chin as she propped herself over him with her palms on his chest. “A child? And you…we…” Her brows fell, and her eyes narrowed. “You had better not tell me you have another mate waiting for you in The Watch, or I swear I’ll rip your god damned co—”
Vasil’s eyes flared. “Theo—”
“I don’t know what kind of lives you kraken live, but I don’t share! Got it?”
Grasping her upper arms, Vasil flipped Theo onto her back and rolled to position himself over her. He covered her mouth with one hand, unable to keep an amused smirk from his lips; her jealousy was oddly satisfying.
“Listen well, human,” he said. “You are my mate. My only mate. Now and forever after. I only learned she is my daughter without a doubt just before I met you, but she is nine years old. My time with her mother was long ago and brief. It was the fulfillment of my duty to my people. Nothing more. Do you understand?”
The fire had gone out of Theo’s eyes as he spoke. She nodded.
He removed his hand from her mouth and cupped her cheek. “You are the only one I have ever connected with, Theo. The only one I have ever been truly close to.”
She searched his gaze and placed a hand on his forearm. “What’s her name?”
“Melaina.”
“How did you only just find out she’s yours?”
“I have suspected for a time, but things were different before we made peace with the humans. Our kind was designed to have difficulty reproducing. Female kraken took many mates, rarely keeping one for long, in the hope of conceiving a youngling. We have been on the brink of dying off without human intervention for generations. Younglings were always raised by the females in isolation, where they could be safe until the males were old enough to learn from the hunters. We were never told who had sired the children.”
Theo’s brows furrowed. “What a shitty way to live.”
“It was the only way for us to survive.”
“But why the separation? Why not tell the males so they could be fathers? So you could have families?”
Vasil stroked her leg with the tip of his tentacle. “Because such was not our way, Theo. Younglings are rare and precious, females even more so. They needed to be protected, to be kept safe. We all took on that responsibility. It did not matter who sired a youngling, only that a youngling had been born.”
“You said you only found out without a doubt recently, but how long have you suspected that Melaina was yours?”
He slid his cock out of Theo, rolled off her, and lay on his back, keeping his tentacle around her leg. She turned on her side to face him. His gaze wandered to the ceiling as he sifted through his memories, searching for that first suspicion, the first time he’d put the clues together.
The answer came far quicker than he’d anticipated — it had been the day Vasil and a party of kraken had been attacked by human hunters. They’d returned to the Facility and brought Kronus to the infirmary so his wounds could be tended only to discover several females and younglings sick; they’d been poisoned while the males were away.
Melaina had been one of those affected. She’d been much smaller than she was now, and the moment he laid eyes upon her — curled up in that big bed with her features contorted in pain — some part of him had known. Some part of him had recognized her as his blood, as his offspring. His hearts had stilled, and for an instant, the world had seemed to spin around him uncontrollably. But he’d shaken it off and said nothing because that was what had been expected of him. That was what a dutiful kraken did.
“More than two years,” he replied, brows furrowing. He’d wasted so much time already.
“What?” Theo raised her head, hair tumbling over one shoulder, and glared down at him. “You knew for two years and did nothing? Said nothing?”
“I do not know what I am meant to have said, Theo.”
She sat up, crossing her legs as much as his tentacle would allow. “Anything!”
Vasil met her gaze, refusing to release his hold on her. “She has a life. A family.”
“Two years…” Theo shook her head. “At least she has you now. Better late than never, right?”
“She does not know.”
The fire that flared in Theo’s eyes at that moment burned hotter than anything Vasil had ever seen.
“You still haven’t said anything, Vasil? Done anything? Do you have any idea what I would have given for my father to have known I existed? How many times I wondered if my life would have been different if he’d been in it, if he’d come to save me from that shithole? From her?”
Vasil wanted to tell her he understood, that he knew exactly the things she’d felt and experienced, that he’d felt the same way at some point, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie to her. The way things had been could not be changed. Vasil had never known his sire and had never cared to know because it was never of any importance.
But now…
Everything was different. Everything. Though it didn’t alter his past, it could alter his future.
“She has always had her mother. Rhea is fierce and devoted, and Melaina will be strong. And she has had a male in her life, as well. Randall. He is a good man, and she adores him. He is a father to her. What place is it of mine to disrupt what she has?”
Theo stared at him, her eyes glassy with tears; he couldn’t tell if they were fueled by anger or sorrow. Perhaps both.
“She’s your daughter, Vasil. Yours. She deserves to have you in her life, too. To know.”
Randall’s words from the beach on the night the star had fallen came back to Vasil.
You’re just as much a father to her as I am.
It’s not too late to be part of her life, Vasil. It’d do both of you some good.
For most of his life, Vasil had been focused on the concept of place — what was his place as a kraken, as a male, as a hunter? How could he perform his duties and benefit his people? How could he avoid causing trouble, avoid violating the way things had been done? He’d been passive because that had seemed the best way to maintain the kraken way of life. Leave leadership to the more aggressive males, those who were driven to it. Ask no unnecessary questions.
Follow. Survive.
But none of that applied anymore. Working with the humans of The Watch, the kraken no longer needed to struggle for survival. They had abundant food. They had new lives, new hope, and a chance to explore the side of themselves they had so often denied — their human side.
Randall had been right.
Theo was right.
“I will speak with her when we return,” he said. He slipped his arm around Theo’s shoulders, drawing her down against his side. “I will give her the choice, as I should have long ago.”
Theo cupped his cheek, turning his face toward her. She smiled. “You have made your mate proud.”
He settled a hand on her face and stared into her eyes — eyes which seemed to hold unlimited depth and beauty, as boundless as the stars from w
hich she’d fallen. “I will have earned that pride when I do as I have said.”
She snuggled against him. He tangled his tentacles with her legs, craving the touch of her skin, needing as much contact with her as possible. She sighed, relaxing in his hold. Vasil closed his eyes.
Fear dwelled in the recesses of his mind — fear of rejection, fear that Melaina would denounce and resent him because he’d not gone to her sooner. Though he knew that fear was irrational and unwarranted, it persisted; Melaina was strong, but she was also kind, warm, and forgiving. She was old enough to know the traditions, even if she was not yet old enough to fully understand them.
But there was excitement within him, too. Anticipation. What had he longed for more than a true connection to other people? To have a family of his own, like Jax, Arkon, Dracchus, Rhea, and even Kronus had found? Vasil had Theo, and Theo would be forever enough, but he wanted a relationship with his daughter, as well. He wanted to know her because she was an amazing child. His child.
Melaina pursued her passions and curiosity. She was open to everything and questioned freely things she did not understand. She was bold, seemingly fearless, and had been a larger part of humans and kraken coming together peacefully than she might ever have realized.
She was everything Vasil hoped to become.
Chapter 19
“So… That went well, right?” Theo asked, swinging her foot to kick a rock off the dirt road they were following. The rock crashed into the nearby jungle foliage.
“If your goal was to have everyone stare at you like an alien, yes. A smashing success,” replied Kane aloud, his light pulsing at her wrist.
“It went well, Theo,” said Vasil. He settled a hand on the small of her back and continued to move beside her, matching her pace. “It has been hundreds of years since anything came here from beyond Halora. Some shock is expected.”
“He is right,” said Kane begrudgingly. “And they seemed to understand the value of your skills to this settlement.”
They’d arrived in The Watch early that morning; thankfully, the journey from the Facility hadn’t been as long as Theo had feared. Despite Vasil’s assurances before they’d left, she’d been unable to shake the memory of her utter exhaustion when they swam from the pod to the Facility.
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