I give him the look that comment deserves. Get out of the water. Right. Because there’s so much land in his territory to flee to. “Sounds like if I run across one of these, I’m dead.”
“No.” His voice goes sharp, but then he softens it. “You’re safe.”
This is one of those weird arguments we still have. He wants me safe, but he can’t understand there’s no real safety in this world or any other. Even locking me in a tower—there’s nothing to save me from falling down the stairs and breaking my neck or something equally mundane.
But I’m not going to give him shit for wanting to take care of me.
I watch the dobhar chu for a while longer, enjoying the way the babies bounce and frolic as babies of every species seem to do. They look cuddly, but I know better than to say as much a second time.
Thane doesn’t rush me. He never does. He simply waits at my side for my curiosity to run out. I like that. I likehim. We spend every night together now, and though sleeping with a man who’s half tentacles was a strange experience at first, I enjoy it far too much now.
“Okay, we can go.”
He sweeps me into his arms, and his tentacles make descending the cliff significantly easier than my weak-ass human hands and legs. We descend slowly, carefully. Thane glares at the water that gets closer with every second, as if daring it to produce a monster like the ones we were just observing. “We’ll come back in two months when the young are old enough to start the fall migration. It’s a sight to behold.”
“Two months?” I blink. “Wait, how long has it been that day you taught me how to swim?”
He pauses and gives me a look. “I’m not sure. Well over a month, I think.”
I go cold.Over a month.A month of adventures that have been uninterrupted by my cycle. That means...Oh no.“Thane.”
He must hear the fear in my voice, because he stops our descent. “What’s wrong?”
I don’t want to ask. I don’t want to pop the bubble of happiness around us. Surely if I just close my eyes and pretend I don’t know how to count, reality will kindly step away and let me continue to exist in this space.
Yeah, right.
Still, coward that I am, I close my eyes. “I should have had my period. God, I can’t believe I didn’t realize.” I feel like the biggest fool, but I’ve never been all that good at tracking my cycle. Usually there’s a moment where I’m sure everyone hates me and I hate myself, my body, and everyone breathing who’s near me, and then a couple days later, my period starts, just like clockwork. “But that can’t be right. Ramanu said something about magical birth control.”
“There is a pendant that the bargainers use. I didn’t think to ask for one.”
A pendant. Not a tattoo.Oh god. I open my eyes to find Thane staring at me. I didn’t realize how open he’s become around me until now, when he’s completely closed off. His sigh shudders out. “We’ll discuss it when we get home.”
Home.
Funny, but the towerhasstarted to feel a bit like home. Or, if not the tower itself, then Thane’s room at least. Somehow I don’t feel like that will be the case after this monumental mistake.
It was only a matter of time. I should have known it was coming. Nothing good lasts forever, especially when I’m involved. I always manage to shine a light on just how much of a fuckup I am. Thane may care about me, but surely this will be the last straw for the camel’s back of his patience.
We reach the surface and slip beneath it. It’s almost a relief that we can’t talk like this. I know Thane and the rest of the kraken can communicate underwater, but though he’s tried to teach me a bit, a good portion of that communication is body language using tentacles, which I don’t have. I think that’s why the translation tattoo doesn’t recognize it enough to work.
The return trip to the tower seems to take no time at all. Thane surfaces in his room—what’s becomeourroom—and sets me carefully on the rock ledge. His hands linger on my hips, but he seems to put some distance between us.
Of course he does.
Later, that will hurt. Maybe. Probably. Right now, the full clusterfuck of this situation is hitting me. I press a hand to my chest. It feels like I can’t breathe, but I’m breathing. Funny how my brain can’t quite comprehend that. “I can’t have a baby, Thane. Ican’t.”
“Okay.”
I barely hear him. “You don’t know what it was like growing up with my mom. I can recognize that she was a monster in her own way now, but there’s some damage I just can’t undo no matter how hard I try. If I have a baby, I’ll just be passing on that generational trauma.”
“Catalina—”
“Ican’t.”
“Lina, look at me.” He catches me gently by my shoulders. “Generational trauma does not make you more or less worthy of being a parent.” He tightens his grip slightly. “But if you don’t want children, no one is going to make you have a baby.”
“But the contract—”