Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jax swam along the seafloor, matching his skin to the terrain.
He kept his eyes in constant motion; it was unlikely the razorback had lingered in the coastal shallows for two days, but the attack had caught him off-guard, and that was unsettling.
When it came to Macy’s safety, he couldn’t allow himself any degree of carelessness.
Despite his dedication to alertness, he couldn’t prevent his mind from repeatedly returning to the prior day.
What they’d shared had proven more fulfilling and meaningful than he could’ve imagined.
Even thoughts of prowling razorbacks couldn’t overcome his elation.
He didn’t know if Macy considered them joined in the manner of her people, but she had chosen him.
They were mates.
To kraken, it was an incredibly important — if fleeting — concept, a state that could change as suddenly as the tides during a storm. Because of that, he shouldn’t allow himself such excitement. Shouldn’t allow himself such attachment.
But Macy had said humans didn’t view such relationships in the same manner. When they chose, they did so for life.
He halted and flattened himself to the bottom as he approached a potential hunting area. Each moment away from her was a new sort of suffering, a unique agony, but it was his duty to provide for her, and he’d not yet obtained tools to allow her to assist on hunts. Today, she would rest.
As he observed the nearby sea creatures, his mind conjured images from yesterday.
After their joining, Macy had gone to the waterfall to wash herself; he supposed such behavior was another human oddity, one beyond his understanding.
Jax had watched the water caress her bare skin.
Had watched droplets roll down her breasts and gather, briefly, on the tips of her nipples before falling.
He’d watched rivulets run to the hair between her legs, and lower.
It had been no surprise when his willpower failed.
Jax had joined her, and soon their closeness led to touching, then kissing, and finally to another joining. They’d eaten afterward, and laid side-by-side as the stars eventually came out. Their quiet conversation had continued until well after the moons passed across the cave’s opening.
When he’d woken at dawn, he was still on land, with Macy enveloped in his arms and tentacles.
Now, he watched spinefish glide by with their long, flat tails, watched armored grayfish sink down into the sand to bury themselves with flapping fins, likely digging nests for their eggs.
Silver, reflective fish drifted over the seagrass, using the light bouncing off their scales to attract smaller creatures.
Schools of brightly colored fish with oversized, flowing fins swam by with irregular rhythms; their slow, nonchalant pace broken by seemingly random bursts of speed.
A few hard-shells — Macy called them lobsters — trundled along the bottom, long feelers sweeping in front of them.
Jax crept closer. Most of these creatures did not stray far from the cover of rocks, coral, and seagrass; open water left them vulnerable. They wouldn’t come to him.
Though he wouldn’t dismiss an opportunity for any significant catch, his attention returned to the spinefish. Most of them were large enough, individually, that one would provide a satisfying meal for Jax and Macy both — especially since she had plants to eat with the meat.
Movement farther out caught his eye; a dark shape approached the area from the relative gloom that always lingered in the distance underwater.
No matter how well you can see, the old hunters had said, the sea never reveals everything.
As the dark shape drew nearer, he recognized it for a kraken — its tentacles flared and flattened, flared and flattened.
Jax would recognize that uniquely graceful manner of swimming anywhere; Arkon glided along with seemingly little effort, tentacles always extending to straight lines whether they were trailing behind him or splayed in all directions.
Arkon drifted, turning his head from side to side as he searched the environment.
He was clearly alone — when hunting parties traveled, they stayed close together, spreading out only enough not to hinder one another’s movement.
They were less likely to be attacked in a group, and that closeness meant no one was completely undefended.
Why was Arkon this far from the Facility by himself?
Jax pushed up from the bottom, rising to Arkon’s level, and flashed orange over his skin.
Arkon spotted him and matched Jax’s brief coloration, but sent a pulse of green through it. He was agitated by something. Slowing, Arkon moved his hands and front tentacles in a series of gestures.
Need to speak. Surface.
Signaling his understanding, Jax scanned his surroundings for a final time and swam toward the glittering reflections that marked the barrier between water and air. They’d be totally exposed up there; Arkon would not take such a risk lightly.
Jax emerged first, and Arkon broke the surface a moment later.
“We must be quick. There was a razorback hunting these waters two days ago,” Jax said.
“You have been absent eleven days, Jax. I did not expect to find you so close after such a time. In fact, I hoped I would not find you at all.” Arkon’s pupils shrank to slits in the morning sunlight.
Of all the things Jax might’ve expected Arkon to say, he couldn’t have guessed anything close to those words. That was Arkon — he had his habits, his obsessions, as he’d say, but once he broke from them, he was entirely unpredictable.
“You hoped for my death, then?”
Arkon shook his head, brow falling. “Your brain must have been addled. Dracchus claimed you have returned at least once to the Facility since you and I last spoke, and that you departed immediately. When I called him a liar, he simply restated in his claim — without taking offense. I feared he was being truthful. I knew if I came looking for you, and couldn’t locate you, Dracchus was speaking false. ”
“You came out here because of something Dracchus said? You’ve never much cared about what he thought one way or the other, Arkon.”
“And you, Jax, know of his persistence better than anyone. He must have demanded I tell him your whereabouts a dozen times, and insisted that your behavior when he encountered you was suspicious.”
“I’ve returned twice, Arkon.”
“And departed immediately both times?” Arkon blew air out of his siphons.
“Yes. I was retrieving old human devices.”
“For your collection?”
Jax clenched his jaw. He’d avoided Arkon because he didn’t want to lie to him.
The trust they had in one another was strong, deep, unshakeable.
Jax had never intended to endanger it, but he’d done so by deciding to withhold the truth.
And even now, after everything, how much could he bring himself to say?
If any kraken would understand — if any could accept what Jax was doing — it was Arkon.
He’d told Macy once that he couldn’t give her much information because he needed to protect the other kraken. This was no different; the choice was not Jax’s alone. She had a part in it. She’d be affected by it.
“In a way, yes.”
Narrowing his eyes, Arkon swam closer. “You have never been one to speak cryptically. What is it you are hiding, Jax?”
Jax’s stomach churned. Of course, Arkon would be suspicious; little escaped his notice. “I cannot explain it to you. Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because…it is better understood if I show you, Arkon, and showing you is not my choice to make.”
Arkon held Jax’s gaze. They floated in silence for many heartbeats.
“Is it worth the trouble you are stirring up?” Arkon finally asked.
“What trouble?”
“Dracchus. He distrusts you, and in this instance, I cannot blame him. You’ve given him good reason. You declined a hunt, Jax? For all your wandering, you’ve never once done that, and Dracchus knows it well.”
“As I have said before, to the abyss with Dracchus.”
The corner of Arkon’s mouth lifted in a half-smile. “I do not believe there is a hole big enough to swallow him.”
Jax couldn’t help his own smile. “And if there was, he’d likely want to fight it.”
Arkon’s expression brightened with humor briefly before reverting to its prior seriousness. “I don’t think he will back down this time. He’s wanted to prove himself against you since we were young, Jax, and for some reason, your recent behavior has pushed him to new levels.”
“I have deferred leadership of most hunts to him. I do not challenge him publicly, I do not attempt to sway the others in any way. What reason have I given him?” Jax’s hearts thumped, and anger poured heat into his veins.
“Dracchus’s concerns are…foreign to me, in many ways,” Arkon said, dropping his gaze, “and I cannot pretend to understand him any more than I can pretend to truly understand you. If I were to venture a guess, it would be an oversimplification, and that would avail us nothing.”
“It does not matter. I will deal with him when I must.” Part of Jax was tempted to return to the Facility now and issue a challenge to Dracchus. If Dracchus suffered another defeat against Jax, he would settle for a time, but it would never stop. Not until one of them was dead.
“That is what I am trying to explain, Jax. This time, it may well be more than you can deal with, if you leave it for too long. He has made no attempt to keep his opinions to himself. For all the respect they have for your abilities, you are no more normal to the others than I am. If Dracchus convinces them of your betrayal, the truth will make little difference.”