I am one.

the abyss surrounds us by emily skrutskie

hellbeast.

“You're at the top of the world - you're the most powerful thing on the sea when you're serving under her - but there's a cost. There's always a cost.”

“But she underestimated me. I played my cards, I laid in wait, I let myself be beaten and manipulated. If she keeps that promise she made to me, I’ll show her the truth I’ve learned on her boat. I don’t just raise monsters. I am one.”

“no matter who i am or where i go, there’s nothing that can strip away the way the sea takes my heart.”

“A poor, lonely beast, severed from the purpose it was bred for, caught up in a world it doesn’t understand completely, latching on to the first bit of instinct that comes to it–I can’t avoid the irony as I look down on the monster that reflects back at me. “

“And it sucks, because I want to kiss her. It's infuriating how perfect it would be to kiss her right now, perched on a cannon on a pirate ship under the stars. That sounds like something off the pages of an adventure novel. But my life isn't one of those stories. My story is a hurricane, and here with Swift is just the eye.”