The Kiss That Saved Me (The Tidal Kiss Trilogy Book 2) (17 page)

She descends through the floor of the chamber and I move, wondering if I do, in fact, need some perspective. I look over to the clamshell bed and it beckons my weariness, like a pill for all my waking pain. I move the porthole lid closed and lock it, spinning the wheel so it’s as tight as it will go. I flick my tail, displacing the water around me and move, diving and collapsing onto the shell bed. I knock the prop holding the hood of the clam away with the end of my tailfin and let it close around me. Shutting me away in darkness, where my lids slowly droop, and I call back to me the argument in a detail crystal clear like tropical waters.

AZURE

Crustaceans crawl through the sand, laboured, slow, and pitiful in their existence. Something catches the corner of my eye, an aquamarine glimmer that shouldn’t be there, writhing, scurrying through the water to get away. I move around the edge of the surface scraper with its round walls that line the alley I am skulking in. I like this alley, it is comforting to me, after all the Occulta Mirum isn’t like Cryptopolis, there aren’t many dark spots where one can escape amongst the banal glimmer and the mundane sparkle of the surface world. I scratch against the sandstone of the building, leaving claw marks in my wake as I use the tower to leverage myself forwards, still encased in shadow like it’s a child’s blanket, comforting and safe as my tail lashes out behind me haphazardly.
 

I see Callie, swimming like her life depends on it, moving away from the Alcazar Oceania.
What, is she taking off again
? I’d heard about the scene in the throne room. My brother proposing.
Well, good for her, saying no to that whole bullshit dog and pony show.
I sneer internally. The idea of a forever bond with a man makes my inside furl and snarl like thorny vines, thirsty for blood, for death.
 

I move closer, deciding to follow her, stalk her like prey, good practice seeing as I haven’t had a good stalk in a while. My tail waves sensuously, undulating, shimmering black and electric blue. I see Callie bump into Saturnus, who is hurriedly leaving the building in which his study resides. He flinches back, red hair floating innocuous in the water around him, like she’s red hot and dangerous.
 

I never liked that man, even when I was a mermaid, all innocent and pure. There’s something about him that’s unsettling to me, so I enjoy watching him carefully manoeuvre around the girl. Now I think about it, it was probably some innate repulsion from the Goddess that lies at the heart of why he makes me so uneasy. The beginnings of my first touch with darkness maybe. Who knows? I’ve given up trying to understand it all, for who am I? Powerful yes, but on the grand scale I am but a pawn in a game of Gods.

“Yes, I think it’s best if you leave. If Orion doesn’t want you here… it won’t be long before the rest of the city start to turn against you Callie… You need to get away,” Saturnus’ words look like they’ve physically pained the girl as I rise up the side of the tower, toward the light, eavesdropping on them mid-conversation. Her blonde hair is moving in cascades of fairness and her pert figure is dainty and weak looking. Her expression is crumpled, like a fallen angel, her tiny waist and arms look frail, pale… but that’s not what catches my attention. It’s something in her eyes. A sudden flash of rage, protruding through her anguish. I’ve seen that look before but can’t quite place it.
 

“Fine,” Saturnus’ chest deflates slightly at her short but clearly agitated sentiment. She swims away and he looks around, slightly aware he is being watched, but not aware of the source… or is he? He moves back into the building from which he has come, at the other side of the courtyard. As he moves, I see him pull something reflective from a satchel around his shoulder before disappearing around the corner. Saturnus gone, I decide to follow a feeling of gut instinct and tail Callie for a while. After all, I have nothing better to do. Maybe the open ocean will do me good.

I’ve been hunting her for a while, keeping a distance so she won’t realise it’s me. She’s crying, as a trail of diamonds in the sand below will attest to. I feel sick at the thought of all that emotion, all those leaking fluids.
Humanity is so gross.
 

The open water is cooling over my skin, liquid serenity, clearing the darkness from my mind.
I should come for long swims more often
I vow to myself. It makes the darkness feel more manageable, less a part of who I am and more something that has happened to me.

Callie is still within my view but suddenly stops and turns, as though she’s aware of me. I watch her, dropping back a little.
 

“Orion if that’s you, I swear I’m going to…” I hear the call, angrier than I’ve ever heard her. She sounds fierce, like a mouse in a dragon costume. I writhe, undulating through the water, like the current itself my body takes on a fluidity that I adore. Sexy as hell but fast, too. Titus had taught me once upon a time.

“It’s not Orion. It’s me,” I feel the darkness recoil as her petite features soften, her white skin glowing. Our eyes meet and she erects herself in the water. Her body is tense.

“What… what are you doing here? Did he send you?” She asks me, eyes full of fear, like a caged animal fleeing for her life. Does she know that I can beat her in a physical confrontation? She looks upset and her aquamarine eyes are rimmed red. I feel something I haven’t in a while. Empathy. She and I aren’t so different, we both sacrificed for the mer.

“No…I’m not here for him,” I don’t know what to say and I feel my pupil’s contract, the blackness of them receding.

“That thing with your eyes… do you know that happens or…” She looks like a small child as she lifts a hand to her nose and itches awkwardly. I frown slightly, she’s forward.

“Um… yes. The darkness, when I get angry it comes out,” I reply, she smiles slightly.

“That sucks, you should be allowed to get angry without going all Morticia Queen of darkness,” she sniffs and I cock my eyebrow, no idea what she’s babbling about.

“Yes. It’s not so bad. Stops people bothering me.” She cocks an eyebrow at my explanation and I can’t help but smile, she looks so young and naive.

“You look pretty when you smile, you should do it more often,” she compliments me and my mouth instantly drops back into the sullen line it preferentially forms.

“So what happened? You don’t want to marry my brother?” I ask her, changing the subject onto something that will make her uncomfortable.

“No. I don’t,” she sounds sure of herself.
 
She realises we are suspended in the open sea and gestures to me. “Do you mind if we keep moving. I don’t like floating like this,” she admits the simple fact to me and I wonder why.

“Why?” I ask her, surprised at my own lack of self-containment.

“I don’t like just floating out here, moving helps take my mind off things.”

“Are you stupid? Not that, why don’t you want to marry my brother?” I snap, and she recoils slightly but then narrows her eyes.

“You don’t scare me you know,” I snort at her transparency.

“Maybe not, but I make you uncomfortable.” I snarl.

“No. Not uncomfortable.” She doesn’t look at me, skimming the water with the edge of her tailfin in an amateur stroke. I wonder how she beat Titus with so little knowledge of her own anatomy, what she was truly capable of.

“Well?” I tut impatiently, yearning for her opinion against my own better judgement.

“I feel bad for you,” she looks at me with a pain in her face.
 

“Great, I love pity,” I roll my eyes.

“Not like you think. I just mean, you lost your father, and Titus. I know it’s not conventional… but, you and he had a connection. I think. I mean from what you’ve said he must have gotten pretty close to turn you into what you are… and well, so I sort of assumed that you and he… you know…” She is rambling, the truth of her words slays me. Shock of my emotion at the thought of Titus, after everything he had done to me, dying causes red mist to fog my vision. The black rose of my heart, blooms, vulnerable to its own thorns.

“Stop,” I say the single syllable and she silences immediately, the only sound for miles is the muted sloshing of the surface.

 
In the distance I see the outline of a shark and several shoals of fish, I know what will happen next, they’re minding their own business, will they become like I did, victim to circumstance. Something inside me snaps slightly, I wasn’t the goddamn fish, I was the shark.

“I’m glad you didn’t say yes,” I whisper.

“What?” She says, not hearing my dull set tone.

“I said I’m glad you didn’t say yes to my brother. You’re better than that.” She looks confused.

“What do you mean?”
 

“Men make you soft. You don’t need that. Don’t let the Occulta Mirum fool you, don’t let the doe eyes of the other mermaids fool you. There is something coming, something dark and being the sideshow to a man isn’t going to save you,” I look at her and she cocks her head.

“You’ve seen it haven’t you?”
 

“I don’t need to have seen it to know, Callie. Atargatis didn’t make the mer immortal and practically un-killable for no reason. We need to be strong.” Callie looks startled, brushing her blonde hair behind one ear.

“I don’t know. I don’t really think I’ll be around for all that. I’m leaving actually.” I raise my eyebrows. She wasn’t taking Saturnus seriously was she?

“Don’t be pathetic, don’t listen to Saturnus!” I snap at her again and feel disgust at her weak sensibility.

“It’s not Saturnus. Though I’m glad you were eavesdropping. Do you know how creepy that is?” She looks exasperated.

“Why are you leaving?” I demand of her.

“Orion… he doesn’t want me anymore. I’m not sure I want him,” she looks deeply fragmented by this statement, the anguish obvious on her elven features. She stops suddenly in the water and sinks, placing her head in her hands and allowing her shoulders to shake with uncontrollably pathetic sobs.
Oh crap.
I think to myself. I really don’t have the capacity to deal with a crying girl…
can I leave?
I wonder internally as she hits the ocean floor and splays out, curling herself around the scales of her fluke.

“Callie…” I swim down to her with one slash of my eel like tail, moving toward her at a speed quicker than that of my inner workings. I reach out to touch her shoulder. “You don’t need him,” I say and she turns on me, face contorted, leaning up in a fluid movement and manipulating her features into an expression of wicked fury.

“How the fuck would you know. You’re just a MURDERING, INSOLENT BITCH!” She shouts, her voice echoing in the emptiness of the water around us, reverberating off the flat plains of sand that spread for miles. What I notice as her expression drains of colour is that her eyes are familiar, because they’re like mine. They’re black as sin and diluted to a state of delirious abyss.

“Callie,” I breathe her name like it’s a curse word. What the hell is going on with this girl?
 

“Oh my… Azure I…” She begins, slapping a hand over her mouth but I put my hand on her shoulder, a slight electric shock hits the edge of my fingertip and I withdraw it…
It’s almost as if… No it can’t be…

“Hey it’s okay. Breathe,” I recite my personal mantra to her aloud.
 

“What’s happening to me? I’m up and down and all over the place.” She sobs again, diamonds falling into her lap.

“You’re just having a hard time. My brother can be an asshole,” I smile at her, she liked that before, I remember. She looks calm again, the dark fog fading as quickly as it came from her irises.

“I hurt him I think. I touched him and I stole his power,” she admits to me and I listen intently for any hint of
him.

“Maybe. He probably deserved it.”

“You asked me before… why I said no? Well, I guess I can tell you,” she bites her bottom lip and sniffs a few times. I inhale water deeply; God this emotional confession stuff is enough to make anyone feel nauseous. I prefer my people nice and shallow.

“I don’t know who I am, I know I’m Orion’s soulmate. I know I’m the vessel and all that other destiny crap. But in all this change, my old self is gone. I don’t know who I am without him.”

“Well…what about your father?” I reply, wanting a quick fix, wanting this emotional geyser of a girl to disappear. I do not like the effect she’s having on me, it is sickly sweet, like treacle being poured down my throat, globules sticking in my gullet, making me choke.
 

Her eyes light up even though she should be surprised that I know about her father at all, it was so long ago that I last saw him.

“But… I don’t know where he is.”

“Can’t you ask Saturnus?” I say the answer, knowing it’s obvious but wondering about the level of intelligence of the girl floating before me. I mean you have to have a certain level of stupid to fall for my brother’s corny ass routine. I’d seen their courtship among the fog of visions, I knew the kind of mushy crap that had made her melt, like only too pliable putty in his hands.