Cousin woke in her cabin. Kraken sat in the floor studying charts of the area. Cousin lay in bed watching him. She thought about what she knew, what she remembered. And none of it mattered more than the man sitting in her floor.
Red hair curtained his face. The scars were only shadows behind the fringe. Cousin longed for him to look up so she could see his eyes. Those green ocean eyes. His weather conditioned skin was all most as dark as the wood of the ship. Kraken didn’t burn the way some people did in the sun. He only got darker. Cousin remembered the look of his hand against her pale skin.
She knew her intentions. Kraken would be hers alone, and she his. Her intentions were to live a life of affection, and attachment. One of emotion and passion. She wouldn’t be what anyone else would have her be.
“Kraken.”
Kraken met fathomless eyes. His breath caught and he stared hard. No shadows lingered in their depths. Kraken felt he would be lost.
Cousin sat at the edge of the bed. Affection swelled within.
Kraken’s mouth fell open.
“I need to tell you what I learned during and after the battle.”
Kraken’s jaws clicked. “I’ll call Gabb.”
“No,” Cousin said. “I need to tell you first.”
Kraken got up and moved to sit beside her. He took her hand and raised it to his lips. His mouth lingered on her finger tips. Closing his eyes, he breathed her scent. “Ready when you are,” he said putting her hand on his leg.
“The Al’Ri I killed on Drake’s ship was not with the Hunter we saw with Blake and Reaper. She was working for Protector. I removed a talisman from the keel that was also from him.”
“Two groups of Al’Ri are hunting us.” The statement was flat, a conformation of understanding.
Cousin nodded. “I saw from the Hunter’s mind that Protector escaped from the Masters mere days after I left Y’Ahno on Haven. He has spent the time gathering strength and hiring, manipulating, or buying Hunters.
“The Hunter with Blake and Reaper is from the Masters. The woman I killed believed there are at least three, maybe more, groups of Al’Ri – human alliances. It is where Protector got the idea of using pirates. Sell a Hunter as a slave, and get false security, and unwitting compliance. Promise a heart’s desire, and get willing and greedy compliance.
“The trader knew me on sight. Protector and the Masters have put a bounty out for me to be brought to them alive and unharmed.” Cousin took a deep breath. “The bounties on all of you are wanted dead.” She sighed and leaned her head onto Kraken’s shoulder. “I wish I could just sleep in your arms for awhile and forget the rest.”
Kraken put his arm around her. “As long as you like.” He kissed the top of her head.
“I’m an Aberration.”
“Just the way I like you.”
Cousin laughed a small laugh. “Unfettered and unclaimed?”
“Well, maybe not unclaimed.”
Cousin snuggled into him. “You know what I mean. The whole time I was with Protector, before Y’Ahno, he never once gave any indication of what he wanted. Only that I learn and become able to tap my vast power. That’s how he said it, vast power. He taught martial skills so I wouldn’t have to use power to defend myself. He was strict and stern and unforgiving of mistakes. His disapproval was scalding.
“The first time I mastered something he only said, ‘Now you’re ready.’ What he meant was that I was ready to learn something else, to build on what I had learned. It wasn’t long before I knew being ready wasn’t praise or affection, but only the next stage of learning.”
“He never told you why he saved you? Why he was protecting you?”
Cousin leaned away and looked at Kraken. “Protector was what I was told to call him. He never gave a name or claimed me as family. Only a title designed to make me reliant on him for my security and safety. I don’t dispute that I would not have wanted to be conditioned by the Masters . . . You and Gabb, this crew, are the only people I know who save others just for the sake of saving them.”
Kraken frowned.
“I think,” Cousin said, then paused looking for the correct words. “I think he wanted me to use me as a conduit. A tool to tap more power than he could reach on his own. If he could use my power instead of his own?
“Not even I know my Depth. I’m scared at how easily I killed the Hunter on Drake’s ship. How easy it was for me to rip the knowledge from her mind. How her power had no effect on me from just this piece of uncharged paper. It scares me.” Cousin closed her eyes. “I turned the trader to ash. I thought it, I meant it, and it was.”
Kraken took Cousin’s face between his hands. They locked eyes. “Never, never, be afraid of your power. You can’t use what you are afraid of. You are better than that.”
“I’m afraid everyone I love will become afraid of me. That I will loose all I long for whether I use my power or not. That I will loose you.”
Kraken shook his head. “Gabb taught me better. He taught me that real security is an illusion, safety a passing state. Only awareness will inform you, and acceptance of yourself and others for who and what they are can prepare you to act on your awareness. I am comfortable with my own power. I don’t want you to be anything different than what you are. You chose to be Cousin. You chose us, me. And that is all the matters. Your power doesn’t scare me, because I’m not afraid of the person you are.”
Kraken kissed Cousin’s eye lids, her nose, her checks, her chin, her mouth. He leaned his forehead against hers. “Be with me.”
Cousin shuttered, and ran her hands over his arms. “There is more,” she said, her voice thick with restrained passion.
Kraken pulled back and stood up. He paced to the door, stepping on charts as he went. He leaned his head on the cool wood and closed his eyes. “Go on.”
“The Al’Ri are hunting me tracking yours and Gabb’s power. They know the whole crew through those they have allied with. And . . . The woman I just killed had knowledge of an Al’Ri civil war.”
Kraken turned. “An Al’Ri civil war.”
“Yes. Those searching for me are trying to claim my power for their cause – whatever that might be.”
Kraken knelt and rolled his charts. He stood with the rolls under one arm. The fingers of his other hand played with his sword hilt. “I’ll get Gabb and Kor.”
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