The Kiss That Saved Me (The Tidal Kiss Trilogy Book 2) (31 page)

ORION

It’s over. I’d known she was unhappy, I’d known she was angry, but it is clear to me now that I am not good for her and that she is long gone to the darkness. Even if I was good for her, she doesn’t want me anymore. But
him?
That monster; the brit with the bad hair and the tentacles? I shudder at the thought of his hands on her, moving across her skin, making her giggle and squeal, sweeping down trails mine had once traced. My heart convulses in a palpitation that feels like rain water hitting the surface of the ocean, or the lead pellets of a shotgun… right to where she used to reside. It’s like a light has been extinguished. What have I done to deserve this?
 

True, maybe I had pushed her, tried to make her into something I’d dreamed of every night for years, but now… she won’t even try to make it work. She had walked away, as usual. After everything that I’d done to try and make her happy, she still turned her back on me. Maybe it isn’t that I’m not good for her. Maybe it’s that she isn’t good for me. The Crowned Ruler of the Occulta Mirum, running after a girl who doesn’t want him. I think not.
 

I feel a shudder run through me. Have I really become this sick puppy? Getting kicked to the curb, not fighting back but whimpering and limping with one paw held up for sympathy? I used to be a great warrior… and now? My fist clenches as I begin my journey back to the Cole and the other Knights who are waiting for me, watching, just in case. Saturnus was right. Now is not the time for weakness and begging a woman to want me. Now is the time for action, for strength and for setting an example to the most important relationship in my life, that which I hold with my father’s legacy, with the people that need me. Callie has made it perfectly clear that she doesn’t need anyone. Titus’ darkness had infected her that was for sure.
 

She had always been headstrong, longing for independence, but she’d never seemed power hungry before. The black hair and maps of dark magic that trace across her skin now, only prove to me the rivers of magic that run deep through her had been poisoned and that dark power is clearly more enthralling than I could ever be.
 

I sigh to myself, running my hand through my hair. I look down to the sand, sweeping along the ocean floor and miss my father so deeply I can barely breathe. I know one thing for sure, I am done fighting to keep her. I still want her. I will always want her. But I am suddenly overcome with the reminder that you can’t make someone love you, just like you can’t force someone who loves you to want to be with you. One thing is for sure though. I meant what I had said, and as I make my way back to my responsibilities, I know that I am finally, after all this time, done waiting.

CALLIE

I am free, finally. After everything I’ve been through, struggling and squirming to get free from Orion’s possessive overprotectiveness. I am free. I am still in the darkness of the water, hanging there, limp and defeated. This is what I wanted. Isn’t it?
 

Of course, dear. You are free now. Free to grow into the powerful killer you were born to be.
 

The voice echoes off each wall of my skull.
Wait… Killer?
My head snaps up and my eyes fall wide. Is that what this is? Was it Titus all along, making me into something dark, hard, and unfeeling? Is this all my fault? Had I just lost the only man who would ever make me feel so coveted… so loved? I look back over my shoulder as I begin to leave the ocean once more. I can’t stand to be in it. I don’t want to see its shimmer, its beauty. It makes me sick.
 

My head breaks the surface of the foam that has formed like a slime on top of the water and Vex is almost fully dressed, waiting for me, propped against the bike at the edge of the sand as he pulls his leather jacket over his muscular shoulders. I focus on cleaving myself from my curse, from the water, from Atargatis and I feel my scales shimmer out of existence once more. My feet pad across the sand in a light jog. My calves burn, an unpleasant side effect from the longevity of being in tailed form, and I feel the wind whip around my body, causing errant droplets of water to slither down my skin. Vex watches me, his eyes falling over my naked body and I instantly warm to him a little more. Orion isn’t the only one who will ever love me. Vex wants me. He’d never admit it, but I know he does.
 

In that moment, as I watch him, pulling on my pants and wrapping the corset around me, an urge inside me surfaces, like a panther crawling into view through tall grass. I slick my wet hair back from my neck, running my fingers through it and throwing the long tresses over my left shoulder. I bend to put on my shoes, and look up through my black lashes to watch him, eyes rolling over me like wicked surf, salacious and wild.
 

I momentarily wonder what the hell I’m doing. He’s a Psiren for Goddess’ sake, but then I remember that he believes in me, more than anyone ever has. Certainly more than Orion ever would.
 

I stand, fully dressed and pace forward, running my hand through my hair again, nervous.

“So, Love, did you break the Nancy Boy’s heart into hundreds of sparkly pieces? Did he cry? Ooh I bet he cried!” His lilac irises dance with enthusiasm, the kind he only feels for violence and pain.

“No, he didn’t cry. He left. It’s over. I’m free.”

“Good riddance, Love. You don’t need him. You’re not a pet. You’re a predator,” his words sting me slightly, I don’t know why.

“I’m not a killer, Vex,” I whisper.

“Could have fooled me. This lone wolf act you’ve got going on isn’t exactly the act of a saint, now is it?”

“I’m not a killer!” I yell in his face. His eyelids shut, hooding the light of his irises. He looks irritable.

“Why does it matter to you? You afraid the big bad wolf has been let out and you won’t get it back into its cage? You have power, girl, whether you want it or not. Killing is just the next step up the ladder in using that power. Someone has more power than you, you want it, you take it.”

“Oh and I suppose that’s just life is it? No other choice, just going around killing people for what they have. God, you Psirens, you’re so arrogant. You don’t have the right to just decide whether people live or die, Vex!”

“Look, Love, you can act as innocent as you like, but it isn’t life, it’s evolution. You think you can escape those little voices in your head, the urges screaming around inside you for blood? You. Were. Built. To. Be. On. Top.” His words penetrate me, a staccato of a statement which I don’t know whether is true or false. He assaults my consciousness and leaves me bereft. I need to be held by strong arms and kissed by lips that could make me forget. I look up at him.

“Take me somewhere.”

“Somewhere?” The air between us becomes charged as he bends his head, our noses are almost touching.

“Somewhere with….Tequila.” I utter the word, cautious yet hungry.

“I think you’ve had enough of the hard stuff for now,” he whispers, placing his thumbs in the tight pockets of his pants, as though he’s bracing himself.

“The hard stuff is exactly what I’m looking for,” I sweep my irises over him from bottom to top, letting his form fill my head, pushing out the images of Orion’s broken expression. He smiles slightly.

“Oh… you want to go somewhere with
tequila…”
His eyes blaze.

“Yes, Vex. Take me. Now,” I whisper the words and suddenly realise that I’m acting more forward than I ever have, even with Orion. It’s like I’m on autopilot, not giving a damn and watching my body from the outside, performing the eloquent and seductive dance of a stranger, not me. I let the darkness take over. I feel my pupils dilate, turning black and empty, needing to be filled by someone’s wanton grasp.

“Hop on.” Vex turns to the bike, straddling it suggestively. I hop on the back, not bothering to look back at the ocean which had contained me, made me bend to Orion and rise to a place I had never belonged. I place my hands around Vex’s waist and ride off with him into the night, accepting all the new parts of myself, like jagged puzzle pieces that grate, but are slowly falling into place. They complete an unexpected and fragmented image, hungry, wanton, dark, but also… free.

   
CALLIE

The fluorescent light of the seedy motel parking lot where Vex has parked burns my eyes. After so many weeks of being in the deep, and the months of only being a part of the surface world during the hours when the moon illuminates the sky, my retinas just can’t take it. It sheds a stark and unpleasant light on the concrete covered space, showing discarded soda cans and cigarette butts that daunt me a little. Do I really want to do this?

It’s what you want, so take it. Take him.
 

The hissing tones of the dark whisper to me, filling me with a primal confidence, a reliance on my senses rather than my ability to reason that is intoxicating. Vex dismounts the motorcycle and stands, his skin so pale it’s practically translucent under the neon blatancy.
 

“I’m guessing we don’t have a reservation,” I mumble, suddenly nervous.

“Hey. Look at me.” Vex pulls my chin up. “When you’re a Psiren, you don’t need invitations, or reservations. It’s simple, Love.” He walks over to the door of the room right at the end of the block. Pressing his ear to the wood for a few moments before continuing.
 

“See,” he braces himself against the frame of the door. “Want,” he steps back from the wooden barrier, preventing him from reaching the location he desires. “Take,” he makes a grunt and forces himself against the door, pushing the weak lock past its breaking point. The door relinquishes, cracking open with a splintering sound and a jerk. The old me would be horrified about breaking and entering. The mer have everything together, they operate on a massive scale, always within the law and with a grandeur that never failed to impress.

The Psirens, unsurprisingly, don’t have the same luxury, and so resort to petty crime and seedy motel rooms. I’m beginning to see why they so envy the mer. I wouldn’t say no to a room at Lunar Sanctum right now.
 

He doesn’t hold the door open for me, as would a gentleman, but lets it swing back in my face. I catch it with my palm, the peeling paint flaking away like dead skin onto the floor, before pushing it open and entering. The motel room is… well… what you’d expect for a motel room.
 

A simple metal bed frame is donned with black sheets, no doubt a giant mistake for an establishment that probably doesn’t even wash their bed linen. The carpet is tortoiseshell, and the walls are a dirty looking green. There’s an adjoining room with a double sink and a long mirror on the wall leading to the bathroom, two bedside tables and a desk with an old television to one side, it’s aerial is twisted like a pretzel and I doubt it even works. The whole room sucks light into its corners and returns only shadow, no doubt a preference when one does whatever deeds are common for a motel in the middle of nowhere. This is the kind of place you come when you don’t want to be seen or judged and where moral caution is thrown to the wind. There is no better place for what I want.