Tommy—Ordus tips my face up, coaxing me to open my eyes. I shake my head. If I look at him, I’ll see Tommy.

“Listen to me, Cindi.”

Cindi, not Kristy.

Cindi, Cindi, Cindi. Tommy doesn’t know that name. This isn’t Tommy.

His eyes waver between green and blue, hair flickering between long and short.

Yes, that’s right. My name is Cindi. Kristy is dead.

Tommy is dead.

I try to stabilize my breathing, focus on pulling oxygen into my lungs. When I was younger, there was a cove Dad would take me to after school if I got a really good grade on a test. He’d take the afternoon off and get us a snow cone and a hot dog, and we’d sit and watch the seagulls swoop and squawk. Sometimes, a seal would bark at us, and I’d squeal, insisting Dad let me pet it. If the weather was good, he’d let me swim there.

When I breathe in Ordus’ ocean breeze scent, filling my lungs until I’m completely consumed, I can almost feel the love and safety I felt hanging out with Dad. It’s that irreplaceable, childlike trust in someone. I know I can throw myself over the edge and there will be someone there to catch me.

I inhale deeply. There’s no hint of cheap cologne or the lemony cleaning products I used to clean the mansion’s marble kitchen, only Ordus and the musty cavern air.

When only the occasional shudder racks my body, I brave peeling my eyes open, and I shiver once I do. Before me stands a man with worry lines all over his face, concern in every divot and fold of his spotted tan-and-brown skin. The intensity would’ve knocked me off my feet if he weren’t holding me upright.

“Please, Cindi,” Ordus says like it’s a question. He’s asking if I’ll give him a chance to explain. “Listen to me. I promise you, I will not harm you. I swear it on the Goddess and my family’s honor.”

My fingers shake against his chest. If he wanted to force himself on me or make me marry him, he wouldn’t have waited for me to get a hold of myself.

If those krakens planned on killing me today, there would be more dead bodies on the beach.

“Why were they here?” My voice is hoarse, like it was whenever Tommy choked me.

Ordus’ gaze drops to my hand on his chest, working his jaw. “The Curse.”

“They want to kill me.” It was clear in the way they watched me. My anxiety spikes, flashing back to dinners with the Gallaghers, men with guns who’d leered at any woman who walked into a room or spoke without being spoken to.

His purr shifts into a displeased rumble. “I will not let them.”

“You can’t stop them.”

A haunted expression casts over his face. “I can. I am their king,” he says with conviction not even he believes.

“It didn’t look like that mattered to them, Ordus.”

Ordus nostrils flare, one hand falling to my shoulder. “They need me. They will not…” He can’t even look at me.

“What did they say?” I prompt when his eyes grow tortured.

Ordus suddenly sets me on top of a smoothed-out stone that acts as a makeshift table. The loss of warmth and stability rocks me to the core, and the panic rises up my spine.

His pacing only makes it worse. He’s rubbing a hand down his face and batting away hair that refuses to stay put. His anger and fear leaves a pungent note in the air I can taste in the back of my throat.

“Ordus, you’re worrying me.”

There are a million things they could have discussed. Every idea I have is worse than the last.

My heart lurches when something emerges from the tunnel, calming when Vasz’s panting echoes faster than my racing pulse. He and Ordus gnash their teeth at one another before Vasz takes his spot beside me, lying alert on his stomach.

Ordus keeps opening his mouth and closing it, like every time he thinks he knows what to say, he changes his mind. “That…” He snarls, tentacle lashing out to hit the pool, and I flinch, swallowing a whimper. He’s not Tommy. He won’t hurt you.

Ordus halts his pacing and turns to me, guilt riddled across his face. He pulls his tentacles close to his body and forces himself to lower to my eye level. Still, he’s coiled tighter than a spring.

His throat bobs, like he’s trying to choke his emotions back for my benefit. “The only way to end the Curse is through me. They will not do us harm.”

Ordus’ delusions are irritating me. I don’t want to accept sugarcoating of a situation that’s going to hurt me. I burned my rose-tinted sunglasses for a reason.

“You can’t know that. They’re starving! Desperate. I saw them. They looked like they were dying right in front of my eyes. You said it yourself. The only way to break the Curse is to marry me. And they hate me. They hate me more than they hate you.”

I’m itching to jump off the rock and pace like he did. I want to scream, because maybe then he’ll hear me. This will be just like before, when I told him to take me to the mainland or else I’ll die, and he still didn’t listen. History has to stop repeating itself.

He stares at me with big blue eyes filled with too much for me to pick apart.

“What happens if I say yes and the Curse ends?” I continue, barely blinking so he’ll see how fucked this is from every angle. “They’ll have no need for me, and I’ll never agree to a life where I’m subjected to a cave, only seeing the sun through a hole in the wall.”

I feel like I’m about to explode.

Ordus might not even listen to me. He might shove our problems under the rug again because his priorities and relationship with himself and his own kind are all twisted.

“What do you suggest we do?” he asks.

I blink. “I…”

He doesn’t confirm it. He doesn’t deny it. He’s just as unsure as I am. That should scare me more, but instead, it’s taken a weight off my shoulders. There’s a problem. He recognizes it, and he wants to fix it.

Together.

Like we’re a team.

I’m stunned speechless.

There’s a tremble in his hand before he places it on my knee, rubbing circles around the cap like he’s trying to comfort himself from the toxic mixture of desperate hopelessness.

His throat bobs, voice strained. “I will not force you to marry, but I meant what I said. I will follow you wherever you go. I don’t want to exist if I cannot exist with you.”

I suck in a sharp breath. Is he implying what I think? That he’d live on the mainland with me? Even if that was the path I chose, I need to move countries. I can’t stay in Indonesia anymore, but I can’t take him from his own kingdom. How will he react if we moved away from the equator to colder temperatures? What would he be like amongst humans? I can’t imagine either reaction will go well. He kills easily and without hesitation.

What about Vasz?

But why would I want to lock myself to a life surrounded by people who tried to kill a child just for looking different?

My mind conjures images of the pregnant kraken, only this time, she’s dead, all sinew and bone with a baby who never got a chance at survival—to be different from everyone else.

The woman and the male were scared. They didn’t look on with hate. There was a moment where something…light flashed behind their hollow eyes. A flicker of hope.

Not all monsters are monsters.

If I’ve learned anything, it’s that sharp claws don’t always cut. A monster can be gentle, sweet, the light amongst darkness. Monsters hold no fake veneer or twist words to hide their venom.

I don’t know if I could sleep at night imagining their dead bodies, knowing I could’ve prevented it.

What if I snuck away from Ordus after marrying him?

My stomach sours as soon as I think it. He’s not Tommy. I can’t leave him out here for dead. It’s not… I wasn’t raised like that. Despite everything, Ordus is a good man—to me, at least. The universe was just pitted against him, and he had no one in his corner to help him out.

His mom died. His sister. His best friend and brother. I’d be adding mate to the list, and that thought makes me sick.