“I’m all ears,” Vex offers himself and I blink a few times, not sure I heard him right.
“You want to get personal now?” I expect him to joke but instead he does something that shocks me, he rubs the back of his neck with his hand. The gesture is one so familiar that I want to cry. It’s what Orion used to do when he was vulnerable or guilty.
“I don’t care. It washes off me like water off a duck’s back.” The phrase isn’t one I’ve heard before and assume it’s British.
“Okay. Well, I was Queen… back with the mer,” I start and he cocks an eyebrow.
“So what, they didn’t put enough sparkle on your tiara or something? Got into a spat with your favourite nursemaid, did we Love?” He rolls his eyes and I scrunch up my face.
“No! Are you going to let me tell the story? Or are you just going to make fun of me? Because that’s not really how sharing works,” I spit and his face immediately forces itself straight.
“Sorry. Please continue Your Highness,” he says it, bowing, and I debate slapping him. Instead I choose to unload the weight that’s been sitting on my heart, materialising as violence, ever since I fled the Occulta Mirum.
“Anyway, there was this guy. He and I… well, I thought we were made for each other. Things were great to start with, but then I died and things sort of got screwed up. Then he became the Crowned Ruler and proposed. But I didn’t want to get married. I guess it was because he was too over protective and I felt trapped. Anyway, he screwed everything up. He was so controlling, he got paranoid and greedy with me. It was like, oh my god, am I not enough for you or something!? It was never enough. No matter how hard you try, or how much you change, some people are never goddamn happy! So now, I’m here.” I breathe out, almost exhausted from my ramble and he looks at me, suddenly interested.
“You died?” He moves forward, like he may grab my hand, instead he folds his arms across his chest, wearing a suspicious stare.
“Yeah, I was kind of involved in this prophecy. Titus tried to sacrifice me and well, I died because of it. Only for a bit. Orion didn’t deal with it well.”
“So it’s the guy, Onion, the one I saw you with at the coronation?” he runs a finger along his jawline, intrigued.
“Orion.”
“Onion seems to fit, Love, he’s making you cry for sure. I’ve heard you at night,” he smirks and I roll my eyes.
“Yes. It’s him! After I died, he wouldn’t let me go anywhere on my own! He was too afraid I’d get hurt, like I’m some freaking china doll! It was pathetic! What’s worse he had this whole oh I’m so repressed and strong, I’ll just fuck my woman to death, routine going on. He takes everything out on me! It’s not even my damn fault! It’s just life!” I exclaim, imitating Orion’s deep voice. I wonder what Vex will say next. I don’t even like him, but I’m afraid his blunt honesty will be something I don’t want to hear. “He’s like a goddamn child for pities sakes.”
“You didn’t like that I take it?” He asks me and I shake my head.
“No, he was too controlling. It was like he loved me too much. He couldn’t see what I really wanted anymore, and he actually really doesn’t care, either.” I admit.
“What do you want?” He looks at me seriously, bending his head slightly so he’s looking down at me.
“I just… I don’t know. That’s what scares me. I had a life, I was a teenager, and then BAM! I’m a mermaid and a Queen in like the space of a few months. I lost myself. Completely. I think because falling in love with him came with also dying and turning into a mer… I think I sort of melded into what he wanted me to be. Which is the most awful, ridiculous thing that could have happened. So yeah, I don’t know what I want, but I know what I don’t want. I don’t want some man ruling my life, particularly not one that comes with the emotional capacity of a four-year-old! He’s supposed to be like five hundred or something, he acts about twelve.” I feel the confession free me, crossing my arms. I smile slightly to myself, the cruel things passing my lips are true and so I care little about whether they’re fair. Vex’s forehead is creased.
“That… wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, Love.”
“What were you expecting?” I ask him, boldness flowing through me. I look at him squarely, grateful that he is here for the first time since we met.
“I don’t know. Something whiny,” he waves a hand and I punch him on the arm.
“Hey!” I smile so he can tell I’m joking.
“Your smile…” He says, eyes narrowing and his lips spreading slightly.
“What?” I blush a little.
“It’s just… you should do it more often. I’d say you aren’t totally hideous.”
It is the only compliment I feel he’s ever given that he’s actually meant. I’m not sure how to take it. I don’t know what we have, it’s not simple and it’s not tender. It is raw, fragile, and borderline disdain. None the less, it is supporting me while I stumble around in the darkness of my own anonymity, and for now, I am grateful.
“Focus,” his demand reaches me as his latest test looms.
Flashes of baited deep-sea creatures illuminate the space around me, a visual distraction. Finding calm amongst the chaos, the jumping of my own nerves, as Vex shoots in and out of the strobing light looking terrifying and threatening as his dark eyes reflect the whiteness of the light back at me. I close my eyes, breathing in and out, centring myself and concentrating on nothing but my own heartbeat. The calm has replaced the rage I was using to muster strength a few days ago.
I am now cool, calculating, untouchable.
I become the ultimate vision of myself, sensing Vex before he’s even at an arms’ length proximity, reaching out and slamming my palm into him. Then, using a burst of electricity at the last second of impact, I send him falling backward. The light doesn’t bother me anymore and neither does the dark. I am totally aligned with myself, with what needs to happen, with what I need to do and how I need to do it.
He moves again, stirring around in the shadow, and I manoeuvre instantaneously, pivoting on nothingness and catching one of his tentacles as it wraps around my wrist, using the limb against him as I tug its thick mass across my body, using his weight and length against him. I toss him sideways into the dark and here him hit rock.
“Well, I’d say my work here is done,” I hear Vex sounding satisfied as I turn and see him rising up through the water, I’m glad to see he looks a little dishevelled.
“I. Kicked. Your. Ass.” I declare, smug as hell and flushed at the power I feel running through me.
“I let you kick my ass,” he folds his arms and twists his mouth into a smirk.
“Oh… don’t give me that crap. I had you,” I bob up and down in the water slightly, like a boxer rolling on and off the balls of my feet, waiting for the next strike and knowing it won’t even get close to me.
“Had… me? Trust me Love, there was no having of anything. If you’d had me… you’d be a lot worse for wear,” his smile is salacious and I act faux shocked, cocky and confident.
“So we’re done?” I deflect away from the innate sexuality that thrums beneath every single word he utters.
“We’re done. I thought I’d take you out. There’s one more thing I haven’t taught you yet,” he smiles knowingly to himself, his flat forehead creasing at the thought.
“Why are you smiling?” I ask him feeling upbeat and ready for whatever he throws at me next.
“I’m smiling, Love, because for this next part, I get to see you naked,” he gestures upward and we begin to swim away from the site we’ve been using to train and toward the exit of the crevasse.
“What do you mean? Naked?” I feel my skin tingling.
“I’m going to teach you to phase.”
“Phase?”
“Yes, turning human again.”
“Is it the full moon?” I pray momentarily that he says no.
“No, we don’t need that,” he looks at me, bored, like he expected my response, like I�
��m so predictable. We move past a six gill shark, skulking in shadow, moving silently and rise above it, my lungs feeling like balloons, deflating as they loosen at the decreased pressure.
“So you guys can just choose to have legs?” I feel joy stir in my stomach. I wonder momentarily if one could live a normal life as a Psiren. Choosing only to be in the sea when you wanted to be. I had loved being a mermaid, everything about it, except that feeling of being trapped at times, unable to re-join the human world.
It’s weird what you miss when that is stripped away, like shoes, and walking in the rain.
“Yeah. It’s a tad more complicated, Love. But basically,” he doesn’t give anything away, leaving me wanton for information. We move together, now equally matched in speed, despite the differences in our anatomy. Rising, we leave the darkness behind, and yet carry it with us, as we head toward the shore.
ORION
The sun is setting over the horizon. Another day gone and I feel her slip from me just a little. It’s my own fault. I did this. I pushed her. I told her not to come back. Who knew she’d actually listen? That words could do as much damage as a fist or a sword… maybe worse. Who knew? The demons we had been so freed from had returned. I had sent the Knights out twice in the last few days to fight them back, to slaughter them, but I didn’t go with them. I had lost my fight. They were breaking through the fault lines with no explanation as to why. I can’t help but wonder if it’s because the darkness is getting stronger.
I am in the throne room, my title the only thing left of me, and the only thing I hadn’t wanted. The crown weighs heavy on my mind, my inability to think clearly without her is making me an inadequate ruler, crown or not. It isn’t baubles that make a leader. It’s action.
With that thought, I sit upright in the throne carved from the wood of olive trees, native to where I was born. I have been slumped in it for the last hour, watching the light fall over the city, over me, casting shadows. I’m not even sad anymore. Just angry. Angry with myself, angry at Azure, and everyone else for failing to help me get her back. Hell, I don’t need them. I am the Crowned Ruler. If that isn’t good enough for getting what I want, then what’s the point in doing the damn job? I stick my head out into the vertical corridor.
“SATURNUS!” I bark, not the best etiquette, but I am far past patience. He appears from nowhere, alert and on edge. I wonder where he was lurking, maybe he’s been watching me. Regardless, he’s here and he’s prompt so why should I complain.
“Assemble the Knights,” I order him and he raises his eyebrows.
“All of them?” He asks, suspicious.
“Yes, all of them!” I snap and he crosses his arms.
“Are we under attack?”
“No.”
“Then why on earth are we assembling the entire squad. It’s sundown, Orion. They’re exhausted, you know they’ve been pulling double duty with the demons’ recurrence in our world.”
“So? I’m the Crowned Ruler and I want them assembled,” I remind him of his place as I turn into the throne room. He moves over me and blocks my path back to my throne.
“May I ask what you want them assembled for?” He folds his arms and floats, an immovable gold and scarlet statue of godly imminence. He doesn’t scare me.
“I’m sending them to collect Callie. This has gone on long enough. God knows what they’re doing to her down there Saturnus. I can’t stand it,” I reveal my intent and his emerald irises blaze angry.
“Are you serious? If you think we’re assembling an army to fix your love life you are quite grossly mistaken, or delusional,” he comes close to me, invading my personal space.
“I’m Crowned Ruler, I can do what I please. I need her here to help me rule. It’s for the good of the Kingdom,” I remind him of her place beside me.
“Then maybe you should have taken better care of your personal business, if you’re so concerned about the Kingdom. I’m not having you, a reckless, selfish supplanter leave this city unprotected by sending our only militant force gallivanting after some girl because you couldn’t tame her!” He spits the words in my face and I feel bile rise up in my throat.
“You can’t tell me what to do, Saturnus. Now assemble the goddamn squad!” I shout at him, letting my anger loose.
“I don’t answer to you. I answer to a force more sacred and more powerful than you can possibly comprehend, boy. Now sit down and go back to playing with your human women, or whatever it is you used to do before you got involved with that harlot you call a soulmate!” He shouts back and I’ve had enough, I feel rage climb within me like a wave, cresting and powering outward from my body in a burst of air that knocks Saturnus back, but only slightly.
“How dare you raise your hands to me!?” He comes at me, powering forward using his gaudy, jewel encrusted tailfin. I predict his assault and raise my fist, smacking him straight between the eyes with a large crack of my knuckles on his skull. He moves backward, disoriented from the blow.
“You forget yourself, Saturnus. I have more battle experience than anyone in this city. If you want to pick a fight, I suggest you choose a more meagre opponent,” I sound calm but I’m not. I’m in internal tumult. He gets up off the floor and moves, quicker than I have ever seen him move before, so fast he’s almost a blur and then he’s behind me.
“No. You forgot yourself. You are nothing. You hear me. Nothing. I will have that throne, I’ll have the crown off your head, even if I have to slit your throat and watch your blood run cold to do it.” His words shock me.
What the hell is his problem? Does he really want the throne that badly? Hell, if he’d have asked I probably would have given it to him a couple of months ago. I’m not going to do that now. Is it that the power of the Goddess has gone to his head? Or that he knows I’m really not the right fit for this job? Maybe he knows what the Goddess wants, maybe that’s not me.
Either way, something within him is snapping.
“Get out of my city,” I choke out the words as his fingers close over my gills. I gasp, like a fish out of water. He laughs, whispering perversely in the shell of my ear. Delighting in my struggle against him.
“Stupid, stupid boy. You know what’s funny? You overestimate your power. You may be Crowned Ruler, but I’m the one upholding the glimmer over this city. You can’t get rid of me. Unless you want everyone slaughtered by sunrise that is. Or… maybe that is what you want? After all, why else would you be sending away our only defence?” His grip vanishes as quickly as it had clutched my throat and I sink to the floor. He’s gone, moving out of the room in a flurry of bubbles.
I debate going after him, leaving him bloody, but I remember Callie’s words to me. He’s our link with Atargatis. Right now that’s something I have to live with. He was right about one thing; we do need him.
I’m moving up off the stained glass of the throne room floor when Cole enters. He sees me looking breathless but doesn’t ask why I look shaken. He knows when to pry; it’s one of the things I like most about him.
“Sir, she’s been seen off the coast, Sir… or at least we think it’s her.” Cole looks concerned.
“What do you mean you think it’s her? She’s not exactly subtle with that aqua tail!” I bark at him, irritated at the incompetence my men are showing.
“She doesn’t look the same Sir. She’s changed… her hair, her tail is different too. She’s with a Psiren. I just got word,” he says it, gasping almost with the speed at which he delivers the message.
“Right, let’s go,” I don’t even think about anything else. Hearing Callie is out in the open ocean gives me a little relief, but she’s with a Psiren, is he torturing her, leading her to her death? Am I too late?
“Sir, don’t you want to let your right hand know we’re leaving?” Cole asks me, looking troubled.
“No, Cole. I think Saturnus and I are perfectly clear on protocol for this kind of eventuality,” I exit the room with Cole, toward the armoury to collect my weapons. Whatever Callie’s bu
siness is with the Psiren, whether he be torturing her, killing her, or using her as bait, tonight will be his last night on earth.
CALLIE
The water at this depth isn’t like I remember, it’s lighter, fresher, and gives a clarity not unlike high definition as I zoom through it seamlessly. My time in the depths of the Cryptopolis has changed me, and it feels like I’m experiencing these coastal waters for the first time. They leave a fizzle of zest on my tongue and a refreshing tang in my nostrils. The low pressure means I move faster than I ever did before I journeyed to the deep, because my muscles are used to working so much harder at high pressures.
“Where are we?” I ask Vex as we reach a sloping incline of dust-like sand.
“Close to SDSU,” he replies, the expression on his face is absentminded, something that somehow doesn’t look right on him because he’s usually so intense.
“How do you know?” I query him and he shrugs, mumbling in reply.
“One never forgets the place they breathed their last breath, Pet.” I inhale sharply, I know he is right about that, despite the miles of ocean, the endless azure hue that seems to never end, I know I’ll always be able to find my way back to that beach. The one where I succumbed to the kiss that killed me.
Then, I’m curious, I want to ask him how exactly it was he did die, but I don’t have the courage, so instead I redirect the conversation, focusing on the task at hand.
My head breaks the surface of the cool shallow water and I blow liquid out of my nose, rejecting it as the dryness of the night air hits me.
“So how do I do this?” I look to him as his head moves above the surface slowly, seamlessly. He doesn’t make any sound as he breaks the surface, not even a drop, he just slides like a ghost into the night.
“Well, seeing as how you’re channelling whatever darkness is inside of you properly, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. It’s all about visualisation. You just have to cleave yourself from the ocean, imagine yourself being independent from it.”
The Kiss That Saved Me (The Tidal Kiss Trilogy Book 2) Page 18
