“Get the hell off me, silent man!” I yell at Ghazi, his hand is gripping at my arms, which he has pulled behind my back, pushing my breasts forward.
“Azure that’s enough,” my brother’s voice is cold, and I immediately know that he is the reason I’m currently bound like an animal.
At request of the Crowned Ruler. Perfect and easily predictable. I should have known my stupid brother was behind this.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I snap at him as my tailfin trails along the crystalline floor of the small council chamber.
“Well, I did ask Ghazi to ask you to come and see me. I’m assuming you weren’t up for the idea?” he cocks a brow looking slightly amused.
“So, what? You just let your staff manhandle me? I’m not some bitch that’ll come at beckon call!” I exclaim, feeling rage take over my motor function. I continue to struggle.
“Let her go, Ghazi,” Orion mutters with a flick of his hand. He looks back to Saturnus, who I now notice is skulking in the corner, observing me with scrutinising emerald eyes.
“Get gone!” I bite at Ghazi, turning on him as soon as his vice grip slackens and then vanishes from my wrists and elbows. He doesn’t cower, he just blinks a few times, looking unimpressed and turns to leave the room after slamming his fist over his heart and nodding to the stupid Crowned Ruler.
“Azure, I’d ask that you don’t treat the Commander of the Knights of Atargatis like slime off a slug, but I know that won’t happen. What I will ask you is where the hell you get off letting Callie swim off alone to the Psiren city, and not telling me about it.” His face is stony, Saturnus moves out of the shadow towards us, an irritating smugness creeping across his expression.
I should have known this was coming, it becomes really hard to hide anything when your sister, the notorious, pink, sparkly suck-up, shares your mind’s eye and can’t keep her nose out of other people’s business. Goddammit, Starlet!
“I didn’t know you cared all that much about Callie’s comings and goings. She said you told her to get out and not come back. I assumed that you say what you mean, being Crowned Ruler and all,” I purr, twizzling a lock of my inky hair around one finger.
“Don’t play stupid with me, Azure. You know full well how I feel about her. I proposed for Goddess’ sake,” he puffs out his chest, like some pathetic display of manliness. How the hell we are even related I’ll never know.
“I think it’s a good thing you sent her away, Orion. Something in that girl is broken. I felt darkness coming off of her like smoke.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Orion looks taken aback and his dull, familial irises glower at me, demanding a response.
“I wouldn’t tell her where the city was, so she went all Queen of darkness on my ass. Seriously. She tackled me… her eyes went like mine. You aren’t telling me you haven’t noticed the darkness in the girl you claim to care so much about? She’s practically vibrating with it. It’s just below the surface but even I can feel it.” Orion looks to Saturnus but he shrugs.
“So you’re saying what exactly? That Callie has been bitten by a Psiren? I’m pretty damn sure I’d have noticed that, Azure. She’s barely been out of my sight since the Psiren attack when Titus died,” Orion looks at me, his eyes searching for an even an inch of the lie that he thinks I might be spinning him. But why would I spin a lie, when the truth was so much more unthinkable?
“Titus…” I say the name aloud and my gut curdles like sour milk. “You don’t think…” I muse the possibility for a moment, the cogs in my brain slick against each other beginning to whirr with inspired imaginings.
“What is it?” Saturnus has spoken this time, he is coming forward, suddenly interested in what I have to say.
“Well… Callie is the vessel right?” They both nod and I continue, my mind all the while going back to the depths of Callie’s pupils, the darkness within, the darkness I had only once experienced with such gravity. “So she can absorb powers from us, and our powers are a blessing… light magic right?” I say again and Orion’s eyes widen. God, I wish he’d stop gaping, he looks like a fish out of water. I mean, I know it’s shocking but he’s supposed to be the Crowned Ruler.
“So what if she absorbed Titus’ powers… his darkness?” I drop the bomb and Saturnus remains expressionless. It makes me suspicious.
Orion on the other hand looks like he may throw up. No one knows how to undo you like family. I chuckle to myself internally.
“She… she… hurt me,” Orion stutters and then looks up at me.
“Like say, Titus would be able to?” I ask him and he nods, shell-shocked. What an idiot. If you thought a magical beam of light energy with the power of thousands of bolts of lightning was enough to stop Titus, well then you were just stupid.
“Yeah. We were arguing and she hurt me. I don’t think she knew what she was doing. It wasn’t intentional,” he looks so sure of this and I wonder why, I’d say he deserved some pain if he was trapping me like some kind of bird in a cage. “So what do we do?” He looks to me like a small child and I’m taken back, so far back that I can’t believe I’m getting the memory, to when we were kids.
He was waving to me from father’s fishing boat. I watch him, waving so enthusiastically he sways and loses his balance, tripping and then falling face first into the water. He comes up laughing with seaweed in his hair, careless and young. My heart constricts and I want to hurl. Being around family was making me soft. I need to get away.
“How the hell should I know?” I ask him, crossing my arms across my breasts.
“You saw her. Did she say anything?”
Oh so what, this is an interrogation now? Well next time I’m staying the hell away from little miss perky darkness, I can tell you that right now. I so don’t need this hassle.
“She said she wanted to find her father. Said Solustus knew where he was. I don’t know where she got that idea but she seemed pretty sure about it.”
“Well I have to stop her. Can you take me to the city?”
“No,” I mumble and he looks like he might slap me.
“You’re telling me you’re not going to tell me where the Queen of this city is? That’s treason,” he pulls rank and that makes me even angrier. What the hell is his problem? If he knew how to keep a woman happy this wouldn’t be happening.
“Kill me if you want. It’d be better than hanging around this crap-heap anyway,” I feel the truth of my words hit me. I am sick of this half-life. So many centuries and I’ve burned every meaningful connection I’ve ever had in the most spectacularly pyrotechnic way I can think of. What do I have left besides sarcasm and my anger? A whole lot of nothing.
I feel the air wave hit me before I see it as Orion expels me from the room. I am rushed with the newly born, manipulated current through the double doors, smashing my head on the back wall of the corridor outside the chamber.
Goddamn my sister and our so-called ‘blessing’.
CALLIE
I am floating through a darkened milky way, ecstasy pulsing through me with the delicious thickness of blood and clotted sweetness of cream. Everything is sensational, sound that beats, making light flashes in certain places and dark holes in others.
I shake my limbs, feeling them, lighter than air, extended like an angel’s wings. I wonder if I can fly away, through the green stars of phytoplankton that vibrate, shaking with the weight of their own existence. I feel crushed velvet enveloping me, wrapping itself around like twisted honeysuckle vines, climbing, exploring like I’m some kind of tropical forest, moist and hot. I turn around and there he is, head hung back in surrender to the dark, the thing that is making me wonder how anyone lives any other way.
How do they live never knowing this ecstatic abandon of the real, being given over to nothing but what is? The feeling of his flesh on mine, my hands running through his silver skull cap of hair and down the contours of his jagged cheekbones.
His arms wrap around me and he moves
with blurred speed, though I can’t tell if it’s the Lionfish venom coursing through me or if he’s suddenly developed superhuman speed. I find myself with my back to his chest as he grabs my hand and moves it up so it’s draped around his neck. The beat of the drums is hypnotic and I close myself away, letting my eyes roll back into my head.
I feel Vex’s breath hitting my skin, his exhale of water hot on my flesh. I tremble and I feel his breath hitch as he takes both of his rough palms and runs them down the front of my body, torturously slow, settling them on the top of my tailfin and moving my hips with his, swinging them in and out of his grasp, grinding my scaled buttocks into him over and over. There are no thoughts in my head, only feeling in my body. I hear his sentiment, whispered in my ear, moving through my mind like a snake in tall grass.
“You are so ripe.”
I surrender again to the tsunami of sensory assault that is taking me, moment by moment, away from who I was and toward a place where nothing seems to matter but my own pleasure.
CALLIE
I stir hesitantly from a dreamless tranquillity I have not felt in a long time. I know mermaids can’t sleep, so maybe I had found unconsciousness through other means. It’s with this thought I remember how I had come to pass out, I remember the poison that ran through my veins, taking me away from myself. I open my eyes and my head is thudding like someone has been using it to break rocks all night.
“What the hell happened last night?” I exclaim loudly, too loudly. I regret making any noise at all instantly, bringing my palm up to cradle my throbbing temple. I notice the faint scars, already healed from my first Lionfish spine… and then my second, before I’d taken another in palm and thrust it into my spidery veins. I remember the night before in flashes, Vex’s fingertips and tentacles trailing across my skin, the rabid electricity coursing through me as the drumbeat got louder and louder. I remember the high with relish and immediately crave it again.
“Morning, Love,” the voice seeps through the water like sobering tonic and my stomach immediately falls as I notice the arm draped over my tailfin. I turn, realising I don’t know where I am or how I got here. Or how Vex got here either.
“What the hell are you doing here? Get off me!” I squirm to get away from him before another shock hits me. My tailfin, no longer aquamarine, is now onyx like everything that surrounds me. The aquamarine lightning, forking across the scales, interrupting the darkness is now the only reminder of what was. I look down at my nails, black and hardened into claws. I recoil in horror. “You turned me! Oh my God!”
“No, I didn’t!”
“Well then why do I look this?!”
“I don’t bloody know, but I didn’t bite you. Don’t flatter yourself,” he looks offended and I want to laugh, He’s offended?! Really?!
“What are you doing here then?” I put my hands on my hip, head still throbbing, that however seems to be the least of my problems.
“You passed out so I brought you back with me. I didn’t think you’d appreciate waking up and finding yourself being tortured by Caedes,” he cocks an eyebrow and purses his lips as his eyes look over me hungrily. I bring my palms up to cover my breasts impatiently.
“I don’t suppose you remember what happened last night then? If you’re so sure you didn’t bite me?” I attack him, feeling rage surging through me, causing the thudding in my head to get worse as I grit my teeth.
“We danced,” he turns from his side to his back on the floor of the cave we’re suspended in. The only light in the room are some kind of red bioluminescent worms that are packed into jars and stood on rock shelves that jut out of the barren, dark walls.
“That’s it?”
“Well, it got a tad naughty, but we didn’t kiss if that’s what you’re implying. I don’t do that.”
“What do you mean, you don’t do that?”
“I don’t do the kissing thing. Not my style.”
“Right. So you didn’t bite me? Did anyone else?”
“Nah Love, you were pretty pre-occupied with me, if I do say so myself. You’re way more twisted than I would have thought. You should have heard the way you were begging me to…”
“Shut up!” I yell out remembering suddenly what it was I had been begging for.
“Ahhh… and so the Princess returns. Different packaging sure… but still a priss. You’d better get on finding your inner darkness Love, you so can’t rock that look with your prudishness.”
“I said shut up,” I move over to a cracked mirror, lying on top of a rotting armoire in the corner of the room. It’s fractured but I can still see enough of my reflection to know that my appearance has totally changed. My scaled eye mask is still intact, though now it’s black. My hair is black like coal and my eyes are black too, just like Solustus’ and Titus’. I feel fear creeping in at my own appearance. I part my lips but my teeth are just the same as they’ve always been, not jagged or serrated. It doesn’t make any sense. None of the other Psiren’s have eye masks, and they all have jagged razor sharp teeth. So why don’t I? If I really was a Psiren now why wasn’t I showing all the traits?
“I look so…” I start and Vex cuts me off.
“Hot,” he says the word and I turn to glower at him. “Hey don’t get all bitchy on me now, Love, it’s a bit late to pretend like you’re not interested in this, isn’t it?” He gestures towards his abs and I feel the urge to be sick clutch at my insides.
“God, you’re such a pig,” I snap at him.
“Yeah, I hear that a lot,” he smiles at me, clearly not giving a crap about what I think.
“Must be true then,” I shoot back. I move toward the exit of the cave, curious as to where I am. I get to the opening and can see that I’m in the rock wall that curves around the outside of the Cryptopolis. The white neon light from the clouds of jellyfish aren’t that far above me as I am high up in the cliff. I notice as I look down from this angle that the light from above is casting shadows, exposing that there are many more caves hidden in the rock face, no doubt housing the rest of the Psiren army within.
“Better be going… training starts soon,” I hear Vex call from within the cave. I feel him come up behind me. The way the water swirls is unnatural, due to his tentacles, “Later, Pet.” He whispers, moving past me and brushing my shoulder blade with his thumb as he passes. I shudder and I can almost hear him smirk. He moves out into the water, descending slowly as his tentacles bloom out as he gets close to the ground. I settle on the ledge of the cave, lowering myself to watch them, secluded from view as darkness now cloaks me to invisibility with my black features. I watch as more Psiren’s emerge out of their caves, slinking silently, red faced and irritable, clearly coming down from the high we’d all felt during the rave last night… or was it day? I couldn’t tell without the sun.
“Cal?” A voice so familiar slaps me back into the moment and my head snaps around. In a cave entrance next to the one I’m sat in, a distorted but familiar face is peering at me from within the smoky shadows of the water.
“Daryl?” I gape, mouth hanging open in surprise… no… better word: shock.
“It’s Darius now,” he moves forward toward me, his body phasing at the waist into that of a great white shark.
“What the hell happened to you?” I look him up and down and he smiles at my shock, approval in the eyes which were once all-American baby blue.
“You could say I’ve evolved... you know, like those birds they taught us about, with that Darwin dude in biology.” I gawk at him, still unsure how to react. The last time I’d seen Daryl… or Darius, or whoever the hell he is, he was trying to assault me in Chloe’s beach house after I’d caught him with Mollie.
“You could say that. You shouldn’t want to be a Psiren though Daryl. It’s not exactly a step up,” I cock my head and he snorts slightly, looking cockier than his human self, if that’s at all possible.
“You can talk, you look just like us.”
“But I’m not one of you. At least I don’t t
hink I am. I don’t want to be anyway,” I sigh and shake my head. He’s staring at me and his brow is creased, dark pupils expanded outwards in the dim lighting, with blue lightning streaking through them.
“You look like one of us though. I mean, you were bitten right? They did the thing with the mixing of your blood?” He runs his hand through his hair, no longer the caramel brown it had once been, it’s inky strands slip through his fingers, slick like they’ve been dipped in oil.
“No, I wasn’t bitten.”
“Could have fooled me the way you were letting that guy at your neck last night,” he smirks and I scowl.
“Shut up. You’re just jealous.”
“Why would I be jealous of mister tentacles? Everyone knows I’m mother’s favourite… and I’m not even one of hers. I don’t even know why you like him. Is it the British accent?”
“Mother?”
“Yes, Alyssa, she made nearly all of the Psirens here. Well, the new ones anyway.”
“Alyssa?” I repeat the name, something about it is familiar but I can’t quite place it. Daryl blows bubbles out into the water in frustration.
“Yes. Alyssa. You know I remember you seeming a lot smarter when we were human.”
“Shut up,” I say the words, his rudeness is making my blood boil.
“So you never said, what is it exactly that attracts you to the British scumbag down there?” Daryl jerks his chin to Vex who is below us, still waiting for training to begin. He looks down his nose at him and I wonder where the hell he gets off looking down on anyone. He’s just a child in a big man’s suit.
“I’m not attracted to him. We were just having fun,” I shrug and he smirks.
“I always said you were a tease, Pierce. Well I had better warn him what he’s in for with you,” he moves to begin his descent toward the courtyard in front of the Necrocazar, but I’m quicker and move with one slash of my charred tailfin, grabbing Daryl by the throat, reminding him of who he’s dealing with.
The Kiss That Saved Me (The Tidal Kiss Trilogy Book 2) Page 16
