Raven Chapter 25 Menty Bs and Man-Scents 314 #2
I met him around year twenty. It was at the same time I decided to try and go abroad the only way I could, via floating.
Turns out it’s incredibly boring so instead I gave up and sank below the surface.
I swam with whales, sharks, a whole menagerie—and not a single creature ever noticed I was there.
Until I dove deep into the supposedly crushing part, and found Jim watching me from the gloom.
Just… watching. Those big, dark eyes following my every move. No fear. No aggression. Just curiosity.
After that, it became a weekly ritual. I'd float my way to the Atlantic and dive in. He was always there, waiting in the dark. We'd swim together for hours—me, this tiny speck next to something the size of a ship.
Sometimes he'd curl a tentacle around me. At first, I thought he was testing my snackability factor. Which, for the record, is sky-high. Then I got that it was his version of a hug.
I blink, coming back to the present. They're all still tense, jaws clenched, while I'm sitting here with a sappy smile.
"I met him around year twenty," I explain. "I used to make weekly trips to swim with him. I think he was lonely. He was always alone."
"And who," Forrest demands, "is this Jim to you?"
"He's a giant squid."
The collective release of breath is audible. Shoulders slump; jaws unclench.
"He used to stick around Maine," I continue, "but when I started following you guys around, he’d stick close to The Bazaar so I didn’t have to split my time so much. He’s considerate like that, you know?”
"Wait," Kieran says, a huge grin spreading across his face. "Yer friends with a giant squid?"
I shrug. "I think so? He's giant and squid-like.
But, like, a super-badass version. He's inky black with these glowy lights under his skin, and his tentacles have these wicked spikes on the end.
I once watched him shred some giant, weird shark-thing that was getting too close.
And he's huge. At least a hundred feet long, with a beak that looks like it could shred a submarine.
" I sigh, a little wistful. "I miss him. "
When I look up, the entire group is staring at me with looks of pure, unadulterated awe mixed with horror. Even Forrest and Em, who usually have the emotional capacity of a brick, look utterly floored. Confused, I lean over and poke Emerson's cheek.
"Hello? You in there?"
He blinks, and his gaze snaps to me with terrifying focus. "That is not a giant squid," he states, his voice low with intensity.
"…Then what is he?"
"A kraken." He says it with the same tone of awe I probably use whenever Anik feeds me.
"They are exceptionally rare. For millennia, they were hunted to near-extinction for their innate magical properties.
The survivors retreated into the unknown.
Somewhere beyond the reach of both human and supernatural kind.
I believe there have only been three confirmed sightings of one for the past millennia. "
My smile stretches so wide it hurts. "I knew Jim was a badass! Wait, how smart are they?"
"They possess intelligence and sentience on par with our own," he explains, his eyes gleaming. "Their primary method of communication is telepathic. I would hypothesize he never initiated contact with you because you lacked a physical, corporeal brain to receive the signal."
My jaw drops. "He did understand me! I talked to him all the time! Oh my gods, I need to see him again. Now that I have a brain, we can actually talk!"
The cabin falls into a contemplative silence.
Outside the window, the clouds pass as we fly over them at an alarming speed.
I watch them for a while, letting the information settle.
Jim is a kraken. Jim is a kraken . My best friend is a mythical creature.
I should probably be more surprised, but honestly? It explains a lot.
I can't help it; I bounce in my seat, pure, undiluted excitement tearing through me at the thought of interacting with him in this new body.
Then my eyes land on Anik—sitting across the aisle, arms crossed, watching me with that quiet intensity.
He's not smiling, but there's something soft in his expression.
And that's when it hits me.
I'm going to meet his mom. And his sister. Two of the most important people in the life of a man who is both my personal wet dream and a walking five-star kitchen.
The bouncing stops. My brain slams into a brick wall labeled "oh shit."
I look down at my armor: a razor-cut plum purple crop top, one of Kieran's ruby-red silk shirts knotted at my waist, a flowing burnt orange midi skirt with a dangerous slit up one leg, and my Docs—one still laced with the power cord I'd stolen from Em.
This is not a "meet the parents" outfit. This is a "commit minor arson and look good doing it" outfit.
What if she thinks I'm a disaster? What if she thinks I'm not good enough for her terrifying, perfect son? What if I become the voice of an angry god in her kitchen and shatter her favorite casserole dish?
You know what? Best we don't think about that little tidbit. I'm only allowing myself one cosmic-level freak-out at a time.
The silence stretches. I'm not sure how long. Long enough for my heartbeat to slow down and speed back up again. Long enough for me to run through every possible worst-case scenario twice. Long enough for Leandre to murmur something soothing that I completely tune out.
The plane hums. The engines drone. The sun dips lower outside the window.
I'm halfway through imagining his mother's disappointed face when a massive body unfolds from a seat.
Anik.
He doesn't say a word. Just pulls me up and into his arms, and suddenly I'm pressed against a wall of solid heat. His chest. His heartbeat. His arms wrapped around me like he's the only thing holding me together.
I take a second to breathe. Really breathe. Damp earth, clean night air, pure man.
Gods, these guys' scents should be bottled as anti-anxiety medication.
Then you'd have to shank everyone who thinks to use them.
The unhinged, wildly possessive part of me supplies. I really need to give her a name. Barbara, maybe. Something unassuming. Something that won't get me put on a watchlist.
I choose not to smother her with a pillow this time because she's right. They're mine.
I hear Leandre chuckle softly beside us, a low, knowing sound. I feel exactly zero embarrassment over having projected that violent, possessive thought for him to hear. Always good to communicate where one's priorities lie.
“Don’t worry, little one,” Anik rumbles into my hair, his voice a vibration against my cheek. “She will love you.”
It's all the invitation I need. I wrap my legs around his waist to join my arms around his neck, and worm my face deeper into the crook of his neck for a big, sustaining hit of eau de man.
A wave of tension washes through the cabin. I have no idea what their problem is, but I feel the answering brush of his sentient shadows along my spine and the curve of my thigh.
I just smile against his skin. Let them have their little freak-out. I'm busy getting high.
Eventually, after one last, tight squeeze that feels like it realigns my spine, he sets me down.
When I look around, I’m met with a circle of stunned faces.
Forrest looks like a man who just spent a week planning the perfect heist only to be told the intel was bad five minutes before go-time.
Kieran’s grin is a mile wide. Leandre just looks… pleased.
And Emerson? He's staring at me like I just handed him the answer to a question he's been asking his whole life. Like I'm the equation he didn't know he was trying to solve.
I flip my hair over my shoulder and give him a little finger wave.
He doesn't blink.
Okay, then.
I sink back into my seat, keeping my eyes locked on his. Then I cross one leg over the other, slow, letting the slit in my skirt do its thing. His eyes track the movement like a starving man watching someone else's plate.
Love this for me.
I drop my gaze to his mouth.
What equation do I need to solve for him to start tearing my clothes off?
If there's anything this man finds hot enough to literally tear someone's clothes off for, it's an unsolvable problem.
Math isn't my strong suit. But I am the prettiest, most impossible problem he's ever met.
Or so I assume. Before me, he treated social interaction like a chore that might result in a venereal disease.
So the fact that I'm not naked right now is a genuine mystery. I'm choosing to believe it's not because he's uninterested. That leaves something faulty with me, which is its own whole spiral, and I don't have the bandwidth for that right now.
Love this less for me.
“I had no idea.” Forrest’s quiet admission snaps my attention to him.
Anik just shrugs before sitting down, the picture of controlled nonchalance. “You never asked.”
I’m so confused, but just chalk it up to bro stuff and decide to inspect the plane now that there’s no panic coursing through my system. Instead, it’s been replaced with mysteries I need to avoid for the sake of my sanity.
Plus, now that I'm not facing my own death via plane crash, I can appreciate that this shit is fancy .
It’s less of a plane and more of a sinfully expensive lounge that someone strapped rockets to.
The seats are a buttery creme-colored leather that feels like a warm caress against my skin.
The wood paneling is so dark and polished I can almost see my reflection in it, and the carpet is so thick and lush my Docs sink into it without a sound.
Curiosity fully piqued, I pop up and start rooting around.
I run my fingers over the cool, brushed metal of the fixtures, open a cabinet to find crystal glasses that sing a high, clear note when I flick one, and discover a compartment full of blankets so soft they feel like woven clouds.
I’m halfway to investigating what I’m sure is a secret, James Bond-style hidden compartment when a door at the back of the cabin catches my eye.
I slide it open.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I breathe.
It’s a bedroom. An honest-to-gods, full-sized bedroom, complete with a queen-sized bed swathed in what looks like rent-payment-thread-count sheets and a thick cloud-like duvet. The headboard is velvet for Dionysus’s sake.
My brain, the traitorous organ that it is, immediately and vividly supplies an image of being pinned against that plush headboard by a certain brooding CEO, his crisp facade shattered, his rules thoroughly broken.
Then it flips to a different scenario: being slowly, meticulously unraveled in that very same spot by a scholar with elegant hands and a pretty knife collection.
I try to stop thinking of all the ways I could be thoroughly ruined in this bed by giving myself a pat on the back.
Congratulations, Raven. You’ve figured out what the mile-high club is.
My brain is distracted enough to realize that not all planes can have bedrooms like this one, surely. So that must mean people are getting it on in a bathroom or something. Unless my idea of flying is incredibly flawed and they’re actually just a voyeur's dream wrapped in a pressurized metal tube.
You’d think that would gross me out enough to snap me away from this erotic fantasy wonderland, but no, instead I’m not imagining being ravaged in a very primal way, in front of an audience, by a massive, brooding jaguar shifter.
The plane levels out. I don't know how long I've been standing here, lost in the possibilities of that bed, but the light outside has shifted again to something softer, less aggressive.
“See something you like, Wisp?” Kieran’s voice, laced with knowing amusement, drifts from just behind me.
I slam the door shut a little too quickly. “Just taking inventory. In case of… emergencies.”
His grin is pure, unadulterated sin. “Aye, I can think of a few emergencies that room would be perfect for.”
A metallic whine echoes through the cabin as the plane tilts. My stomach lurches, a stark reminder that we are, in fact, in a metal tube being catapulted through the sky by rockets and a prayer. The fun, highly inappropriate exploration is over.
Forrest’s voice, calm and firm, cuts through the hum. “Raven.”
If I look at him, I’m going to combust with that tone aimed at me and these thoughts racing through my head. So I avert my gaze, keeping my eyes on the prize.
“Right. Landing. Got it,” I mutter, scrambling back to my seat and buckling in with a definitive click. I grip the armrests again, but this time, it’s different. The panic is a dull thrum, not a screaming siren.
Anik’s family. A hidden town. A mystery I’m apparently some sort of bloody key to.
And the deeply distracting knowledge that this flying death trap has a very, very comfortable-looking bed.