Craved By the Kraken Warlord (Feral Bonds #4)

THE SACRIFICE

They don’t let me walk. My bare feet skid over jagged rock as the villagers drag me forward by my elbows, their grips iron-tight. Rain stings my face, sharp as needles. I taste salt and the sour tang of fear—mine or theirs, I can’t tell.

*Idiots. All of them.*

The rope around my wrists chafes, and I twist against it, but the cloaked figures on either side don’t even flinch. I already bit one of them earlier, when they first grabbed me from my shack. The coppery blood flavor still lingers, and I wish I’d aimed for an eye.

The elder’s voice booms over the storm. “We offer this sacrifice to calm the tumult of the depths!” His words are rehearsed, hollow.

He’s standing at the cliff’s edge, arms raised like some washed-up prophet.

The embroidered hem of his robe whips in the wind, gold thread catching lightning flashes. I want to spit on it.

They stop me in front of him. My knees hit the stone altar—a slab worn smooth by centuries of terrified women. I look up at his wrinkled face, his eyes that won’t meet mine.

“You’re a coward,” I say.

The villagers murmur. Someone gasps. Good.

He leans down, pretending to adjust my ceremonial shroud—a flimsy linen rag that clings to my skin. His gravelly whisper slithers into my ear: “You should’ve kept your mouth shut about the nets, girl.”

*The nets.* Right. The ones I found him sabotaging last week, slashed and weighted with stones.

The ones that sank old Cale’s boat and drowned his crew.

All so the elder’s own fishing barges wouldn’t have competition.

And now here I am, the convenient loose end, trussed up as a virgin offering. The irony’s almost funny.

Almost.

I jerk my head away from him. “Rot in the deep.”

He straightens, nostrils flaring, and snaps his fingers. Hands shove me flat against the altar. The stone leaches the warmth from my back. Cold seeps into my bones.

They gag me with a strip of kelp-cloth. It’s soaked in something bitter that makes my tongue go numb. I thrash, but there are too many of them—knotting ropes around my ankles, securing my arms above my head. My chest heaves. Rain pools in my collarbones.

The elder looms over me again. “May the sea god find you worthy.”

A chorus of *amens* ripples through the crowd. Hypocrites. Half of them bought the stolen cod from his barges last winter.

Thunder cracks. The villagers retreat like roaches from light, leaving me alone with the elder. He hesitates, his mask slipping—just for a heartbeat. His knuckles whiten on the ritual dagger at his belt, but he doesn’t draw it. No bloodshed allowed. The sacrifice has to be *pure*.

My heartbeat hammers in my throat. *Don’t scream. Don’t give him the satisfaction.*

He grabs my bound ankles. The world tilts as he yanks me off the altar. My shoulder blades scrape rock. The storm swallows my muffled curse.

Then—I’m weightless.

The cliff drops away beneath me. For a dizzying second, I’m suspended in angry wind and water. The ocean roars below, black and endless.

*This isn’t happening.*

I hit the water like a hammer-strike. Cold claws into me, worse than winter ice. Salt floods my nose, my mouth. The gag dissolves, but the ropes hold.

*Kick. Up. Find the surface.*

But the current’s too strong. Something tugs me deeper—the sodden shroud? My own panic? My lungs burn. I fight to twist toward the fractured light above, but the waves churn me like a rag doll.

Colors bleed into the dark—vivid blue-green. Glowing. Tentacles? *Hallucinating already.*

Something thick and smooth wraps around my waist. Squeezes. I wait for the crunch of bones, but it’s… gentle. A flicker of warmth cuts through the cold. The pressure shifts, curling under my knees, cradling.

*Not hallucinating.*

My vision tunnels. The glow pulses, soft and inviting. I try to reach for it, but my arms are lead.

Blackness swallows me whole.

---

**Earlier That Morning**

I’m elbow-deep in mackerel when the shouting starts.

“They’re here for *you*!” Elsah bursts into my shack, her cheeks flushed. She’s twelve, all knobby knees and wide eyes. “The elder’s men—they’re saying your name’s been chosen!”

The fish slips from my hands. It slaps the wooden table, dead eyes staring. “Bullshit. The draw isn’t till dusk.”

She shakes her head, braids flying. “They’re already at the square! They’ve got the black robes and the offering stone and—”

Footsteps pound outside. Too many.

I grab my gutting knife. “Back door. Now.”

Elsah freezes. “Mira—”

“*Go.*”

She scrambles out the rear window as the door splinters open. Three robed figures fill the frame. No faces—just shadows under hoods. The tallest one holds a coil of rope.

I raise the knife. “Try it.”

They don’t speak. Two grab my arms. I slash, catch fabric, hear a hiss. The third loops the rope around my neck.

*Not the neck—*

A yank. My breath chokes off. The knife clatters to the floor.

“Careful,” one mutters. “Elder wants her unmarked.”

Stars blot my vision. I go limp, let them think I’ve fainted. Their grips loosen—and I surge forward, teeth sinking into a wrist.

“Bitch!”

A fist cracks my temple. Pain blooms hot. I curl inward, but they’re already binding my wrists.

“Walk,” the tallest says.

I don’t. They drag me through the mud, past rows of silent shacks. My neighbors peek through shutters and vanish. Cowards.

Only Elsah stands in the road, small fists clenched. “Let her go!”

“Els, *no*—”

A robed figure shoves her aside. She hits the ground with a cry.

“You *bastards*!” I wrench against the ropes. “She’s a child!”

“Quiet.” The elder’s voice. He steps into the path, flanked by two more guards. His polished shoes gleam against the dirt. “The sea demands a willing heart, Mira. Scream all you like—it only proves your impurity.”

“Willing?” I laugh, raw and broken. “You’re murdering me to cover your own rot.”

His slap rings across the square. My ear throbs.

“Gag her,” he says.

---

**Now**

Darkness.

Then—a flicker. Gold-green light dances behind my eyelids. My body sways, suspended. Am I… floating?

Something firm presses against my back. Not rock. Warmer.

I force my eyes open.

Glowing tendrils surround me, swirling through the water like liquid silk. One curls around my calf—thick as a tree root, tapered at the tip. Bioluminescence pulses beneath its slick surface, casting shadows on… scales?

*No, not scales. Suckers.*

A tentacle.

I jerk away. The movement sends me spinning. My hair fans out, tangling with strands of luminescent seaweed. The tentacle retracts, but others hover nearby, patient. Waiting.

Air brushes my face. I look up. A bubble—translucent, shimmering—encases my head. I gasp, and my lungs fill with sweet, dry oxygen.

“What the…?”

The tentacles coil tighter around me. Not crushing—supporting. My heart races, but the panic feels distant, dulled. Maybe I’m dead. Maybe this is the sea god’s joke.

A shadow moves below. Vast. Serpentine.

The tentacles stiffen. They pull me downward, toward the shape. Deeper.

I slam my eyes shut.

*Don’t look. Don’t—*

But the glow seeps through my eyelids. And when the first deep, resonant note vibrates in my ribs—a sound too primal to be a voice—I know I’m not dead.

I’m prey.