“Sam, release the mask,” she said.
“All right. Field generator deactivated,” Sam said.
There was a soft hiss as the seal was broken. She yanked off the mask and tugged her hood down as Jax carried her through the water. As they reached the island’s edge, Macy tossed the mask atop the spare clothing. She turned to Jax, threw her arms around him again, and rested her cheek on his shoulder.
“Thank you, Jax!” Lingering exhilaration thrummed through her.
She would never have thought it possible to feel that way, especially after she’d given up the sea, but this had been more than she could’ve imagined. The guilt of her sister’s death had weighed down Macy’s heart for years. She’d suffered stares of pity and accusation, had tormented herself with what-ifs. Today, for the first time in so long, Macy had lived.
Because of Jax.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had that much fun. It was wonderful!” Macy lifted her head and pressed her lips to his.
Jax tensed. She only registered what she’d done when his eyes widened.
Macy quickly pulled back. “Oh.”
He searched her face, his brow drawn in confusion, and — before she realized what he meant to do — he leaned down and kissed her.
She clenched his shoulders as his mouth pressed against hers; his lips were soft and firm at once, and heat spread across her face and sparked fire in her belly.
This was what Camrin’s kiss had been missing. This unfamiliar, unexpected, overwhelming sensation that stole the breath from her lungs. She forgot everything around her; she and Jax may well have been the only two people in the world. Jax’s lack of skill was meaningless, because his slightest touch sent pleasure spiraling through her.
Macy closed her eyes and gave herself to the kiss. It was a whispering caress, a soft brush of mouths, and their breath mingled as they explored one another.
Jax’s tentacles slid up her legs and over her back, rubbing gently. He drew her against him, and she felt the rapid thumping of his hearts, melding with her own heartbeat through their chests.
The prick of his claws on her hip and the graze of his teeth heightened her awareness of him; something sparked within Macy, something dark and forbidden. Liquid heat pooled between her legs, and her sex pulsated with need.
Macy opened her mouth and touched her tongue to his lips.
Jax’s entire body jolted. He pulled away abruptly, sat her on the edge of the island, and sank into the water to his shoulders.
Confused and aroused, Macy stared at him. Her lips tingled from the kiss while her skin cooled in his absence. She pressed her fingers to her mouth briefly.
“Jax?”
His eyes were large, pupils dilated, but he held her gaze. His nostrils flared. “We should tend the fish.”
“Are…are you okay?”
“Yes. Kissing is…overwhelming. It feels good, but it is…intense.” He pressed his lips together and lifted three of his tentacles out of the water. The fish writhed in his hold as he swam around the island and deposited them in the empty bucket near her shelter.
She stood on unsteady legs, only now aware of the weariness in her limbs. Their ache wasn’t as pleasant — or as dire — as the one between her legs. She pressed her thighs together, hoping to relieve it, but it only strengthened.
Macy didn’t know what had driven her to kiss Jax, but she knew things between them had changed drastically.
Jax lay on his back beside Macy, tentacles in the water, and gazed up through the cave opening. Countless stars glittered against the deep violet of the night sky. The fire had burned down to little more than a few spots of glowing orange Macy called embers. It still produced pleasant warmth, and she remained nearby.
When she’d been ready to remove her suit, Jax turned around without argument; his self-control after their kiss had been tenuous enough that he didn’t trust himself to so much as think about her naked body. The touch of her tongue against his lips had forced his shaft to extrude like he was an adolescent.
As much as he wanted her, the decision was Macy’s. When she was ready — if ever — she would make it known. Until such a time, he needed to be the master of his own body, needed to control his desires, and needed to respect her right to choose. It didn’t matter how strongly his cock throbbed.
He’d remained in the water as she cleaned and cooked the fish, waiting until long after his arousal had cooled before daring to venture close.
They’d lapsed into companionable silence.
Now, as they watched the stars, they were treated to the music of the waves outside, a song backed by the constant flow of the waterfall. Jax had spent his life underwater, and would never have guessed at the abundance of beauty above the surface.
Jax turned his head to Macy. Her skin and hair were pale in the starlight, her eyes bright with its reflection.
He couldn’t possibly have imagined the beauty of the surface world.
What would his people say about her, about his attraction to her? Would they find it unnatural, distasteful, a betrayal to their kind? Or would they understand her appeal?
The questions did not long remain on his mind; he didn’t care what they thought. Macy was his. A treasure he would keep to himself. She had given him a taste of something he’d sought for years, something he’d never discovered during his wanderings — contentment.
As though sensing his gaze, Macy looked at him and smiled. “What?”
“I have never encountered anything like you, Macy.”
She chuckled. “Because I’m human?”
He smiled; he enjoyed the sound of her laughter. “I doubt there are other humans like you.”
“Hmm…I’m not quite sure what to say to that. I mean, there are probably plenty of people like me. I’m nothing special.” She rolled onto her side and propped her head on her hand. Golden hair fell around her arm, and Jax longed to touch it again. “Why are you called the Wanderer? Despite the obvious.”
“It is because of the obvious. I’ve always pushed boundaries, since I was a youngling, have always sought new places. I had explored every accessible part of our home by my tenth year, and a few places thought to be sealed forever. The adults attempted to break my curiosity, but they never could. Once I was an adult, I set out on my own, farther than the others would dare, because I had to know what was out there. I couldn’t confine myself to my den and do nothing between hunts.”
“Are there others like you?”
Jax shook his head. Arkon understood, but his calling was different, his urge to explore focused within himself rather than on the enormity of the sea. “That is why I am the Wanderer. Kraken venture out to hunt, sometimes quite far, but always in groups, and always to places they know.”
“Do they still try to stop you?”
“They see no point in it, anymore. So long as I contribute as I can, they are content to allow me my strange behavior. I am an accomplished enough hunter that most of them show me respect, regardless.”
“How often do you need to contribute? You’ve been here for a while…are they going to wonder where you are?”
“If a hunt is called when I am there, I go along.”
Except for the last one…
“Some might wonder where I am,” he continued, “but they know well enough by now…I will return when I do, and if I do not return, it is because I am dead. Some would think me deserving of it for my foolishness.”
She frowned. “Do you have any friends? Anyone who would worry?”
“Yes. There is one.”
Her lips lifted into a smile. “Are you going to tell me?”
“He is called Arkon,” he said. “We became friends as younglings. He was considered…odd by the others.”
“Like you.”
Jax nodded. “For different reasons, but yes. We became friends because we were different from the rest, and we defended each other from other males who sought to challenge us.”
“Why would they ch
allenge you?”
He flicked his tentacles through the water. “Because they thought different meant weak. Most learned their lesson, in time. I was stronger and faster than most of them, and Arkon was the cleverest of us. When he fought, he held his own, but he’d often confuse the others into backing down before it ever came to that.”
“How would he do that?”
“He knows words the rest of us don’t understand. And when he couldn’t talk…he has his own way of moving, and it throws many off-guard because they cannot easily predict what he will do. As we got older, he showed little interest in such contests, and he simply stopped acknowledging challenges. Eventually, everyone left him alone.”
“What does he do now?”
Jax turned his head to look back at the sky. In some ways, the stars, with their barely perceptible patterns, reminded him of Arkon’s work, but that didn’t help him describe it to Macy.
“When he isn’t trying to draw new information out of the Computer, he makes…patterns. Designs. With rocks and anything else he can find.”
“An artist.”
A whisper of movement called his attention back to her briefly; she’d shifted onto her back and returned her gaze to the stars.
“I think my friend Aymee would like Arkon,” she said. “She’s an artist, too, and even though people don’t need art like they do food and water, the things she creates make people smile. She works, just like the rest of us — she’s one of the doctor’s apprentices — but she really comes alive when she’s creating.”
Macy raised her hand with one finger extended, moving it as though she were tracing lines between the stars. Jax’s eyes followed.
“When we were young, Aymee and I would look at the stars, just like we are now, and we’d connect them to make pictures. Dogs, or sailboats, or spoons, anything we could imagine.” She let her hand fall to her stomach.
“I think Arkon would like our people to enjoy what he creates,” Jax said. “He is often unsatisfied by his creations, always looking to the next thing. But most of the kraken do not understand it enough to enjoy it…or they simply do not try. He would like your Aymee.”
“I think he would, too. I think she feels as trapped in The Watch as I did.”
“Do you feel trapped, now?” Jax’s throat tightened, and he stilled his tentacles; the question spawned fear in him because he couldn’t predict her answer with any certainty.
After a long silence, Macy shook her head. “No. Had you not agreed to take me out with you, I would, but now… I think I’m happy.” Her brow furrowed. “I miss them, and that won’t change, but I can live with it.”
Jax rolled onto his side, leaning on his elbow in an imitation of her earlier position. From his slightly higher vantage, he was granted a full view of her; she’d put on a pair of loose pants and a long-sleeved shirt with buttons down the front, but he couldn’t forget the body that’d been teased by her dress and the diving suit.
Quiet stretched between them; Macy watched the stars, and Jax watched her, marveling at the play of starlight on her smooth skin. Though he’d seen living humans from afar, and the holograms in the Facility up close, he hadn’t been prepared for the wonder of Macy — her look, her feel, the sensations she stirred in him.
“Do humans dream, Macy?”
Macy turned to mirror his position. “You mean while sleeping?”
“Any time.”
“Like daydreaming? Hopes? Thoughts of the future?”
“All of them,” he replied, but he hadn’t asked her the right question. “What do you dream of?”
“I…don’t know.” She glanced at the ground between them, brow drawn. “I dreamt of sailing and fishing with my father when I was younger, but after Sarina…” Her shoulders lifted and dropped. “I expected to join with Camrin, but I don’t know anymore.”
“But Camrin was never your dream. What…were your hopes? Your daydreams?”
“I had none. I’d resigned myself to the reality of my situation…to the consequences of my choices.” Her eyes met his. “Dreaming would only lead me to disappointment.”
“What about now?” He held her gaze. “You’ve made a different choice than you intended. Has your situation changed enough for you to have hope?”
“Honestly, Jax…I don’t know. In a way, I’ve resigned myself to this, too.” She turned her face toward her shelter. “I accepted this as my only choice because you wouldn’t…you wouldn’t let me go. I decided to make the best of what I got.”
He’d known throughout, had known he denied her true choice. Even now, their closeness — their developing relationship — couldn’t be taken as it seemed, because he had forced her to choose this situation. The dull thump of his hearts rose over the sounds of moving water.
“But if I would have been given a choice,” she continued, “if I had known, I would have chosen this. It’s…weird, really, because I’m pretty much trapped in this cave, but I feel freer than ever. That’s because of you. I know my decisions — and my silence — were my own fault, but if I’d know, I would have chosen this, Jax.”
His nostrils flared as he drew in a deep breath and slowly expelled it. “I was wrong when I said I only had one friend.”
Macy smiled and brushed the tips of her fingers over his cheek. “What about your dreams, Jax?”
Her touch was warm, gentle, soothing; he craved more of it.
“In my dreams, I swim farther than I have ever gone. Farther, maybe, than is possible. To places that must exist only in my mind. To…cities below the surface, built for kraken, cities in which my people can thrive. But they never go to those places in my dreams, just as they will not journey with me while I am awake.”
“Why don’t they go with you?”
Jax lifted his gaze and swept it across the stars. “Because most kraken fear what is unknown to them. I know we cannot forever remain in our home, and we must seek new places to den, new places to hunt…and I do not fear the unknown.”
“And no one will go with you? Not even Arkon?”
“His focus is within himself. He struggles with things I do not fully understand…though I know they are somehow important. The others are too set in their ways. They were taught that straying too far meant death, and that I was not of my right mind.”
Macy lowered her head into the crook of her elbow. “I’d go with you. It may not mean much, but I would.”
He lowered himself into a similar position to keep his eyes at the same level as hers. “It means more than I can say.”
Chapter 12
Nine days had passed since Jax brought Macy to the cave. Nine days of eating nothing but fish and Halorian lobsters. She was grateful that he provided food, but she was beginning to feel the effects of an all-meat diet. Her body needed variety, needed nutrients she could only get from plants, but she wasn’t sure how to explain it to him.
She needed to go to land.
Five days ago, their first trip into the ocean had marked the turning point in their relationship. Conversation flowed between them easily, now; they enjoyed one another’s company. Macy eagerly anticipated their trips, and her fear diminished with each one. The two of them grew a little closer every day.
But they hadn’t kissed again.
In fact, Jax seemed very careful about physical contact between them. He took her hand when she offered it, but whenever he took her through the tunnel, he’d release her immediately after emerging and put distance between them. If she hadn’t caught him staring at her with open want on several occasions, she might have thought their moments of passion figments of her imagination.
She craved contact with him, and used any excuse to have it — the accidental brush of her hand against his, having him hold her as they passed through the tunnel, or sliding a little closer to him at night in the hope that one of his tentacles would settle over her as they slept.
Her mind returned to their kiss often; she wanted to relive it. What would have happened, had he not pulled away?
How much further might they have gone?
Macy glanced down at the wadded shirt between her hands, still held beneath the waterfall. She might’ve scrubbed it twice without realizing while she’d been lost in thought; ever since Jax asked her about dreams, she’d caught herself daydreaming with increasing frequency.
Her daydreams usually involved Jax.
Pulling her arms back, she wrung the shirt out and spread it on the dry section of the ledge in the sunlight. None of the clothing would be truly clean without soap, but this was better than nothing.
She looked over her shoulder. Jax was stacking a fresh pile of driftwood beside her tent. They’d discovered, through trial and error, that a few of the containers were waterproof when sealed. He’d used them to gather more dry fuel for her fires.
Her eyes dipped to watch the play of muscles along his shoulders and back. She’d felt their movement beneath her palm, and longed to feel it again; all she could do now was look away and suffer through her yearning.
After cleaning the rest of the clothes and laying them to dry, she returned to the island.
“Jax?”
He turned, and his muscles shifted again, and she still couldn’t touch. “Yes?”
“I need to go onto land.” There. She’d said it.
“For what?” His tone and expression were free of the suspicion she’d expected.
She sat down on one of the overturned crates. “Do you remember when I told you that humans ate plants?”
“A difficult thing to forget.”
Macy smiled; they both ate things that disgusted the other. “Well, I haven’t had any, and I kind of need to.”
“Have I not been bringing enough food?” he asked, brow creased.
“You have, but I need more than meat. Humans need a variety of nutrients, and some of those nutrients come from plants.”
He removed the last piece of wood from the container, added it to the pile, and turned to face her fully. “If you say you need them, we will go and find what you require.”
Macy lifted her eyebrows. “You do realize we will have to go inland?”
The Kraken Series Boxset: A Sci-fi Alien Romance Series Books 1-3 with Bonus Exclusive Short Story Page 13