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  Heart of the Deep

  The Kraken #3

  Tiffany Roberts

  Contents

  Heart of the Deep

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Also by Tiffany Roberts

  About the Author

  Heart of the Deep

  The Kraken Book #3

  A Novel

  Tiffany Roberts

  Copyright © 2018 by Tiffany Freund and Robert Freund Jr.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form by any means, including scanning, photocopying, uploading, and distribution of this book via any other electronic means without the permission of the author and is illegal, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact the publishers at the address below.

  Tiffany Roberts

  [email protected]

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Illustration © 2018 by Cameron Kamenicky

  Edited by Cissell Ink

  Created with Vellum

  Dedicated to my beloved. I’ll always stand with you.

  Special thanks to our cover designers, Cameron Kamenicky and Naomi Lucas, for creating our beautiful cover, and to our editors, Amy and Chris from Cissell Ink, for taking us on at the last minute. You guys are awesome!

  Another special thanks to Cindy McGriff and R. Lee Smith for their title suggestions, Deep in the Heart and Depths of the Heart, which were made as part of a contest we ran to help choose a title for this book.

  Chapter 1

  362 Years After Landing

  “We’re finally going to bring the fight to those slippery bastards,” said Commander Nicholas Laster.

  Larkin had no response for her father as she watched the workers hoist the sails and put the finishing touches on the rigging.

  It was complete. After ten months of labor, which had seen almost every able body in The Watch assist at one point or another, the ship was finally complete. That fact produced a heavy weight in her stomach, a blend of anticipation and fear — she wanted to get out there and find her brother, Randall by any means necessary, but what if all they found was his body?

  Worse, what if they never found anything?

  There was still hope of him being alive out there, somewhere, even if it was as a captive of the monsters lurking beneath the waves.

  No one had believed the rumors of sea monsters, but Larkin’s father had sent her brother to The Watch over a year ago to investigate the stories. When Jon Mason, one of Randall’s men, had returned to Fort Culver with drawings of the kraken and a letter from Cyrus Taylor, a longtime friend of their father’s and Randall’s second-in-command, attesting to the monsters’ existence, the commander couldn’t ignore the evidence.

  The hurried journey across hundreds of kilometers between Fort Culver and The Watch had been the longest of Larkin’s life. She’d never been so far from home. But the hardest part had come after they arrived in The Watch.

  The locals had informed them that Randall and his entire party of rangers had been missing for months.

  “She’s finally ready to sail!” Michael, one of the local laborers, called as he descended the gangplank. “Might be the biggest ship ever built on Halora.”

  “Will the cages hold them?” Nicholas asked. He’d been adamant that a brig be included below deck for the sole purpose of containing the kraken they intended to hunt. The monster’s strength was rumored to be immense.

  “If they can’t, nothing will.”

  “Good.” Nicholas turned toward the rangers standing nearby. “We sail at dawn, gentlemen.”

  The rangers — there were twenty gathered here, with two more parties of six out patrolling in smaller ships — wore mixed expressions. Everyone had been sent out on expeditions of varying length during their time here, but these men weren’t comfortable remaining in one place for so long, pretending to be shipwrights and sailors. They were restless. Demoralized. Eager for a change of pace.

  Ready to kill.

  “Load her up. We’re due for a month’s worth of provisions. Bring the equipment we pulled out from under the lighthouse, too,” the commander said.

  The rangers dispersed quietly.

  Nicholas faced Larkin and grasped her upper arms. “We’re going to find him, Elle.”

  Larkin searched her father’s face. He was a handsome man with a wide, square jaw covered in black-and-gray stubble. His hair, also streaked with gray, was cut close to his scalp. But he’d aged too much over the last year, and the gleam in his eyes reminded her of the stare he’d worn for so long after her mother died. She feared she was losing him; it would only take one more push to send him over the edge.

  He needed Randall to be alive.

  His facial hair scraped at her palms as she put her hands on his cheeks. “Of course we are, Dad.”

  They’d find Randall; he was alive. Larkin wasn’t sure how, but she’d know if Randall passed, she’d feel it. They’d always been close. Four-year-old Randall had declared himself Larkin’s protector on the day she was born, had treated it as his duty to look out for her, and that hadn’t changed even as they grew into adulthood.

  He’s not dead.

  Nicholas smiled and kissed her hair before releasing her. “I’m going to need you out there, Elle. You’re the best shot in all Halora. You going to be ready to take it when the time comes? For your brother?”

  “Yes.” Whatever these creatures were, she wouldn’t miss.

  Her father faced the ship again. The locals streamed across the gangplank and gathered briefly in a cluster on the dock, many staring back at the three towering masts as though in awe of what they’d built. The ship was massive compared to the others moored nearby.

  Larkin guessed the locals’ relief was equal to their awe. This project had disrupted their lives, altered their routines, dominated their town. Its completion was a chance to reclaim normalcy.

  “We should head back,” Nicholas said as the last of the workers walked past. “Tomorrow’s an important day. We’re going to find them, and then we’re going to find your brother.”

  They followed the locals up the paved ramp leading into town, passing rangers hauling varied equipment toward the dock. Larkin tugged at her clothes to peel her undershirt away from the sweat-dampened skin around her collar, on her back, and between her breasts.

  The lighthouse atop the promontory vanished from her view as their ascent drew them nearer to the cliffside. Larkin glanced up; the crane’s cable dangled over the edge of the cliff, swaying in the breeze. Beside it stood the large warehouse in which the townsfolk stored their fish. A handful of small houses skirted the path. As far as she wa
s aware, they all belonged to fishermen.

  Larkin and her father entered the town proper shortly afterward. The setting sun created harsh highlights on rooftops and walls but blanketed the paths running between the buildings in long shadows. The homes to either side were an eclectic collection — concrete and metal structures dating to the early days of colonization, mixed liberally with new structures and additions crafted of wood and scrap.

  They passed few people during their walk to the town hall at the heart of The Watch. Larkin had grown used to the open, vexed stares of the locals. She couldn’t blame them — the rangers had essentially commandeered the town, its laborers, and its resources. The fishermen were the most disgruntled. They’d already given over three good boats — one of them lost at sea with Randall and his men — and countless hours of their time and expertise for what they deemed a fruitless endeavor. They wanted the rangers off their dock and out of their town.

  The town hall was the largest building in The Watch and saw more traffic than any other — it operated as a pub and the center for socialization among the locals.

  The din of numerous conversations hit Larkin first as she followed her father inside, but the smell that followed was more potent. Body odor, the aroma of cooking food, and the stale scent of spilled drinks combined to create an overwhelming stench that nauseated her almost every time she walked in. Tonight, the smell was strengthened by the stifling heat in the main room.

  Cots and pallets lined the stage toward the rear, and there were more in the back rooms; this was the only place large enough to house all the rangers who’d come with them. A dozen tables were arranged between the sleeping area and the door, occupied by clusters of locals and rangers. More people were gathered along the bar on the left side of the room.

  It was cramped and stuffy, noisy and stinky, but Larkin would deal with it for as long as necessary. They had a mission to accomplish.

  “Hey, commander! Elle! You hungry?”

  Larkin followed the voice to see Jason Dane, one of the rangers, standing beside the bar. Three bowls were perched awkwardly on his open hands, tottering at the end of his extended arms. He hurried toward Larkin and her father, raising and lowering the bowls as he wove through the crowd.

  Somehow, he arrived without spilling anything.

  “Took down a couple krull today.” He smiled and jabbed a thumb at the bartender; Larkin’s heart leapt, and she barely stopped herself from lunging forward to catch the bowl he was surely about to drop. “Aiden here made a damn fine stew of them.”

  He passed a bowl each to Larkin and her father.

  She accepted the offering and set the bowl onto the table. Steam flowed up from the mixture of meat, vegetables, and thick broth. It was a miracle the bowl had survived the trip from the bar.

  Nicholas led them to one of the few open tables.

  “So tomorrow, huh?” Jason asked as they took their seats. “Think the monsters are just like those sketches Cyrus sent?”

  Larkin had studied the drawings many times over the last year. Most of them were parts of a greater whole — tentacles, webbed fingers tipped with long claws, eyes with strange, oblong pupils. As detailed and lifelike as they were, much was left to the imagination.

  What were the kraken?

  “Probably uglier,” Nicholas replied around a bite of food. “You need to be prepared to set aside any wonderment you might experience when we find these things, ranger. We have a job to do. They are the enemy.”

  “You won’t catch me gawking.” Jason wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “How we gonna find them?”

  “We found a treasure trove of tech stashed away in the bunker under the lighthouse,” Larkin said. “There are enough functioning spectra goggles that we can have three or four on each boat.”

  “And what do those do?” Jason asked.

  There was still some old military tech in working order back at Fort Culver, but most items from the colonization had long since worn out or been lost. Beyond the command team, few rangers knew much about the old stuff, because they weren’t likely to see any of it in their lifetimes.

  “They provide enhanced optics,” she explained. “Increased viewing distance, like a spy glass, but they can also be switched through various spectrums of light the human eye cannot detect.”

  “Oh.”

  “And they can scan for lifeforms up to fifty meters out,” Nicholas said, still chewing; his bowl was nearly empty. “That’s all we need them for. We know those bastards have been watching our boats. I have at least four confirmed sightings, and they all corroborate these monsters having some kind of natural camouflage that makes them almost impossible to see, even when they break the surface. But now we’re going to know exactly where they are, and we’ll be ready when they get too close.”

  Larkin scanned the room as she ate. Apart from the bar — where everyone went to make their orders — the rangers and the locals kept to their own groups. The friendliness of the townsfolk hadn’t evaporated, but it was certainly worn thin after eleven months of constant ranger presence. The underlying tension between the two groups was undeniable.

  When they were young, Nicholas had taught Larkin and Randall that one of the most important parts of entering a town in their official capacity as rangers was befriending the locals and setting them at ease.

  You have to earn their trust, he’d said.

  He hadn’t been doing a good job of that, and it worried her. Nicholas Laster wasn’t sloppy in his work. At least not before this excursion.

  It didn’t help that some of the townsfolk seemed to be holding a grudge against them before they ever arrived.

  What really happened while you were here, Randall?

  “So, what’s the plan?” Jason asked. “Cyrus said these things were strong.”

  “Nets and tranquilizers,” Larkin said. “We want them alive for questioning.”

  “They really talk?”

  “Based on Ranger Taylor’s report, they are fully capable of conversation.”

  “He seemed to be of the opinion that the creature he encountered talked too damned much,” her father added before finishing off his stew. He placed his bowl and spoon on the table, wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, and met Larkin’s gaze. “It doesn’t matter what they say. You follow my orders. Understood?”

  Larkin frowned. “Haven’t I always?”

  Nicholas matched her frown, but the set of his brows suggested annoyance. “You know what I’m talking about. Now, more than ever, I need your head in this game. We don’t have room for sentimentality.”

  She pressed her lips together. Larkin had worked just as hard as any of the rangers, if not more so, to prove she was as capable as anyone. She’d been Nicholas’s second in command for years, had remained loyally at his side even after he’d given Randall command of his own team, and she could outshoot any man here.

  But her father would always see her as a little girl with too soft a heart.

  Appetite gone, she pushed her half-eaten bowl forward, scooted her chair back, and stood. “I have followed every order you have ever given me, commander. I will do my duty.”

  “I don’t appreciate your tone, ranger,” he replied, “and I did not dismiss you.”

  Larkin clenched her fists at her sides. “Permission to be dismissed, sir.”

  For several seconds, he wore the hard, angry face of the commander, the man who had led the Culver Hunters since she was a little girl. A man who was to be respected and feared, who did not tolerate slights. But his eyes softened; most men wouldn’t hold his gaze for as long as Larkin. Most men would never see the cracks.

  He finally nodded, looked down, and waved her away. “I want everyone loaded up to depart at dawn.”

  Larkin caught Jason’s smirk as she turned away from the table. The rude gesture she offered in response left him choking on his stew.

  She held onto her sliver of satisfaction as she made her way into the back room. Several other rangers were a
lready bedding down; some would have to wake in a few hours for their watch shifts. She wove between their pallets to the curtained area at the rear of the room. Her father had set it up to allow Larkin and the handful of other female rangers some degree of privacy.

  Thankfully, the other women hadn’t yet retired.

  Larkin kicked off her boots, positioning them against the wall. She pulled her knife from her belt, slipped it under her pillow, and looped the belt over her boots. Ignoring the snoring from beyond the curtain, she stripped down to her tank top and underwear.

  She sat on the pallet and rubbed her hands over her face before taking hold of her braid and pulling it forward. Her fingers brushed through its tip as she stared down at it.

  “Where are you, Randall?” she asked softly. An ache flared behind her breastbone. Releasing her hair, she lay back on her pallet, folded her hands over her stomach, and stared up at the ceiling. Randall’s absence was a physical pain she couldn’t shake. She missed him, feared for him, but he wasn’t dead. She wouldn’t believe that.

  “I’ll find you. I promise.”

  Chapter 2

  A growl was the only warning Dracchus received before tiny teeth sank into one of his tentacles. He twisted his torso to look down at the youngling gnawing on his limb — Jace, Aymee and Arkon’s offspring.

  Jace scrunched his nose and growled again. The other younglings giggled.