Kraken (24 page)

It hurt, there was no doubt. The water was frigid and strange. The weight in his chest was immense. He had to work his chest muscles to force the water in and out.

Then Cyrus was spinning him around, entwining his head and shoulder in his great mass, bringing Will’s face to his buccal membrane, and laving his skin with cephalopod juices. They circled slowly, hanging in place in the water. Will hung limply in Cyrus’s arms, all struggles forgotten, as he registered the vast life around him. Out to sea he felt a gray whale, heavy with calf, heading south to the nursery grounds. He wished her luck.

The silvery mirror of the surface was racing towards them now, and Will felt the pang of regret as his head breached it, thrust into a world that suddenly seemed pale and thin. Tall rocks shadowed them, dark rectangles cut into the cliff, overlooked by a smokestack of red brick, atop the remnants of a two-story sandstone building. Cyrus snaked his long tentacle out of Will’s arse, and Will groaned, throwing his head back. It hurt, it definitely hurt, but Will could feel himself mending, the skin knitting itself back together. He felt revolted by the recovery of his own flesh. There should be damage to remind him of Cyrus’s predilections. If Cyrus chose to make him enjoy it he’d wanted to believe his body would remind him this was not pleasure, but his flesh was wiping the memory away just as thoroughly as his mind had for so long.

“I heard you scream, my love. Wasn’t it delightful? I’m so glad you enjoyed it too, this time. I seeded you too fast though. Such eagerness.” Cyrus smiled and kissed Will on his wet, cold chest, licking at the hollow below his Adam’s apple. “Next time. Next time I’ll manage to get both pods inside you. Or rather,
you
’ll
manage both, won’t you, my love?”

The trip home was brief. Cyrus didn’t re-tie Will’s legs, instead letting him kneel at his feet. He amused himself seeing how far he could get each arm down Will’s gullet, and for how long Will could go without air.

As the boat came in to their beach, Will heard a hail.

“Hey!”

Parker. Will recognized his voice at once, burning heat rising to his face when he realized Parker would be able to see him any second. Cyrus retracted his appendages, instead caressing the side of Will’s face with his soft human hand.

“Hello, Parker. I’m so very good. Thank you. We both are.”

“Both?”

Cyrus nodded down towards Will. “Will and I, of course.”

The boat swung around in the slow current of the rising tide, and Will glanced up to see Parker staring down at him. Will closed his eyes to ward against the look on Parker’s face as he took in Will’s nakedness, arms bound behind his back.

“Will? What the fuck?”

Cyrus laughed. “Hey, none of that now. Just because you and Will didn’t play that way. Will’s found what he needs now. We’re very happy.”

Cyrus ruffled Will’s salt-slicked hair, pressing him in against his leg. Will turned his head and lavished a kiss on Cyrus’s skin, eyes fixed now on Parker, silently imploring him to notice, to understand, to see, that this was not okay. He wondered if he had never come here, would it be Parker kneeling here now? Will was horrified to realize he would happily trade places, if the choice was his.

Parker raised two hands, taking a step backwards, out of view of Will. “Oh, no, of course . . . I mean, whatever does it for you.”

“So what brings you here, Parker. Just out for a stroll?”

“Um, pretty much, yeah. I found something, in the hills up above our place. Apparently there used to be some kind of pre-European structure there? Anyway, I was digging around and I found a stone. With carvings on it. I heard Aiden found some too, they sound really similar. I was just walking over to his place to take a look at them, see if they’re the same.”

“A stone? No, that’s not possible. No.”

“I know, weird, right?”

Cyrus stilled for a moment, and Will saw that his back was bulging and expanding, as if all his attention were on something else. His human shell was slipping. He seemed to shake himself alert. “I just saw Aiden this morning. He was heading over to the mainland for a couple of days.” He paused. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll come and take a look, huh? Check your find out. I saw Aiden’s ones. Just kids’ stuff, you know? But another would be interesting. Just wait a minute. I’ll be right out.”

Cyrus helped Will to his feet and guided him into the cabin, pushing him softly onto the double berth. Cyrus had new pieces of rope out of the locker in seconds, binding Will firmly around the legs.

Only because he was so close could Will hear Cyrus muttering as he yanked jeans and a t-shirt from the backpack and pulled them on. “There’s no others. There never have been. It can’t be.” Cy knelt on the berth, straddling Will. Cy’s caressing touch turned Will’s head until their eyes met. Cy’s voice was low and quiet.

“I don’t have time to play right now, lovely. So you will be right here when I get back or I will rip your cock off and make you feed it to the eels from your luscious little mouth.” Will felt the force of the threat all the more for the calmness with which it was delivered. A tentacle reached out behind him and entwined softly around Will’s balls. “And these will be next.”

Will tried to bring his knees up in reflex, and Cyrus leaned over and kissed his forehead.

“Don’t move. Just breathe and wait. I’ll be two hours, three tops.”

Will closed his eyes as the cabin door closed. The boat lurched and then was still, and Will heard Cyrus splashing the few feet to shore. Will lay listening to the slap of the rising tide against the hull. Even if he could somehow get out of the cabin and throw himself overboard, be wouldn’t be able to die now. He idly wondered if there was a fishing knife aboard.

The boat lurched again, and suddenly he felt as if his heart was beating outside his chest. Cyrus had come back to check, but at least he hadn’t moved. He’d been good, totally good. He might not get hurt this time.

The cabin door opened, and Will closed his eyes, trying to keep his body from tensing up. The gentle hand on his feet was warm and soft and quite unlike Cyrus.

Will opened his eyes, turning his head to see Aiden standing in the cabin. “What the hell are you doing here? Get out! If Cyrus sees you, I don’t think things will be pretty.”

“Not without you.” Aiden had a knife, slicing straight through the ropes on Will’s legs.

“Aiden, no, don’t! Please, please don’t. I have to be right here when he gets back.”

Aiden sawed at the long length entwined around his arms as Will pleaded with him to stop.

When his arms were finally released Will had to muffle his cries in the cushion. His shoulders ached like a bastard, but that was nothing compare to the pain as the blood flowed back into his hands. Aiden sat there, until Will could finally roll over with a groan and try to sit up.

“Come on.”

Will shook his head. “No. It’s too late. I’m not . . . I’m not me any more. I’m something else. Something not meant to be.”

Aiden knelt beside him, clasping his body close and pressing kisses into his hair. Will writhed away from him. “Don’t touch me. Please. I’m— “

Aiden wiped a trickle of tears off Will’s cheek with his damp shirt, running his gentle hands down Will’s arms, then releasing him as Will cried out in pain. “Gods. He shouldn’t do this. That’s how you get long term nerve damage.”

Will shook his head. “I’m pretty sure long-term damage is not something he’s concerned with.”

“Can you walk?”

“Aiden, I can, but I’m not going to. I’m serious about you leaving. Please. It’s too late for me.”

“Fuck that for a game of soldiers. Come on.” Aiden hauled him to his feet and manhandled him out of the cabin. “My boat’s just around the point. We’re going, now.”

Will was torn. He wanted Aiden out of here, and it didn’t sound like he’d go without Will. But he didn’t believe there was any chance of getting free of Cyrus. The pain in his arms and shoulders was yearning for the touch of the ocean. He was strong enough to deny Aiden for Aiden’s own good, but not to deny himself the touch of the sea.

“Let me swim, okay?”

“What? I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’re in no shape— ”

“I know, but . . . just . . . please.” He looked into Aiden’s soft brown eyes. “Help me into the water?”

Will’s limbs were distant and drowsy, and he couldn’t seem to grab onto the handrail. Aiden practically had to tip him over the edge. At last he felt himself falling into the cool embrace of the ocean. It welcomed him home as if he’d been gone years. Fuck, it felt so good. The water held him, caressed him, soothing his muscles. He breathed in deeply, letting the water fill his lungs, work its magic on his wounded capillaries. He felt Aiden’s boat: actually two boats, rafted together, and a dinghy waiting on the shore.

He surfaced, calling out to Aiden. “I’ll meet you around the point.”

He watched Aiden clamber over the rocks near the high tide line. Poor land creature, stuck in two dimensions, when he had three in which to dive and soar. He dove now, feeling the rest of the ocean welcome him back. Gods, why would Cyrus ever leave? Why bother with puny humans when this was home?

The boats were ahead now, but something more urgent was drawing his attention. He could sense death, taste old blood; not in his mouth, but surrounding his skin. Something just off Cyrus’s point. The tide was about half way out now, and the mud along the bottom was stirred up by the currents, making visibility limited. But still, Will didn’t need sight to make out the shape ahead: it carved a hole in the sense of the ocean. He was right on top of it before he saw it; clothes snagged on a waterlogged sunken branch. Blue denim, dark hair too short to drift in the tidal pull, the shape oddly elongated. With horror Will realized the torso was ripped open down one side from neck to groin, arm and ribcage hanging limply, as crabs scuttled in his chest cavity. The skin was white and wrinkled, sloughing off the flesh. The feet were tied with the remnants of a checked shirt.

Salt tears leaked from Will’s eyes, joining the ocean that surrounded the father from the runabout. Of course. Cyrus had wanted his boat. The small family would have been a mere inconvenience. Will sent his senses spiraling outwards, hoping to find a smaller form, but there was nothing. Will shuddered, and hoped the child had at least died quickly, along with his father. He feared very much that might not have been the case. Will wanted to retrieve them, honor them, do
something
more than leave the father to the embrace of the tide, but there was no time. They wouldn’t have been the first. And if he didn’t take care of Cyrus they wouldn’t be the last.

Too soon he was at the boats, bobbing amongst an armada of delicate white and gray seabirds, diving for tiny sprats. Leaving the water was a pang. A short swim ladder hung over the side, and Sina helped him up, gripping Will’s hand and heaving him over the gunwhale.

Sina smothered Will in a soft, warm towel, pointing to a pile of clothes in one corner of the narrow cockpit. She pressed his fingers around a mug of hot chocolate and nodded to a couple of sports protein bars on the cabin roof.

“I wondered if you might need to eat,” she said. “I didn’t know how far into his games Cyrus had got with you yet.”

Will cradled the warm mug in his hands and sipped at it between bites. Suddenly he was ravenous, and felt guilt in his hunger. He was finished and dressed by the time Aiden nudged his small inflatable dinghy into the stern. Will caught the painter, unsure if he should tell Aiden and Sina what lay beneath the waves off the point. It didn’t seem like it would help, right at this minute.

Aiden climbed aboard and pulled Will into a close embrace, then recoiled. “Oh, gods, sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“No,” said Will. “It’s fine. I’m okay.”

Aiden looked at him, head cocked to one side.

“All right, not
all
better, but much better.”

“Where do you want to go?” Aiden asked. “Is the mainland far enough?”

“No, Aiden. We can’t go.” That’s what Cam had tried to do, what Mr. Falconer had warned him about. Will wasn’t going to choose that option.

“You can’t stay here.”

“Why did you come for me? Not that I’m not grateful, but I don’t think it was wise.”