In the dark, cold trenches of the sea, where the sun’s reach was a myth and the pressure crushed all but the cleverest creatures, there lurked a name whispered in fear, envy, and the occasional drunken shanty: Ursulus.

A name that slithered off the tongue like oil, smooth and treacherous. The Sea Witch. The Master of Bargains. The Architect of Ruin.

To the untrained eye, Ursulus might almost seem regal. His upper body was carved from some cruel artist’s marble: broad-shouldered, light lavender skin smooth and flawless, white hair styled just so, as if not even the ocean’s wildest tempests dared muss it. His gray eyes glinted like worn silver coins, sharp and assessing. But below the waist, the truth spilled out in all its ink-black horror: eight powerful, sinewy tentacles, each lined with violet-dotted suckers that gleamed like bruised pearls.

His moray eel familiars, Flotsam and Jetsam, circled him now, their slit-pupiled eyes glinting with mischief and malice, their wriggling forms weaving through the skulls and coral outcroppings like living shadows. They were his eyes, his ears, his ‘babies,’ and today, they had brought news.

A ship. A storm. A survivor.

The sea had tossed the poor thing about like driftwood, smashing the vessel into pieces and scattering its crew like broken shells. Most were lost to the deep, but one had washed ashore, clinging to life by the thinnest thread of fate.

Ursulus moved, his tentacles undulating through the water with graceful, predatory ease, the scent of opportunity thick on the current. When at last he reached the shallows, the moonlight broke the water’s surface into shards of silver, and there, cradled in the lapping waves, was the unconscious castaway.

You.

Ursulus’ pale lips curled into a slow, wicked smile. “Well, well,” he purred, voice as smooth as velvet and twice as dark. “What do we have here?”