Chapter 19
Delmar
We were only a few miles from the coast when my beast woke up. I’d never felt such a profound sense of relief. My human body was still mostly paralyzed, but my kraken had no issues. The moment I shifted, there were no longer any limits on my movement.
I’d been laying at the feet of the man steering my boat so the moment I shifted, he screamed.
My kraken and I were mostly the same, but my beast had a simpler thought process. The selkie was a threat so it had to be eliminated.
The selkie was scrambling backwards to get away from me but ran out of boat and splashed into the ocean. I was going to go after him but a loud sound and sharp pain in my mantle made me turn to find another selkie holding a gun on me.
Several of my limbs shot out. One grabbed the hand holding the gun and twisted it back until the bone snapped. The selkie screamed in pain. Good!
I dragged the selkie closer and recognized him as one of the two that had blown the powder in my face.
“Please don’t kill me!” he begged, then turned his face to another boat that was pulling up close. “Help!”
I couldn’t speak, so I didn’t. Instead, I ripped him in half and tossed the pieces out into the sea. Let him feed some sea life.
He’d meant to kill me, he didn’t deserve mercy.
Dipping my mantle back, I pointed my beak to the sky and let out a kraken scream. I was free and there would be no leniency for those who hurt me or my mate.
They’d woken the ferocious and brutal part of my beast, so the only way they would survive this was to run.
The men in the second boat decided not to run. They pulled up and began shooting. That sealed their fate.
Unlike some magical creatures, I wasn't bulletproof. The rounds lodging in my thick skin hurt!
I grabbed hold of the edge of the boat and slipped into the water. They kept firing, but the dark water hid me well. It was easy to move under both boats and come up behind the shooters.
They’d stopped firing and were talking.
“What do we do?” one asked.
“We need to get out of here,” another said. “We have to tell Mayor Norris what happened!”
“He's going to blame us.”
They kept arguing as I sank back into the dark water and focused on making myself big.
Legendarily big.
When I was finished, it was easy to grab the entire boat and crush it with my massive appendages. I heard the men scream as fiberglass, wood, and aluminum broke apart. Something splashed into the water, and I let go of the boat to see a seal swimming away.
One of the selkies had jumped and was trying to get away.
I let go of the boat and shot after him. He was going in the exact direction I wanted to travel, back to the harbor. Chasing him put me closer to my goal: getting my mate back!
I lost track of him the moment we got to a kelp bed, but now I was focused on another target.
Keeping my massive size, I moved from the water to land, pushing boats out of my way and sinking several of them to climb ashore. I made it to the parking lot, flinging my tentacles far out in front of me and smashing cars. I was big enough to lift a small car and fling it out into the ocean.
I heard screaming as people came out of their homes and saw me. Good! Let them feel fear. Let them know what it means to anger a kraken!
A bunch of cars came to a stop haphazardly across the two-lane road leading into the harbor parking lot. Selkies poured out of the cars. All of them pointed guns at me, but I ignored them.
My full attention was on Nina.
Her eyes looked at me, wide with surprise. Her seal had seen me in my smaller form, but my large beast was immense. Renewed rage washed over me. How dare these selkies put me in a position where my precious mate had to see me like this?
Anger made me unroll a tentacle and crush the small harbor office. The thing smashed easily, wood and sheetrock going everywhere, but it wasn't enough. Tipping my head back, I let out another angry cry.
“Delmar!”
The sound of Norris's yell, demanding my attention, made my tentacles itch to squeeze the life out of him. He was standing next to my Nina, holding onto her hair to keep her still. It was only then that I noticed that they'd gagged her.
I didn't know I could become angrier. I was so infuriated, but when I reached out to toss Norris away from my mate, he pressed a gun to her head.
“If you do anything I don't like, she dies,” he shouted.
I pulled all my limbs in close to my body, hugging them tightly together.
“Good,” Norris said, looking smug. “Return to your human form, and I’ll release her.”
Nina tried to shake her head, but Norris tightened his grip on her hair. I tried to shift back, but I couldn't make my beast retreat. It wasn't only rage still coursing through us, it was also fear.
He saw my human side as the reason our mate was in danger, and he wasn't going to trust me again until Nina was back in our tentacles.
“You don't trust me?” Norris asked. He didn't realize that my beast and I were fighting for control, and that's why I hadn't shifted yet. “I understand.”
He lowered the gun and tugged at the gag until it fell away. “Tell him that I haven’t hurt you.”
Nina glared at Norris and said something I couldn't hear. I watched the rage cross his face before he smoothed out his features.
He said something back that made Nina's expression go from anger to fear. She nodded her head and turned to face me.
I watched her take a deep breath, several of my limbs wiggling with the desperate need to touch her.
“No mercy!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
Norris acted without hesitation, letting go of her hair to slap her hard across the face. The blow sent her to her knees. I completely lost control of my beast. We raged across the parking lot, crushing cars under our massive weight.
Norris pulled Nina up. He had her in a chokehold, and even though she struggled, she couldn’t get free. When Norris dug the barrel of the gun into her temple, she went still.
“Stop or I'll kill her,” Norris shouted, dragging her back so his men could form a line between us.
All the men were holding guns on me, ranging from small handguns like the men on the boat had, to large rifles.
At my current size, none of them could hurt me.
Most wouldn't even penetrate my thick hide.
The only thing that made me hesitate was the weapon Norris held against my mate's head. I went still, several of my tentacles wrapped around a small car, ready to pick it up and toss it.
“That's better,” Norris said. “As I said, this all ends when you shift to your human form. You can have this female back and leave. Doesn't that sound good?”
“Dad, you have to stop.”
All of us looked over to see Archer standing on the hood of one of the cars the men had driven.
“Archer, join the firing line,” Norris ordered, never taking his eyes off me.
“No,” Archer said, jumping down and striding to his father. Norris wasn’t prepared for him to grab Nina and pull her away. My mate stumbled, but Archer didn't let her fall. He tucked her behind his bigger body and faced off with his father.
“I'm not standing by any longer," Archer said, backing up and shielding Nina. I was going to move on them, but several of the men turned to face Archer. The weapons they carried would rip through him and my mate.
One side of the road was a retaining wall that led up to a row of houses. The other side was a sheer two-story drop into the ocean.
“What do you mean, standing by?” Norris asked, looking genuinely confused. “You've been at the heart of everything, helping me lead our colony. When I'm gone, you'll take my place. I've been training you for that your entire life.”
“Training me to do what, Dad?” Archer asked. “Let people be abused by their families?”
“Is this about Abby?” Norris asked with a derisive huff. “I know her father knocks her around a little, but she's stubborn. Sometimes you have to be strict with women like that, or they get out of hand. He doesn't do permanent damage.”
“You knew?” Archer said, sounding broken. “You knew Frank was abusing her, and you did nothing?”
“I encouraged it,” Norris said. “Right after her mother died, she went a little crazy. She was demanding all these things that weren't for the good of the colony. I told Frank he needed to get her under control.”
Archer shook his head, his expression was devastated. “She's my mate, Dad. My mate!”
“We can talk about that later,” Norris said, advancing on them. “Give me back Nina and take your place with the other men.”
He tried to grab hold of Nina, but Archer shoved him back. That's when Norris brought up the gun and aimed it at Archer’s chest.
“What are you going to do?” Archer asked, keeping Nina behind him. “Shoot your son?”
If Archer got Nina a little further away, I felt confident I could move fast enough to shield them with my body before anyone had a chance to react.
“I can't let you challenge me in front of others,” Norris said. “If I have to train another successor, I will. It'll hurt to lose you, Archer, but I won't let anyone put this colony in danger.”
“You put everyone in danger!” Archer snarled. “All because of your ego.”
Before Norris could say anything, Archer looked at me and repeated what Nina had said. “No mercy!”
Then he grabbed her and jumped.