Tentacles and Tides (Crescent Cove #5)

Chapter 1 Kara

THIS COTTAGE WAS TRYING to kill me.

Not in a metaphorical, “wow this fixer upper is a lot of work” kind of way, but in a very real, very personal, “the left wall just groaned like it was considering collapsing directly onto my head” kind of way.

I stood there in the middle of what I generously called the living room, listening as the entire structure gave another long, exhausted creak, like it had already decided I wasn’t worth the effort of staying upright.

“You get what you pay for,” I muttered under my breath, though even that felt generous considering how little I had actually paid for this place. Two weeks in Crescent Cove, and somehow I already had keys to a cliffside cottage. That alone should have been my first warning.

Still, it was a roof over my head. A leaking and possibly cursed roof, but a roof nonetheless.

The whole place was one bad breeze away from falling apart, but it was mine, and it was still better than the Crescent Cove Inn right in the middle of town, where there were always too many watchful eyes on me as I tried to blend in like I actually belonged here.

Even with the effort of keeping that act up, it was definitely better than where I’d come from.

I shut that thought down quickly, shaking my head as if I could physically dislodge it before it rooted too deep and pulled me under like the tide.

Nope. Not going there Kara.

I turned in a full circle, taking in the space again as if it might somehow improve on a second look.

The floorboards creaked beneath my weight, and not in a charming, whimsical, cozy cottage way, but in a deeply concerning, structurally questionable one.

The windows, or at least the ones that were actual glass and not my state of the art cardboard renovations, rattled violently in their frames as another gust of sea wind slammed into the side of the cottage, and somewhere behind me, something dripped, letting me know there was another leak I had yet to discover.

“I love it here,” I said out loud, forcing brightness into my voice. “This place is a dream come true.” And now I wasn’t sure if I was convincing myself or trying to compliment the cottage to get on its good side.

Another gust of wind howled through the cracks in the walls, carrying with it the scent of salt and something faintly sweet and strange, as if the ocean itself had decided to dab on perfume before rolling in.

Everything about Crescent Cove was like that, so normal yet slightly off, but I supposed it was something I’d have to get used to what with living in a magic town and all.

The magic didn’t bother me. It was more just an adjustment, and if I truly wanted to blend in, I couldn’t act like every strange thing either scared me or wowed me. I had to treat it all like it was just another day at the office.

Still, there was one thing I would continue to always be in awe about.

While the cliffside cottage had probably been abandoned for very good reasons, the view of the cove below was breathtaking.

Since buying the place just a few days ago, I’d found myself drawn to the water each night, watching as the waves lit up in shimmering silvers and blues, like bioluminescence but brighter, and almost unreal in the way it glowed.

I caught myself lingering there every evening, completely mesmerized, and one of these nights, when I felt a little braver about venturing down alone, I promised myself I would hike down to see it up close.

But first, project “make sure this cottage doesn’t kill me” needed to happen, because if this place didn’t work out, I wasn’t sure where else I could go.

I exhaled slowly and reached up, absently twirling the chain of the pearl necklace around my neck, the motion grounding me, reminding me of my truth as I squinted up at the crooked beam running across the ceiling, spotting a new leak.

It was small, but it could easily weaken the beams enough to collapse right on top of me, turning my living room into my new swimming pool.

“You are not going to let this house kill you, Kara,” I told myself, loud enough for the cottage to hear me, hoping that if playing nice didn’t help, then maybe it would hear the threat in my tone. “I am your owner, do you hear me? I’m El Capitano, and you will not crush me!”

I was losing my mind, I was sure of it now. Because honestly, if this is where my story ended, well, that would be fucking humiliating. Surviving everything I had only to be taken out by rotting wood and poor decision making.

Carefully, I stepped over a loose plank and made my way toward the kitchen, which was less a room and more a sad little alcove pretending it had purpose with its bare essentials.

The sink wheezed when I turned the handle, and the cabinets looked one aggressive touch away from disintegrating entirely.

I set my tool bag down on the warped excuse for a counter and dug through it until I found the hammer I’d bought earlier that day. Because apparently, I was a carpenter now.

I was a lot of things, but handy? Not exactly my brand. I could build a house of cards without blinking, sure, but an actual house? That wasn’t a skill I’d picked up in the gambling dens.

Still, I was a fast learner, and I could make do.

It was better than hiring someone, because hiring someone meant inviting a Crescent Cove resident onto my property—letting them linger, letting them look too closely, and drawing attention to myself that I absolutely did not need if I was going to keep this lie intact.

I had already been careful, keeping my visits into town brief, my head down, and my interactions minimal.

Crescent Cove wasn’t just any seaside town.

The people here weren’t exactly... human, not fully, anyway.

They were the kinds of beings I had only ever read about, the ones I used to think belonged strictly in stories.

Selkies, kelpies, sea witches, even sea creature shifters.

And while not everyone here was pureblooded, they all carried enough oceanic magic in their veins to belong here without question.

They were all so different and unique, and yet some of them looked completely human at first glance. If you didn’t pay close enough attention, you might miss it entirely, that quiet otherworldliness that seemed to hum just beneath the surface of the people who lived here.

I had arrived under the guise of being a distant relative to a sea sprite.

From what I’d heard, sea sprites had a fair amount of human blood in their lineage.

Apparently, they weren’t exactly picky about who they fucked, which resulted in more than a few diluted bloodlines.

I figured I could pass as the byproduct of some long forgotten, horny fourth cousin somewhere in my family tree, and it seemed to have worked, for now at least, as long as no one looked too closely and as long as I didn’t give anyone here an open invitation to be around me long enough to give myself away.

So far, no one was on to me. In fact, people here were kind. Well, mostly. There was one very crabby old man who ran the Crescent Cove Inn who was, amusingly enough, a crab shifter.

It truly was an interesting town, and the rules about not being able to even access it without some kind of magical bloodline or a magical item to cross the barrier were precisely what made Crescent Cove the ultimate hiding place.

I swallowed, my fingers drifting back up to the chain at my throat.

The necklace was plain enough, just a pearl set in a delicate silver wire shaped like coral, but the pearl itself, and the magic it possessed, was the very thing that had gained me access here.

And as long as I was wearing it, nothing could take me away from this town, because here, I was safe from him.

I quickly tucked the long chain back beneath the neckline of my dress, —reminding myself to keep it hidden as much as possible in case someone looked too closely and recognized it for what it was— before I had a chance to spit out my very rehearsed story.

“I’m Kara Thompson, nice to meet you,” I said to myself, knowing Thompson was probably an easier name to hide behind than my real last name, DiMari.

“Oh, this old thing,” I rehearsed again, pulling at the pearl.

“Family heirloom, passed down through generations of distant sea sprite ancestry.” Hopefully distant enough that no one would think to look too closely.

Because if they did, well, the cottage collapsing on me might actually be the kinder ending.

I set the hammer against the loose cabinet hinge and gave it a tap, hoping to get the nail back in place, only for the wood to splinter.

“This is going great,” I whispered under my breath, leaning back just enough to take in the space around me again.

This place was going to take a lot of work, and while I was just winging it, at least it kept the constant fear I’d felt for the last few years at bay.

A distraction I desperately needed, even if it was slowly being replaced with stress.

Lesser of two evils, I guess. But still, I couldn’t wait for the day I felt like I could breathe again, like I was truly safe.

And despite the cottage trying to end me, I imagined I could find that feeling of safety here in this town.

Because this cottage was mine—the first real step toward freedom.

It wasn’t some cramped room above a gambling den, filled with the stench of smoke and desperation.

It wasn’t a place where every laugh was forced and every smile hid deception, where every glance came with expectation and every movement was scrutinized.

In that life, every mistake had been punished, every breath questioned, every second of my time accounted for and owned by someone else.

Where I had been owned.