Heart of the Deep (The Kraken Book 3)

by Tiffany Roberts

  A few of Neo’s bunch held harpoon guns. Several more wielded spears. They were only six doors away. Larkin had said the doors were each four meters apart; it was not much distance for a kraken to cross.

  “You may leave now with your lives,” Dracchus called. He spread his tentacles slightly wider, mindful of the humans behind him as he coiled his muscles like springs, ready for the fight.

  Neo wasted no breath on a response. As one, he and his followers charged.

  Gunfire deafened Dracchus. He felt the heat of the rifles on his sides, felt the air displaced by the screaming projectiles, and the vibrations of the small explosions pulsed across his skin. Flashing lights came on along the corridor, accompanied by a loud, blaring sound.

  “Firearms discharged in Cabins Hall C,” the Computer announced loudly. “All active security personnel be advised, firearms discharged…”

  Crimson-skinned kraken reeled in pain, their blood splattering the walls and floor — just as human blood had, more than three hundred years ago. Only two attackers fell.

  The thump of harpoon guns blasted down the corridor, and long missiles shimmered under the overhead lights as they sped toward Dracchus’s group.

  Dracchus batted one aside with his spear. Another hit the floor and slid behind their line, clattering into the wall before it lost momentum.

  The third hit someone to Dracchus’s right; a pained grunt was the only sound marking the impact, too indistinct for him to know if it had been Arkon or Jax.

  Another burst of gunfire dropped two more kraken.

  Dracchus ran his gaze over his enemies. He knew all their faces, all their names, but they were so far gone to rage that he couldn’t put any of them together. The only certainty was that these were too few to account for all the kraken who’d been banished, even with four of them down. The others either hadn’t come or were approaching from another direction.

  The computer continued repeating its warnings. “All non-security personnel, please remain where you are or seek shelter in the nearest lockable room, as detailed in this facility’s emergency procedures. This is not a drill. Firearms discharged in Cabins…”

  “Jax!” Dracchus shouted. He could barely hear himself over the cacophony. “Take Randall and Rhea, guard our flank!”

  Jax nodded and fell back, granting Dracchus a brief glimpse of the large gash on his arm.

  Dracchus, Arkon, and Kronus broadened their stances to cover some of the newly opened space as the first of Neo’s group crashed into the line.

  Crimson limbs thrashed and flailed in a frenzy. Claws tore Dracchus’s skin, a spear sliced across his ribs, and he was hammered by tentacles and fists. The crimson-skinned attackers were attempting to scramble over him.

  They mean to strike the humans first.

  To strike my mate.

  Roaring, Dracchus lowered his shoulder and heaved, shoving the foremost attackers backward. Arkon and Kronus thrust their spears into the stumbling kraken, but it didn’t halt the next charge. One of the attackers leapt high.

  Dracchus jabbed his spear up with one hand, burying it in the kraken’s shoulder. He extended his other arm simultaneously, closing his free hand around his foe’s throat. Dracchus swayed backward with the kraken’s momentum.

  Garon, he realized. This was Garon, his face contorted in uncontrollable fury.

  A similar rage blazed fully to life inside Dracchus. He’d grown to adulthood with many of these kraken, had hunted with them. And all that had ceased to matter.

  A pistol appeared in Dracchus’s peripheral vision, barrel angled upward. The slender fingers gripping it were familiar to him.

  Larkin squeezed the trigger. The projectile entered Garon’s skull between his eyes. The body jerked once and went still.

  Dracchus tore his spear free and hurled the carcass toward its fellows. The aggressors were no longer kraken. They were wild beasts, no better than razorbacks in kraken skin, and they were threatening Dracchus’s people.

  The body hit two of the attackers, knocking them backward, and Dracchus charged into the gap.

  He thrust the head of his spear into one kraken’s chest, planting it deep. Clutching the shaft with both hands, he swung, slamming the kraken into one of the other crimson-skinned monsters. Claws and blades raked his skin, but he was beyond pain.

  Gunshots and alarms drowned out all other sounds. Two crimson beasts hurled themselves through the projectiles, surging past Dracchus, dragging themselves forward over their fallen comrades. He spun to pursue them. Arkon and Kronus were already battling opponents of their own, and Larkin and Aymee had fallen back slightly, guns to their shoulders, still firing.

  The acrid tang of gunfire and blood overpowered all other scents.

  Kronus twisted, thrusting his spear upward as one of the attackers swung along the wall. The head of the spear punched through the kraken’s abdomen and burst out the back, embedding itself into the metal plating. The kraken halted abruptly, body folding around the weapon.

  The kraken’s shocked, agonized face was suddenly familiar — Orphus.

  The maneuver left Kronus undefended; his original foe stabbed him in the side. Pain tightened Kronus’s features as he swung backhand. His fist caught the other kraken’s jaw. The crimson-skinned attacker reeled, and Kronus threw himself at his opponent, taking him down in a mass of writhing tentacles.

  The other charging attacker leapt off the wall and grabbed the ceiling rails, hurling himself toward the humans.

  Larkin pivoted, dropped to a knee, and fired twice at the oncoming kraken. She rolled aside as the attacker crashed to the floor, but the injured kraken scrambled back up.

  Someone hooked an arm around Dracchus’s from behind. Dracchus leaned forward; he needed to protect Larkin, to reach her, but his foe dragged him back and used Dracchus as an anchor to lift himself off the floor. Tentacles caught Dracchus’s other arm. The attacker threw all his body weight into pulling Dracchus’s arms backward and apart, threatening to topple the big kraken over.

  Shoulders wailing in protest, Dracchus remained upright, dragging himself forward.

  Ahead, Larkin raised her pistol to shoot the kraken who’d charged her. Seemingly unaffected by the bullet wounds already bleeding on his torso, the kraken caught her leg with a tentacle and pulled her feet out from beneath her. Aymee hammered the butt of her gun into the back of the attacker’s head as Larkin hit the floor.

  Beyond Aymee and Larkin, Randall, Rhea, and Jax — both kraken bloody — battled more of the exiles, who’d come from the other corridor.

  Two more attackers hurtled past Dracchus.

  He roared. The sound burst from his chest and ripped out of his throat, vibrating back into him as it reverberated off the walls.

  Arkon stabbed his opponent in the face and turned, skin flashing red. He tackled the closest of the two charging kraken, knocking them into one another. All three hit the floor.

  Dracchus clenched his fists and bent his arm as much as he could before slamming his shoulder — and his foe’s head — into the wall. The grip on his arms loosened.

  Arkon loomed over the kraken he’d tackled, straining as he battled the tentacles wrapped around his arms to bury his claws in the other kraken’s neck. His arms were covered in blood and gore, but his foe continued struggling.

  Kronus was still down, wrestling with his original opponent; his tentacles encircled the attacker’s neck, slowly squeezing the life out of the crimson-skinned kraken.

  The beast who’d charged Larkin had Aymee pinned against the wall.

  Arkon roared Aymee’s name, but he couldn’t disengage from his foe.

  Dracchus slammed the kraken on his back into the wall again, and again. Something crunched in Dracchus’s arm, but he didn’t relent until the hold loosened enough for him to break free. He shrugged the other kraken off his back.

  Larkin jumped atop the kraken holding Aymee. She slammed her knife into his neck four times, twisting the blade on the final stab. The kraken sway
ed backward and released Aymee, who dropped to her knees. Larkin hopped away from the dying kraken, allowing him to collapse, and bent to collect her rifle.

  Rhea had another female against the wall. Keeping the female pinned with a forearm on her throat, Rhea sliced open the female’s abdomen with her claws.

  The female’s skin reverted to its normal shade as her life faded; she’d been Leda, once.

  The second kraken Arkon had knocked down pulled himself to his feet. He turned to look at Arkon and Kronus, both of whom remained occupied, and met Dracchus’s gaze. The hatred in his eyes was unmistakable.

  Neo.

  Dracchus lunged forward.

  Neo turned and leapt toward Larkin. Dracchus’s hands closed around two tentacles, halting Neo in midair. The crimson-skinned exile hit the floor hard, clawing for purchase as Dracchus dragged him closer.

  A distant thump, and dull pain bloomed in Dracchus’s lower back. He didn’t relinquish his hold on his foe, his enemy, the monstrous creature who sought to do his family harm. Who sought to do Larkin harm.

  Turning onto his back, Neo twisted his tentacles around Dracchus’s arms. His abdomen flexed as he bent to lift his torso, swiping his claws wildly. Fresh gouges opened on Dracchus’s chest; he didn’t feel the sting of his wounds, only the warmth of his own blood as it flowed from them.

  Larkin and Aymee fired over his head at targets down the hall; more of Neo’s followers were behind him. Past the human females, Jax was tearing out the throat of another kraken. Rhea and Randall turned in Dracchus’s direction. They were flanked by several more kraken.

  They were surrounded and being overrun.

  Dracchus buried his claws in Neo’s tentacles.

  Rearing back, Dracchus swung Neo into the wall. Neo’s grip didn’t ease, so Dracchus swung again, this time in the opposite direction. The impact was powerful enough to vibrate the floor.

  Neo sagged, tentacles loosening, and landed atop one of his fallen companions in a heap. Dracchus fell upon him immediately, trapping his foe’s tentacles beneath his own. Neo thrashed and struggled as Dracchus clamped a hand on his throat and shoved his head down to the floor, bending the crimson kraken over the body below.

  Ignoring the claws shredding his forearm, Dracchus drew back his fist and hammered it into Neo’s face.

  Thwap.

  Neo’s struggle’s wavered. Dracchus struck again.

  Thwap.

  Again. And again.

  Head stuck between the solid floor and Dracchus’s fist, Neo’s desperate thrashing weakened with each successive blow. Something cracked wetly under Dracchus’s hand.

  Dracchus struck again, kept striking until Neo’s arms fell limp and his struggles ceased, until his own hand was dripping with blood.

  He shoved himself off the corpse and turned to the new wave of attackers. Larkin had her back to them. Had she not noticed them?

  The other kraken flowed past her, and just as Dracchus tensed to intercept them, recognition broke through the haze of battle. He knew these kraken, too.

  Vasil, Brexes, half a dozen other males. Even old Ector. They continued along the corridor, engaging the few crimson-skinned kraken who remained behind Dracchus.

  When two of the newcomers dragged Kronus up off the floor, Dracchus halted them with a shout. Kronus’s shoulders rose and fell with labored breaths, and blood trickled from at least a dozen wounds on his chest and arms. He stared at Dracchus with a mixture of challenge and resignation in his eyes.

  Leave him, Dracchus signed.

  Though their brows furrowed in confusion, they obeyed. Kronus sank down, leaned back against the wall, and closed his eyes.

  Dracchus moved toward his mate. His hearts pounded in his ears, louder than the alarm still blaring overhead. A spasm locked his back; he gritted his teeth against the wave of agony as Larkin, panting, finally lowered her rifle. Her eyes widened as they fell upon him.

  She covered the small distance between them swiftly, yelling behind her, “Aymee!”

  Dracchus cupped her jaw and lifted her chin, checking her neck, her face, her whole body for signs of injury. There was blood on her clothes, but apart from a few superficial scratches, she appeared unharmed. Relief flooded him.

  “I’m fine,” she said over the alarm, pushing aside his hands to look him over, face strained with worry. She pressed her lips tighter together with each wound she discovered. “But you’re a mess, Dracchus.”

  “I’m here,” Aymee said, voice hoarse.

  Arkon stood before her a moment later. Frowning, he lifted his hands as though to touch Aymee’s neck, which was covered in angry, red marks, but pulled them back before making contact. He said something to her; Dracchus couldn’t hear his words over the noise, but she mouthed something like I’ll be okay in response.

  She turned her attention to Dracchus, running her fingers gently over a few of his wounds. Her touch stung.

  Hesitantly, Arkon moved to a panel beside the entry to Randall and Rhea’s den. He manipulated some sort of control to produce a floating, see-through screen filled with human symbols. His fingers flicked through the symbols with surprising speed — Dracchus couldn’t understand how Arkon could tell them apart, or how they held any meaning.

  The flashing lights ceased, and the wailing alarm went silent.

  “Security alert in Cabins Hall C has been cleared,” the computer announced as though nothing had happened. “Please resume your normal duties.”

  Dracchus’s ears rang in the sudden silence, as though unwilling to forget the cacophony of moments before. He looked down the hall.

  None of Neo’s followers remained upright. Their bodies were strewn about the corridor in pools of blood. Vasil and Brexes were moving among the fallen, delivering quick deaths to any who clung to life.

  A strange, high tone — beeeeeep — drew his attention back to Arkon.

  Arkon leaned his face closer to the screen. “Macy, it is Arkon. You can open the door now.”

  Several heartbeats passed. Pain slowly made itself known in new parts of Dracchus’s body, introducing him to wounds he hadn’t yet noticed. He shoved it aside.

  The door opened, and Ikaros bound out, leaping at Randall with enough enthusiasm to knock the human down.

  “Easy, easy,” Randall said, rubbing the prixxir’s side.

  Macy leaned through the doorway, peered up and down the corridor, and looked back into the room. “Stay in here. Do not come out until one of us comes to get you, okay?”

  “Okay,” Melaina and Sarina replied in unison.

  Macy stepped into the hallway and closed the door. Tears spilled from her eyes as she ran to Jax and took him in a tight embrace, avoiding his wounds. “I was so scared I’d lose you.”

  Jax returned the embrace. “Nothing will keep me from you, Macy.”

  “They all came to help us,” Larkin said, looking past Dracchus.

  He followed her gaze. Even more kraken were in the hallway now, dozens of them. More, perhaps, than had ever been in the Cabins at once. Their conversations were low, their expressions fraught with confusion, anger, and sadness.

  Slowly, their eyes began to turn toward him.

  “We need to get all the injured to the infirmary,” Aymee said softly behind him. “That includes you.”

  He turned his head to look at her over his shoulder. “I will be—”

  “You have a fucking harpoon sticking out of your back!” Larkin snapped, glaring at him. “That isn’t fine.”

  The dull pain in his back sharpened, and he was suddenly aware of the weight of the projectile jutting from the wound.

  Ector and Vasil approached him.

  “This will not be easy for any of us to understand,” Ector said. He looked as though he’d aged several more years since the last time Dracchus had seen him, only two weeks before.

  “Keep only who you need to clear the hall,” Dracchus said. He looked past them, at the expectant crowd. The truth of what had happened, the enormity of it,
poked at the edges of his mind, but he would not allow it entry. “Gather in the Mess,” he called. “As soon as our wounds are tended, we will address this matter, and we will decide how to move forward as a people.”

  Slowly, many moving as though in a daze, the kraken began to disperse.

  “What about him?” Vasil asked, gesturing to Kronus, who remained in the place he’d taken against the wall.

  “He fought alongside us,” Dracchus said, “and risked much to warn us of what Neo intended. We will discuss his fate, as a people.”

  Ector placed a gentle hand on Dracchus’s shoulder. “Our people look to you as a leader, Dracchus. You have proven time and again that you will fight for their survival, that you will put their needs before your own. They will all need to lean on your strength, now more than ever.”

  Those words echoed something Jax said to Dracchus after the decision had been made to allow Macy to stay.

  Dracchus was no more comfortable with the implication now, even after so much had changed. “I will do all I can for our people, elder, but I should not lead. They would do better to follow Jax or Arkon.”

  “You have been leading already, whether you realize it or not,” Ector replied gently. “And for now, at least, we are dependent upon you.”

  Dracchus looked over his surroundings again. Blood and gore bathed the hallway, and the bodies of the fallen were scattered about as carelessly as pebbles on the seafloor. He still couldn’t acknowledge this, not yet; he feared the burden might crush him. But he could acknowledge that he’d never wanted it. No matter how tense things had become, no matter how infuriating the behavior of the exiled kraken, he’d never wanted this.

  His gaze shifted back, over the people gathered behind him. Arkon, Jax, and Rhea embracing their human mates with such quiet relief, such love. Ikaros sat with surprising patience beside Randall, gently pawing at Rhea’s tentacles with apparent concern. All the kraken bore numerous wounds, taken in the defense of people they cared for.

  He looked finally at Larkin, who stood beside him, watching him with apparent concern. She stepped closer to him and settled her hand over his hearts. “I will stand with you. I’ll always stand with you.”