Stalked by the Kraken, page 1
Contents
Content Warning
Prologue
1. Rose
2. Gideon
3. Rose
4. Rose
Gideon
5. Rose
6. Gideon
7. Rose
8. Gideon
9. Rose
10. Rose
11. Gideon
12. Rose
13. Gideon
14. Rose
15. Gideon
16. Rose
17. Rose
18. Gideon
19. Rose
20. Gideon
21. Rose
22. Gideon
23. Rose
24. Rose
25. Gideon
26. Rose
27. Rose
Epilogue
Note from the Author
About the Author
Stalked by the Kraken
Copyright © 2021 by Lillian Lark. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Editor: Ellie, My Brother’s Editor
Proofreader: Rosa Sharon, My Brother’s Editor
Created with Vellum
To my amazing husband, the Smut Coven, and the Relief Society.
Tentacles and multiple hearts forever.
Content Warning
Dear reader,
Stalked by the Kraken includes breeding behavior and mentions infertility.
Be kind to yourselves,
L. Lark
Prologue
Gideon
The informant slides into the booth across from me, casting a glance around the coffee shop he’d chosen as a meeting location. The light hits the heavy gold jewelry on his fingers and the shine initially pleases my inner creature until he scratches his greasy hair, creating a shower of dandruff. A wave of body spray with a stronger undertone of sweat assaults my senses and immediately puts me off.
Where does Mace find people like this? The man in front of me is unsavory in ways I didn’t think were a reality anymore.
One of the best things about the modern times, by far, has been the normalization of hygiene. I’ve lived the majority of my life alongside mortals with varying standards of cleanliness based on the technologies of the time.
But the unsavoriness of the man in front of me is more than the lack of hygiene, which is bad enough, there’s an oiliness to his actions. The practiced smile that his poor acting can barely keep on his face. The curl of his lip communicating a discomfort that refuses to be masked.
He has an aura as if he’s usually the one coercing people into giving information, not the other way around.
I don’t trust him, and now I’m supposed to trust the information he gives me?
“Uh, Moby Dick?”
I want to roll my eyes at the code name Mace has routinely inflicted on me in the past century of our dealings, instead I incline my head in acknowledgment. I should be grateful that this code name hasn’t been used for probably a decade. His other favorites are Ahab, Flounder, and when he’s feeling especially feisty, Calamari.
If I didn’t consider Mace such a good friend, I’d have found a way to sink him to the bottom of the ocean and leave him there. Alas, I’m fond of the bastard.
We haven’t done many operations needing secrecy in the past ten years. Our little group mutually decided to slow down on the activities that put targets on our backs and pursue different businesses. But every so often a job comes up where Mace’s and my expertise benefit each other.
Perhaps age is slowing us.
The thought would make my lips twitch in a smile if my inner creature wasn’t so annoyed by the man’s shifty presence. I don’t know what this man owes Mace to get him to meet with me but he’s obviously unwilling. The air is flavored sour with his distress and anxiety.
I lift my brow in expectation as the informant glances again around the warm, bustling coffee shop. Our identities have been vaguely verified and now comes the time that I get what I’m hunting for. The stalling of this low-level witch does not help with my irritation.
In a different time, a small annoyance would have been enough to perform an act of violence, but the world is no longer in that time and I’ve changed over the countless years I’ve wandered.
The informant stills, finally sensing the shift in the air or maybe realizing that I’m more than I appear to be.
“T-That’s the place.” The informant gestures quickly through the front window of the coffee shop to the storefronts across the street. The stores are an assortment of places from a time gone past. The man could be gesturing to a video rental store with a blinking Open sign. How was that still in business? Or what appeared to be an antique store.
“Which one?” I ask.
The man flinches at my voice but answers, “The antiques place.”
“And the goods won’t be there until the auction?” I ask.
The informant’s nod is shaky and his fingers twitch against the table. All of this stress for a magical artifact auction? Granted, the artifact I’m after was allegedly stolen but the auction itself is technically legal. Unregulated, but legal.
And unless the family contracting with Mace for the retrieval of this artifact goes through the arduous process to prove to the Council officials that it was in fact stolen, the best course of action is to just bid to get the object back.
No paranormal creature wants to involve the Council that governs us all in their business. Especially if the theft was actually some down-on-their-luck family member that sold the artifact under the table; claiming ignorance when the item was noticed to be missing. It’s occurred more than once in my line of work.
The job originally came to Mace, who brought me in. I’m the best at tracking down treasure. The artifact in question is an amulet of Byzantine origin that had been passed down through a witch family as an heirloom. Fashioned with silver and some gems, the amulet can act as a magic booster, but the historical nature of it provides most of the value to a collector.
Much to the heir’s dismay, the family-line succession requires the possession of the amulet.
I used my contacts to get a list of individuals who authenticate magical items from the Byzantine, and found an expert in this city who claimed to have handled the exact amulet last week. A call to Mace yielded me with a source for the lesser-known businesses in the area. An informant for an auction planned with such an amulet.
“Which is when?” I prod, quickly losing patience with the informant’s hand-wringing.
The man names a date that’s roughly three weeks from today and I make note of it. The delay is another annoyance, but it’s likely if Mace or I contacted the auction hosts, they’d demand triple the worth knowing we were looking to acquire it.
“Can I go now?” he asks. Fear bleeds through his scent. How curious.
I nod, and the man leaves in a rush while still casting looks around. No one was watching us. My creature would have noticed if anyone was paying more than passing attention.
I finish inputting the details for the job into my phone, noting the address for Mace’s benefit. He teleported me to this city before taking off, leaving me the keys to one of the many homes the demon keeps. The townhouse is obviously not a place that Mace spends much time in. The air, while being clean, was stale, but the bed is comfortable and the Wi-Fi high speed.
The door to the coffee shop opens again, the sound somehow reaches me over the noise of the espresso machine and clinking of glass. The pull in me is instant. It’s as if a strong current sweeps through my chest and my body turns.
A blaze of fire and light catches my eye. My whole being freezes, as stunned as a fish to a lure. The ancient creature in me stirs past the point of wakefulness, past the point of reason, where there is only need and hunger.
Mine.
It takes my thinking brain a moment to interpret the flash as sunlight hitting the hair of a woman entering the coffee shop. She gets to the counter and starts to order in a low voice before I’m recovered enough for my logic to catch up with my nature. My knuckles are white and the table creaks as I attempt to hold myself still.
Never, in all my immortal life, have I felt this demand. Lovers and friends have come and gone with the primal part of myself lazily drifting along to the actions of my two-legged form. We aren’t different beings, per se, but rather two halves of a whole.
And the dark part of myself that hides in this civilized world wants her.
I watch as the woman’s brow creases, and she looks around. Her eyes skip past me. She won’t see me until the moment I want her to; my kind are especially skilled at camouflaging our presence.
I take in her appearance. Her hair is a fiery red bordering on orange with curls and flyways that float around her with each movement. Her jewelry catches the light, dangly earrings, small rings on her fingers and thin necklaces delight the part of myself that desires shiny things. Her flowing clothing looks bohemian with small additions of sleekness to modernize it.
I zero in on the woman’s face. Her skin is p
More people enter the coffee shop and the woman’s face changes from suspicion to surprise. I track her gaze to the two women approaching her with smiles plastered on their faces. Is this an ambush? The energies around me draw in as if to prepare for battle but I relax again when the red-haired woman tilts her head in confusion but warmth.
“What are you guys doing here?” My woman’s words travel across the distance easily with my hearing.
My woman?
I shake my head.
Gideon, you can’t just claim people as yours on sight. This is a civilized society that requires things like courting and discussion before claims can be made. There’s a visceral rejection in me at the inner thoughts. I bow to my instincts even as exasperation flares.
The woman in a green coat answers, “Katherine and I wanted to get coffee with you!”
The other woman, Katherine, nods. “And this is an intervention.”
My woman jolts at that. “What?”
Green coat sighs and glares at Katherine. “This is a check-in! Not an intervention.”
“Oh.” A blush rises on my woman’s face.
“Is that okay? We just haven’t seen you around the bathhouse lately and wanted to catch up. Lowell said you were over here,” green coat says.
I catalog details of the conversation with little context. Bathhouse? Lowell?
“Coffee first!” Katherine announces, and the group finishes going through the ordering process at the counter. Talking about the different pastries on offer and making inane comments as if to soothe their target with normalcy but my woman’s smile is stiff and her body language whispers of discomfort. Soon the three women take a table not too far away from mine.
I inhale to get a sense of the group. Witches and one… demon. I’ll need to be careful around that one, Katherine, could notice my presence if she tried.
“Wanda is right. We’ve been worried.” Katherine’s harsh demeanor softens. “How have you been?”
“I’ve been good,” my woman says, her voice cracks with the lie that I taste even at this distance. Wanda and Katherine just stare at her.
“We asked around and none of the regulars have seen much of you for months. Did we do something? Did someone else?” Katherine winces. “Are you avoiding us?”
My woman’s eyes widen in horror. “Gods no! Absolutely not.”
Katherine and Wanda sigh with relief and guilt wells on my woman’s face.
“I just… I haven’t really felt like participating lately. I’m taking time to try and get my head on straight. And matching has been crazy—” she cuts herself off. “I haven’t really been feeling like myself.”
Participating? Matching?
There’s a pause.
“Is it about that guy? The one you were seeing.” Katherine asks the question carefully but there’s venom laced through it. Like she’s waiting for one word from my woman to find whoever wronged her and make them pay. I approve.
My woman deflates. “It’s stupid.”
Wanda snorts. “Feelings are always stupid, but it doesn’t make them less valid. If you don’t feel like participating in bathhouse fun, then trust that.”
My focus narrows. Is this participating sexual in nature?
“So, no dating then?” Katherine prods. “No, get-over-one-man-by-getting-under-a-new-one?”
My woman shakes her head in a vicious motion that has her curls bouncing. “Definitely not!”
There’s so much horror in her voice, her answer is almost a shriek.
My inner creature writhes at the detail that this woman would not welcome an advance. That is a problem. For some yet unknown reason, it wants her. I want her, and all my intentions of approaching, of courting, halt in my mind.
This will require patience.
Strategy.
“Take your time but don’t forget that we all care about you.” Wanda shoulder bumps my woman with affection.
I need her name. There’s a gnawing ache in my chest to know it.
“And, there are more options than men.” Katherine waggles her brows. The demoness’s action pulls a light snort from my woman. She keeps waggling her brows. “Like retail therapy!”
Now my woman barks a laugh, and a smile pulls at my mouth at the sound.
“That’s not where I thought you were going with that,” she says.
Wanda frowns, bewildered. “Does shopping usually fix emotional upheaval for you?”
“Well, it doesn’t hurt, and it isn’t just about buying stuff. It’s indulging in items that bring you joy,” Katherine says sagely. “Rose, you were practically gushing last we spoke about the limited-edition washi tape the art museum is pushing. Have you already gone to stock up? I saw they just released a few days ago.”
“What is washi tape?” Wanda voices my own question, but a detail takes all of my attention.
Rose.
The name matches this woman. Petal soft and color vibrant. If I moved closer and picked up her distinct scent, would it be as lush and floral? My logical self reels in the primal impulse.
“It’s decorative tape,” Katherine responds.
Rose looks down at the last sips of her drink. “I haven’t gotten around to getting any.”
The group falls silent for a moment, as if that’s an important detail.
“Well, retail therapy it is!” Wanda claps as if fully sold on the positives of shopping now and I admire the care these women are taking with the object of my fascination. The women link arms and playfully drag Rose toward the door.
Right before she steps onto the sidewalk, Rose halts and looks back. My heart rate jumps at the puzzled frown on her face as her eyes move past my position without stopping. Rose shakes her head and allows herself to be pulled along with her friends.
I follow.
The greedy instinct of my creature usually occurs with riches, fine metals, and gems. It works well with my chosen profession. Treasure hunting provides just enough adventure to keep me from getting bored and the glittering results delight my inner self.
I’ve never hunted a mate before.
1
Rose
Someone is watching me.
The air is chilly and pervasive. Fingers of cold reach me despite my brisk pace. I tug the collar of my coat higher around my face. The scratch of the wool against my cheeks is just one more irritating sensation. I fight the urge to look behind me; to make triple sure I’m not being followed.
Don’t look. You don’t have time for this, Rose.
I suppress the sense of eyes on me that trickles past the cold of the morning and catches my breath. If I do stop, if I do look, I won’t see anything more than I have for the past week. Nothing.
No one is following me. No one is watching me.
It’s taken days to conclude that my brain is sending faulty signals. As if I need anything else to worry about. Personal turmoil, matchmaking burnout, and now being haunted by eyes that aren’t there.
My destination comes into view and my worries ease. A nondescript storefront bordered by other nondescript stores. This year our place of business masquerades as a video rental location.
I’d argued against it. Argued that the novelty of the business would be more noticeable than if it was just another antique store that no one visits. But the storefront next to us had been bought out by an actual antique store, so my vote was vetoed.
Our building is so heavily spelled that the only individuals who enter The Love Bathhouse are those who mean to enter. Through all the generations that my family have run the bathhouse, we’ve never had an unsuspecting human stumble through our door. And to suggest otherwise would insult the ward master we contract with, so I keep my misplaced worries to myself.
