Guarded by the Kraken (Monster Security Agency, #4)

by Cassie Alexander

She was of the air and I was of the sea.

Her drowning was imaginary. Mine was real. All I wanted to do was be with her. We would never touch again.

I would never want to be away from her again.

the kraken who is yours.

Let me see you, I wished to beg her. Let my eyes feast on you as though I were starved.

I was a kraken of my word; I did not pay attention to her dreams, but I could not help but think of all my own. I wanted to keep her. I just didn’t know how.

“Oh, little pearl,”

That I wanted to care for her. That I would now yearn for her, until the end of my time.

“You have hurt, and I have hurt. Let us not hurt, anymore, together.”

“Oh, because, little pearl,” he began, and I felt his heart thrill. “I know that if I found you and you found me and there were some true way for us to be together, a chance at that happiness is worth all the pain in your air, or in my sea. Because I know what it was like to have it once before—I am willing to risk it all, to have it once again. And if it doesn’t happen, then so be it, but at least I know I tried.”

“I love you, little pearl,” he said simply. “I just wanted you to know it.”

All I wanted to do was—all of that—again. I would crawl over glass to get it. I would face down death again for it. I wanted to be his, and he was always mine.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to do,” I thought out at it. “But you are not allowed to take her away from me.”

“You are mine now. Time or distance may try to separate us—but nothing will.” The second he thought it, I knew he meant what he said. This was forever.

but I will always be with you. I am never going to leave you again.”

“Keep holding me?” she said, her voice starting to rise. “Always, little pearl, always.”