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Kai was waiting for me in the hallway outside the bathroom. I crossed my arms and stared down at her. "Are you really forcing me to take a bath, like I'm a five-year-old?"
One side of her lush mouth lifted in a wry smile and her dark blue eyes twinkled. "Are you going to throw a tantrum like a child? Because that's just what I've come to expect these days."
She pushed the bathroom door open and cocked a hip, her eyebrows raised in challenge.
I grumbled something about sexy female pirates and entered the steamy room as if I was going to the death chamber. "I don't have time for this, Kai. I'll just shower off real quick and brush my hair and you can rest easy that I don't have stink lines coming off me."
I needed to keep training. Fae were so fast. Combine that with their magic and I didn't have a chance in hell at taking one out. I needed to get quicker. Stronger. I needed to protect what was left of my pride.
Long, slender arms wrapped around my waist and Kai rested her head against my back. "Gesa, please. You need to calm down before you burn yourself right out of existence."
I took a deep breath and resisted the urge to lean back into her embrace. "I'm fine."
She huffed and stepped away to tug at the hem of my t-shirt. I lifted my arms out of habit and let her have her way until I stood there naked. "It's fine," I insisted. "I can handle it."
She rolled her eyes and shoved me toward the oversized tub. "That's just the problem," she muttered. "You think you have to handle everything."
I had better things to do than play spa day. But the water was scented with some dusky flower scent. And I was suddenly aware of all the tension in my body. I hadn't really slept since Oisin was taken, and there was a constant nervous buzz dancing across my skin. Heaving a heavy sigh, I stepped into the tub and sank down into the hot water, barely suppressing a groan.
Okay. So maybe I needed this. A little.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the edge of the tub, unable to stop myself from recalling all the times I'd shared the bath with a beautiful, snarky little fae princeling.
The water rippled and I opened my eyes, not really surprised when I saw Kai was joining me in the tub. I eyed her lush curves with a distant sort of appreciation. Even in my partially numb state, I couldn't ignore how fucking beautiful she was. Like some sort of earth-mother, fertility goddess come to life. What she saw in me, the Gods only knew.
She slid down and ducked her head under the water, practically swimming toward me in the Olympic-sized bathtub. I was pretty sure Oisin had the thing built with the knowledge it would never hold just one person. The fae was always thinking with his dick.
Kai's smooth skin slicked over mine as she glided to hover over me, her lips inches from mine and water sluicing over miles of pleasantly wobbly olive skin. "It's okay," she breathed. "You can tell me. I have the best ideas, right?"
I leaned forward and kissed her grinning lips, then pulled back, speaking in a flat, unenthused tone. "Oh yes, Kai. You're amazing, Kai. Always right about everything, Kai."
She slid to sit between my knees and pushed her long black hair out of her face. "Not convincing. Clearly you need more...motivation."
She trailed kisses across my jaw and down my neck to my collarbone. I stroked my hands over the flare of her hips, wishing I could lose myself the way she was probably intending. But it was Oisin who had always helped me drown my worry in the purely physical bliss of another person. And the memories were enough to swamp me with pain.
Kai pulled back and gave me a considering look. "You are not relaxing," she accused.
I grimaced. "It's not you, it's me, babe," I said in my best douche-bag male voice.
She shook her head. "You know how I feel about being denied something I want," she purred in a husky voice. "And I want you to let go, if only for moment." She rolled her eyes. "Before we all kill you for taking it out on us."
Before I could even formulate a reply to that bullshit—because, I wasn’t the only one who was struggling—she disappeared beneath the water again. I jerked as her mouth latched onto my breast. Tangling my hands in her wet hair, I gasped as she suckled at my nipples, her head still completely under water.
My gryphon side chose that moment to remind me that we had a fucking kraken for a lover and we'd never thought to get her naked in the water.
I let out an inarticulate noise somewhere between a grunt and a squeak when I felt something slick and muscular wrap around my thigh. Opening my eyes, I stared down in surprise. The end of the tub was filled to overflowing with a writing mass of pink and purple tentacles.
I wasn't sure if I was terrified, disgusted, or horny as hell.
The tentacle that was wrapped around my thigh slid higher just as Kai's clever fingers teased my clit. She nipped at my breast and I gasped, pulling her head above water.
Her strange half-shift pupils stared back at me. I swiped a thumb under her eye, across her high cheekbone, where a dusting of purple freckles had appeared. "You are a strange, kinky little fishy," I informed her seriously.
She grinned, showing me sharper than usual teeth. "Oh, you have no idea, my pretty birdie."
I swallowed hard, trying to remember why I wasn't supposed to have fun. Oh, right. Oisin. Pain. Death.
Guilty as I might feel about it, my libido demanded we ignore the dagger in our heart for just a little while longer.
Something hard and slick probed at my clit then wiggled. I groaned, then got a hold of myself enough to glare at the kraken. "That...wasn't a finger."
She smirked. "Not even remotely."
She cupped my breasts and bent her head to torture me again, as the probing grew decidedly more intent.
"Kai...."
She surged up to cover my lips with her own, silencing my protest. "Gesa," she whispered, gripping the hair at the base of my skull and pulling my head back. "Stop thinking."
I growled at her use of force, but we both knew it was an empty threat. I needed to be subdued before I killed someone out of pure frustration. Kai pressed her soft chest to mine, nibbling at my neck as she sank a slick, fat tentacle into me.
I yelped, then moaned when it...moved. "Jesus, Buddha, and Odin," I gasped, clenching around the surprisingly arousing invasion.
Kai grinned up at me before she kissed me again, her massive, slick breasts sliding over mine, her fucking tentacle managing to rub against my clit as it slid in and out of me, turning me into a gasping, shuddering mess.
"That's it," the evil sea creature said in a husky voice. "Just let go, Gesa."
I crushed her to me as I came, my entire body convulsing. Gods.
I floated in bliss, surrounded by warm, sudsy water and wicked, tempting kraken. A husky laugh brought me back to my senses as she pulled away, shifting back to human form. "Feeling better?" she breathed, stroking my hair.
I dropped my head back against the edge of the tub and stared at the ceiling. "If you call knowing you just got penetrated by a fucking tentacle better. Then yeah. Loads."
She chuckled and reached over me, brushing aside one of Oisin's trailing green vines to get the soap off a nearby ledge built into the natural stone wall. "Who knew gryphons were such prudes?" she complained. "It was just one little tentacle. Gods."
I sat up, taking the soap from her and obligingly scrubbing her back. "I bet you say that to all the landlubbers."
She laughed. "Perhaps."
I slid my arms around her waist and hugged her close, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. "I'm sorry I'm not...all here."
She turned, shushing me with her lips. "There's nothing to apologize for, you big, dumb beast. That's what I've been trying to tell you all along. We’re all hurting. We’re all worried. And we all need you. But not in the way you think." She stroked my cheek tenderly and I held back tears by sheer force of will. "You don't have to be the strongest one in the room, gryphon. That's not what any of us need."
I huffed, shrugging off her touch. "I have to be strong for us all," I argued. "It's my job as...well, it's my job is all."
I stood, not wanting to continue this awkward emoting. "Thanks for the...whatever this was. Really. But I've got to go train."
I dried off in a hurry, not quite meeting her eyes. The kraken was quiet and unconcerned with the worries that plagued the rest of us puny mortals, for the most part. But every once in a while, she said something that made me think she could see right through me.
"Of course," she sighed, leaning back in the tub and closing her eyes. "Off you go, oh great defender."
I pulled on my grubby t-shirt and sweats, ignoring her jibe.
"Gesa?"
I turned, one hand already on the doorknob. "Yeah?"
"Hisashi doesn't need you to be strong, sweetheart."
I spun and left, closing the door a little harder than necessary.
Fucking know-it-all kraken.