Filed To Story: The Saltwater Curse Book PDF Free
A broken sob shatters my throat. She’s a cruel, cruel woman.
I drop to my haunches and dip my head, trying not to wail. Why does the Goddess wish to punish me? What have I done to deserve this?
I will remember this day until I perish; the night where I said goodbye to my love, the one that got away.
“I will do everything in my power to return for you, my sweetness,” I whisper to the mate I must leave behind when I only just met her.
I sink my teeth into the coconut I found by the human’s house. I must be loyal to my first love. It is the honorable choice.
10
Ordus
My mate won’t stop shivering, and I don’t know how to stop it.
I’ve tried summoning my magic to raise my external temperature, but it’s using up my energy and making me swim slower. I’ve cradled her close, right up against my chest. I’ve stroked her back, purred louder, whispered my undying devotion, and still, the deep crease between her brow remains.
I am at a loss. There is nothing more I can do until we get to our den. It isn’t safe out here. Some krakens prefer hunting at this time of night. If they see me carrying a human, they will tell the Council and rally other krakens to have my mate killed.
My muscles pump harder, slicing through the stormy ocean, my human lungs itching for air. My ears and suckers focus on sensing any danger. There are several sharks in the area, but they wouldn’t dare come near. I dislike swimming back into my territory from the mainland. The further I get, the worse the water quality becomes. It feels like dirt burrowed into my pores that needs to be scrubbed.
Cindi whimpers, and it’s like I’m being flayed. I finally have my mate in my arms, and I am failing her. Nothing has gone right, and the look she gave me when I shifted sits at the forefront of my mind.
Cindi is my fate-ordained mate. Yet, I could hear her calling me an abomination without uttering a single sound. I disgust her. My mate is disgusted by me.
I thought it would be different because the Goddess deemed it so. She was meant to look at me with nothing but awe like she did the first time we interacted—before her scent went sour. Before she feared me.
I’m just as cursed as my kingdom. One was cast upon me by the Goddess to forever be nothing more than a disgrace to krakens, humans, and my own mate.
I’m meant to protect her, keep her safe, healthy, and happy, and what have I done since meeting her? Five men have harmed her. She’s cold to the touch, clutching her arm with a single, jagged scar running down the middle.
Fury simmers beneath my skin. I grind my teeth, regretting everything about tonight. I should have been gentler with her, talked her through what was going to happen, and explain that I, as her mate, would rather perish than cause her harm.
But my incompetence has also hurt her. It’s unforgivable.
Yannig would have never allowed this to happen. His mate would never have screamed or looked at him like he was the most hideous creature to have ever lived. His mate wouldn’t have hated him.
I hold Cindi tighter, tearing my sights away from the darkness to look at her, wishing I could taste her sweet skin against my suckers again. I will fix this. I’ll make her see being my mate isn’t her curse. She will never have a reason to abhor me. I’ll need to… I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in human form just so my mate finds my appearance tolerable.
But if it’s the only way my mate will feel something toward me other than loathing, it is a sacrifice I am willing to make. For her.
My
Cindi. I can’t lose her and continue living this life alone anymore. The solitude has developed its own pulse that will continue to beat when the rest of me has withered away.
I want to be someone’s priority, just once, even if it’s not because they want me to be.
The entrance to my den looms ahead. I’m tempted to slow my pace to hold her for a little longer, but I do not want her to suffer. I am a bad, selfish mate.
There is no thrill in having her in my space because I have done little to nothing to prepare. Yet again, I have failed. Always failing.
I glance down at Cindi, considering whether to seek out a healer to look at her hand. We may not even have one of those anymore; it’s been years since I’ve checked. They may have fled our territory to seek better conditions.
Diving closer to the sea floor, I scan the rocks littered beneath the cliff, spotting the large, oval stone. The entire island is mine. Other than Krokant, it’s the only other area with any biodiversity—except it’s not the kind me or my people could survive off. The island has a different relationship with the Curse no one has bothered to figure out.
No other kraken nor creature but Vasz is permitted to enter it, though that doesn’t mean I trust my people or bandits not to try to access my den.
I hesitate before approaching the door. Cindi will find our home lacking. I had wanted to take out my finest treasures and line our bed with the softest moss. I planned on stocking up on food so there would be no reason for me to leave after we consummate our bond.
Yet, I have none of those things. All trivial matters.
My human is delicate and small. Why do I not keep healing supplies? Or bring fabrics from the mainland to keep her warm when I hunt? My siblings would never have made such foolish mistakes.
Cindi deserves better than me.
My mate’s soft whimpers spear my soul. This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have been so reckless and impulsive.
The symbols engraved into the stone glow when I whisper the opening command. It groans as it slowly rolls to the side. The door slides shut behind me, encasing the tunnel in total darkness, silencing the roar of the raging storm.
I can navigate the channels with my eyes closed. It has been many years since I’ve cut myself on the jagged edges sticking out from the rocks, but I still slow, careful to keep Cindi close so she doesn’t get hurt.
The first patch of glowing algae stirs my mate. Some give off streaks of purple or green, even the occasional pink.
She peels her eyelids back to reveal her deep brown irises. The soft blue light illuminates the hard curves of her face as we pass another patch, and I slow down before reaching the next group so I can soak in every detail of my precious mate.
Her lips part, and she sits up straighter. Cindi’s gasp brings me more joy than she’ll ever know. I spent years harvesting and planting the glowing algae, keeping it alive through the Curse. My mother taught me how when I was very young, and it took a long time for me to get it right. That my mate would appreciate it makes the years of work and frustration worth it.
Cindi’s eyes widen in awe as we approach my den, where the algae is abundant and brighter than anywhere else in my cavern system. My mate is impressed by our home. Maybe…maybe there is hope.
The magic air bubble around her head dissipates when we break past the surface of the water into the cave hidden beneath the island’s cliff. Oxygen fills my own lungs, and my chest instantly feels less tight.
I carefully and reluctantly set her on the edge of the pool, missing the feel of her the second she’s out of my arms. She wobbles unsteadily for a moment, wincing when she places pressure on the hand she was clutching.
Silence floods the space between us, and I watch with bated breath as her eyes roam over our den.
It is…plain. There is nothing special about it. No king would ever live in such barren quarters. I never saw the need to improve it or have anything beyond the bare necessities. Mutants have no need for nice spaces. I moved from the palace the moment I could. My human lungs could not stand spending so much time in the water.
In an alcove on the other side of the cavern is a shrine to Edea, the Sea Goddess, with a woven basket of jewelry dropped by humans, shells, and a jar of sand from a distant island where she was last sighted two hundred years ago.
A pile of coconut shells lies in the corner, leftover from the many times Vasz has come up here and forgotten to bring them back down to his little grotto off one of the shoots from the tunnel.
There are some human gadgets around the place I thought might be useful: chains, knives, some type of metal tool, a bowl, cups, a bag I can carry across my body, fabric I’m weaving into ropes and mats, and other random bits I’ve managed to find uses for.
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