Filed To Story: The Saltwater Curse Book PDF Free
My nerves stutter when he rises to his normal height, but I don’t dare look up until he says my name.
“I would like to show you something, Cindi.”
Oxygen leaves me in a rush. He’s stunning. His jaw is sharper with the hair off his face, the shadows of his cheeks more lethal. The gills on the side of his neck are more obvious now too, and it’s weird how well they suit him.
The tentacle does an excited little tap on my knee when I stand on shaky legs. One of Ordus’ limbs dips into the pool to scrape algae off the walls. Then he smears it over his shoulders and onto the piece of driftwood I was wielding the other night, handing it to me. I take the makeshift torch from him and follow the kraken into the pitch-black tunnel I tried escaping through on my first night.
“I will grow algae in here too,” he says, more to himself than to me as he moves into the darkness.
The torch and his glowing shoulders offer a surprising amount of light that reflects off the mildew on the walls. My steps are still slow going, because the last thing I want is to trip again—which seems to be a possibility, even if the stray tentacle has moved its residence around my waist. My wounds have miraculously healed so only a scar remains, but I’d rather not go through the pain again.
Between focusing on not breaking my leg and moving forward, there aren’t many openings to ogle Ordus’ muscled back. I half wish the braid would stop swinging so I can study every inch of his exposed skin and engrain it into memory for me to enjoy later with the tentacle dil?—
Bad. Very, very bad.
Ordus’ body is none of my concern. Absolutely none. I’m his temporary housemate who can’t leave without his escort.
I’m sweating by the time we get to the dead end that turned me around. Only this time, I can see the symbols etched into the walls like the boulder in the underwater tunnel.
“Buka,” Ordus whispers.
The sigils glow the same shade of blue before the stone groans, rolling to the side. Natural light seeps into the damp space, opening to a clearing with a…a cottage? Shed? How did I miss this when I was running around the island the other day?
I check over my shoulder and between the trees for evidence of the Gallaghers, and I blink back surprise when my brain is put at ease with only a single survey.
It’s a small structure about twenty square feet, elevated off the ground, with unvarnished wooden walls and a straw roof held up by logs. There are windows and a tiny door that looks ridiculous against the twelve-foot-tall wall.
It appears structurally sound, I guess, but it’s a far cry from the level of acceptability by any architectural measure. It’s not exactly the most visually appealing thing either, with its lack of symmetry. I don’t need a leveler to know everything is off by at least a couple of degrees.
“How did this get here?” My forehead pinches when I inhale, and a familiar smell makes my nostrils twitch.
“I built it.”
“By yourself?” Surprised is an understatement. But also, yeah, I guess that checks out with how it looks. “How? Where did you get all the supplies?”
“Mainland.”
He’s really not chatty today. Is it because I refused to marry him? Can he really be shocked by that? I shake my head. His silence is a good thing. It means…I get my space? I can’t think of any other benefit.
I circle the property and come face-to-face with the answer to my earlier question of how he brought the supplies over. A boat.
Well, more of a dinghy with two lengths of rope hooked onto the keel. A log is hanging on either side of the vessel like a double rigger to help stabilize it.
When he said he brought my things by boat earlier, I stupidly imagined him messing around with an engine, hunched down behind a steering wheel, or using his tentacles like propellers to push it across the sea. Pulling it makes a lot more sense. I can’t imagine it’d be easy, but it’s far more logical.
I eye Ordus curiously. He built a shed by himself, modified a dinghy, fixed my generator, chair, and fridge, yet he had no idea how to keep me alive?
I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around that.
Ordus glides easily up the wonky steps onto the fenceless porch, then into the shed. He holds the anti-insect netting aside for me to enter first. The inside is much the same as the outside—plain, functional, no aesthetic, the same mismatched wooden walls.
The smell of cooked fish assaults my nostrils, but I’m too distracted trying to figure this place out to follow my nose.
I was wrong to call it a shed. It’s a shed—or, more accurately, a workshop. There’s a running ceiling fan tied to various rigs, tubes and plastic bottles powered by a watermill to circulate airflow. A DIY’d bench in the corner is tall enough for him to comfortably use. There are random bits and bobs he collected from humans, what looks like half-made creations lying around. A wheelbarrow made from flax. A spade fashioned from steel sheets. There’s a transmission part from some kind of car, hooked up to a series of wires, ropes, and pieces of wood—no idea what for.
And no sign of the Gallaghers, my brain helpfully supplies.
I turn to survey the area behind me, lighting up at the surfboard leaning against the wall with a green-and-pink hammerhead shark Deedee painted for “Cindi’s” first birthday.
As for the organized mess on the homemade shelving beside my board? Ordus didn’t just move my bedroom—he brought my whole damn kitchen to the island.
There’s salt, pepper, bay leaves, tamarind concentrate,
Sambal Jempol, a whisk, tongs, cupcake tins—the list goes on.
The kraken managed to fit almost my entire life onto a dinghy. If I ruminate on that, it’ll make me sad.
My eyes narrow on the other workbench that comes up to my chest. A portable camping stove and one of my pans sits atop it. It’s the source of the smell.
Fish.
Cooked fish. Fucking warm, pan-seared fish.
Wait. “Did you kidnap a chef?”
Ordus’ eyes flare in alarm. “No?” He looks around the hut like he’s double-checking.
Well, I haven’t seen anyone else around. Based on the purple spatula handle hanging over the edge of the pan, I’m going to guess no professional was involved.
“You made it?” It’s somehow a more ridiculous statement-question.
Hold up
— “You had this the whole time?” I point accusatorially at the stove, my anger rising. What the fuck was the point of almost killing me? “Because it most definitely didn’t come from my house.”
The stray tentacle that dropped down to my ankle frantically rubs what’s meant to be comforting circles over my leg. “I brought the—stove, I think it’s called—this morning so you may eat fish.” He picks up a pot from the shelf. “The pan is from your home. See? I was not hiding it from you. What’s mine is yours.”
I gape at him. This ten-foot giant really learned how to cook for me? Traveled hours to get me my things and everything I might need to eat and…entertain myself?
“Why?” I demand.
His ocean-blue eyes cast to the pan before fixing back on me with a questioning look. “So you can eat,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing.
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