“What?” I gurgle slightly, the last remnants of the alcohol still swilling around the back of my throat.
“I used to go here you know.”
“You? Went to college??” I spit out before I can stop myself.
“Oh… I see how it is! Thought I was too dumb for college did you? I was here on a PhD studentship I’ll have you know!” He looks self-satisfied. Smug.
“Okay, sorry professor Vex…” I hear how ridiculous my slurred insult sounds and burst out laughing all over again.
“My name wasn’t Vex,” his tone is suddenly dark again.
“What was it?” I ask him and he frowns.
“I don’t tell my real name to drunk girls. I usually just shag them and then never call again,” he smiles and I laugh.
“How very Mr Darcy of you,” I think of the only literature reference I can remember with such a large amount of alcohol coursing through me, impressed I can remember anything I’ve read at all.
“Fuck Mr Darcy. That Ponce…” He smiles salaciously and holds out a piece of lime for me to suck on. I do and he rolls his eyes over my body which is spread out over the armchair now. I grab the sour fruit and throw it across the room; it lands in some guy’s hood. I giggle and Vex does too. “You… are too naughty,” he whispers and I laugh again. When did everything get so hilarious?
“And you… you’re a bad…bad man,” I slur my speech, bringing my feet up onto the seat and turning to face him.
“But at least you know I’m bad. I don’t have a noble steed. Just a motorcycle,” he reminds me and I nod, taking the box of salt and starting to make another pile on my wrist.
“I like your motorcycle,” I say, not looking him in the eyes.
“I like you like this… the darkness. It suits you. You’re like… some sort of dark Queen or something.” I laugh. “No… no I’m serious. You are just… dangerous, Love. I mean… I misjudged you…” He takes another swig of tequila and passes me the bottle.
“Misjudged?” I say the word like a question but I can’t remember what it means. I want to grasp the concept but it’s not quite within my mental capacity to reach it. It sounds funny.
“The blonde you… before, you were so righteous I couldn’t see it. But you’ve got power, Love. It’s thrumming underneath your skin, I can feel it when you brush against me, when we dance, when we fight. He tried to tame you, but that’s impossible, and that, Love, is why you ran. You’re wild. Ain’t no taming that and before you blame me, it’s not something anyone did to you. It’s who you are.” He is inches away from my face but I don’t recall when he got there. His lilac irises are burning into me. I snort and laugh, throwing my ladylike behaviour to the wind.
“You’re so full of shit,” I push him back and he looks disappointed, a cool mask of reserve sliding in quickly. I don’t have it in me to care; the tequila is taking up too much room in my head.
“And you are battered, Love.”
“What does that even mean? Battered. Such a guttural… manly word,” I repeat the words, swinging my head from side to side to a silent song nobody can hear but me.
“Drunk, Love. I know, you don’t have to tell me my British accent is an incredible turn on. Especially when I use words you don’t understand.”
“Do you put tequila in your tea in England then?” I ask him with mock seriousness, more giggles explode from my lips.
“Not all British people like tea you know. I notice you aren’t an obese mess, sitting on a couch on her front lawn with a shot gun,” he takes another swig from the bottle, which is starting to look rather empty. I want to cry.
“But you like tequila,” I remind him and he smirks.
“Everyone likes tequila, Love. Even the Queen.”
“So if you love tequila so much… why did you only bring one bottle?” I ask him and he gestures for me to lean in closer. I move forward and he puts his lips close to the shell of my ear, his breath hot.
“Who says I only brought one?” With that he is gone. I smirk to myself biting into a rogue bit of lime that has been left, wrapped up in the plastic bag. The zest is incredible and my mind is blurred, soaking in spirits that are apparently happier than my own.
Vex returns, another bottle and another plastic bag in hand.
“How many of those do you have in that bike seat?” I ask him looking surprised.
“Enough to get even me drunk… and to kill you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask him and he smirks, sitting back once more on the arm of the chair. His head against the wall, he unscrews the bottle, handing it to me. I like its fullness; the glass is cooling to my touch.
“You are a lightweight, love. But that’s to be expected, you’re a twiglet,” he brushes my arm with his fingers.
“Hey!” I slap his hand away, glugging more of the salty burn into my gullet.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’d love a taste. Just say the word, Love.”
“What is, ‘The Word’?” I ask him, coming up close to him and feeling my skin heat.
“Hmmm… that’s a good question. What do you want it to be?” He asks me, taking my bottle from me and screwing the lid back on. I ponder this for a moment before pulling on the only word I can think of.
“Tequila.”
Vex laughs.
A few hours later and the house is starting to clear. The music has been pretty low key for the last thirty minutes, and Vex and I sit, tequila bottles strewn around us and empty with salt spilled out, looking not unlike cocaine. I look at them and pout, poor, empty bottles. Someone needs to fill them up. It’s no fun being empty.
“You alright, Love?” Vex asks me again, he keeps asking me this and I keep nodding.
“It’s so sad. They’re so empty,” I reply in a murmur and he laughs.
“I’m not giving you anymore, Pet. Not if I want you to remain conscious.”
“Do you?” I ask him with a wry smile and he laughs.
“Yeah, you’re not bad company for a priss.”
“Why thank you, Vexy, you’re not bad company for a per… perverted murderer,” I pat him on the arm with a floppy hand and puff air out of my cheeks, a sudden and unfamiliar biological urge hitting me. I hadn’t felt this way in a while. “I need to pee,” I announce to him and he snorts.
“I’m not giving you permission, Love. Bathroom is through there,” he points at the double glass doors that lead into the kitchen space of the house. I climb out of the chair, my legs betraying me completely. I stumble, feeling the room spinning and my vision becoming cloudy.
I move through the glass doors, pushing both of them open in a dramatic flair not unlike a movie star’s entrance onto the red carpet. That’s when I see it. Something terrifying.
“Callie?” The voice is all too familiar and is then echoed by somebody who I had never ever expected to see again, let alone when I looked like this.
“Hey, Mollie. Chloe,” I nod to them and they gape, looking so stupidly human that I want to physically push their mouths closed.
Mollie is sat on some guy’s lap and Chloe is standing in some extremely skimpy attire over by the sink with a beer in her hand.
“Oh that’s right! You guys know each other! How could I forget!” The guy who’s lap Mollie is sat on perks up at the drama and I realise I know him, too. Of course, it’s Daryl. Right in the middle of an awkward sandwich, of my old life and new, is where he seems to belong somehow.
“What the hell happened to her?” Chloe asks Mollie and I turn to her.
“I’m right here. Why don’t you ask me yourself?” I snap at Chloe and she recoils, I wonder if my eyes are completely blackened, do I look horrifying? Like some hideous monster? I retreat slightly, afraid of myself reflected in her flinching and stiff posture. “Sorry,” I mumble and she rolls her eyes.
“Whatever. You’re so weird.” She takes a swig of her beer and I roll my eyes. Still classic Chloe.
I turn to Mollie, I want to say something, explain myself, b
ut my brain is foggy from the drink and what could I possibly say. Really sorry I stopped being your friend because I ran off with a merman? Ummm… maybe not.
Daryl reaches around for a second and kisses the side of Mollie’s neck, she giggles and as someone opens the back door a cold draft of air knocks my brain into overdrive and out of Tequila-Land, something within me clicks into place.
“Mollie can you come here please?” I ask her calmly, Daryl’s lips slide back over razor sharp teeth and his pupils turn to black.
“Why?” She looks at me, her beetle black eyes so innocent. After everything I’ve done to her; disappearing, leaving a bruised and bloody Daryl on the beach house floor after he attacked me, and vanishing again with no trace. She is still as warm toward me as ever. I really did have a true friend in her. I love her for that, it’s true, but not enough to want her to have immortal life.
“Please?” I feel my pulse heighten, blood thudding in my ears and Daryl catches my eye and smiles.
“Nah, I’m good here,” she says.
Don’t be stupid. Oh wait, she’s human. I think.
I don’t want to cause a scene so I turn on my heel and exit the room moving back into the living space where Vex is sat, lighting a cigarette.
“Can you come with me a sec?” I ask him and he raises his eyebrows.
“Bugger, I just lit up… can’t it wait? I’ve been waiting to find a lighter for bloody weeks now, Love,” he pleads with me, the alcohol still clearly making him fuzzy.
“Daryl is about to kill my friend,” I say and his eyes narrow.
“So?” He says before inhaling and then blowing smoke into my face. I cough slightly.
“So, I’d really rather he didn’t kill her.”
“He’s a Psiren, Love, it’s what we do,” he looks at me, something pitying behind his irises.
“Do you want me to kill Darius? I’m pretty sure that Solustus would be pissed,” he shrugs but leans forward, stowing the lit cigarette behind his ear.
“Fine, I’ll handle it,” he gets up, kicking an empty tequila bottle against the wall so hard it smashes. The drink clearly hasn’t lulled his violent side.
“Darius old friend!” He bursts through the glass doors, placing the cigarette in the side of his mouth.
“Yes, Vex? What is it? Out of lager?” He paraphrases the British word for beer, I know he’s making fun of Vex.
“Nah, mate. I just wanted to say I think we should go, it’ll be sunrise in a few hours and the calibre of women here… well, I mean look at ‘em,” he turns to Chloe, “Go put some clothes on, Love. You look like a street walker.” He gestures to her and she storms out, looking embarrassed and frightened at his forwardness.
I look at Vex, his muscles straining against the thin cotton of his black shirt, which is speckled with salt. He takes another puff on his cigarette, moving to address Mollie.
“As for you, you don’t want to get into it with this guy. I mean, look at Callie… that’s what happens if you get involved with a guy who just wants to get you under him. Has he even taken you on a date?”
“No...” She mumbles fidgeting.
“Well then, what do you think he’s here for? Cookies?” He raises his eyebrows and I want to roll on the floor laughing. Brutal honesty has never been so funny.
Mollie rises and moves away, one step, then another until she’s out of Daryl’s reach. I relax as I hear her footsteps following Chloe’s out of the front door. I hear it slam and exhale heavily. Daryl doesn’t move to go after her, fully aware that if he tries anything me and Vex will have him on the floor with a smashed up face in seconds. I stand over him as he stays sat on the chair and he looks up at me.
“You’re a real bitch you know that?” He spits at me. With those words Vex shifts, moving and slamming his fist into Daryl’s nose. He is knocked back onto the floor, laying splayed out and bleeding on top of the chair which aided his fall.
“Hey. Nobody calls her a bitch but me.”
Together, we walk from the almost totally empty house, Vex’s arm slung around me, not because I’m his, but because it’s comfortable. We clamber onto the bike in silence, unified in fury. I wrap my arms around Vex as we leave Daryl and Tiberius behind, making our way into the dark, alone.
The night hadn’t been whatever I was expecting, and after everything was said and done I still haven’t managed to go pee.
CALLIE
For lack of a better place to go, Vex pulls the bike up to the edge of the sand, facing the beach from where we came. My stomach is churning and my head is clearing from the air of the night, which has been running through my hair on our journey here. We dismount in silence, shocked slightly at our unity in front of Daryl and Tiberius. Since when had Vex done anything that didn’t directly benefit him?
“Why did you save my friend?” I ask him timidly. He sits down in the sand, lighting up another cigarette and taking a few puffs. I sit down next to him, stripping off my shoes, which are starting to pinch because they belonged to a dead woman. They aren’t mine.
“Couldn’t have you whining at me,” he sighs out and I narrow my eyes. He seems irritable.
“Why do you think it is okay to kill people?” I ask him and he looks at me, surprised.
“Have you seen me kill anyone?”
“You’re part of an army built specifically to kill the mer, what do you expect that means Vex? That you’re going to send them cookies?” I snap, pulling on his metaphor from earlier.
“That’s different,” he looks out to sea, at the darkness of the horizon.
“Why is it different?”
“Because it’s justified,” he looks at me and blows smoke in my face.
“How? How is it justified?” I am desperately curious as to his answer. I hadn’t ever considered the Psirens as people, with motivation behind their actions, I had always just assumed they were soulless killers.
“The mer, you don’t deserve to live the way you do. All the luxuries and jewels, Love. I mean you cry diamonds for God’s sake. It isn’t right. Especially not while we’re stuck in the darkness. Why should you get to be on top, because some Goddess says so? We belong in that city, we’re stronger. The world would stand a better chance with us as protectors,” he looks me directly in the eye, his lilac irises burn with passion for the cause he’s been fed.
“Who told you this?” I ask him and he inhales more smoke.
“Mother,” the single word I had been expecting passes between us. They have power, more than the mer know and it is because the Psiren children she had created believed they were the rightful occupants of the Occulta Mirum. I puff out air.
“Would you believe me if I told you that’s not true?” I ask him and he shakes his head.
“After what you’ve told me about bloody Onion head I’m more sure it’s true than ever.” I nod. He’s never going to believe he’s been fed a load of lies.
“The mer aren’t bad people. They dedicate their whole existence to saving this earth. If you think Solustus will have you do the same. He won’t,” I say absent minded, pushing my feet out against the sand.
“Of course you’re going to say that, Love, you were one of them. I saw you at that coronation, it didn’t look like you were defending much of anything, except the jobs of seamstresses everywhere,” he laughs and I smile at him.
“You’re not seeing the whole picture here, Vex. I’ve seen Orion and his father take down demons, defend humans. They’re not bad people.” I think back to the first time I’d ever seen a demon and Orion and Atlas moving in streams of bubbles and disabling the beast. They had been incredible.
“They kill Psirens. You aren’t telling me people like that are good?”
“What if Psirens are the threat to humans?”
“We don’t do anything to humans that’s bloody awful, Pet. We hurt them, but only for a moment. Then they’re free… for eternity.” I think for a moment, observing the level of indoctrination in the mind of the Psiren sitting next t
o me for the first time.
“I’m sorry this happened to you,” I make the statement unwillingly, the words falling out of my mouth like vomit.
“Don’t be. When I died. It was bloody beautiful.”
“It…was?” I ask him and he nods.
“She was there, in the middle of a crowd of people at a party on this beach. She was encased in scarlet silk, real clingy. I saw her and that was it. I couldn’t have pulled away if I’d wanted to, and I didn’t want to. She sang to me, she took me in her arms and it was like I belonged you know? She bit into me… and I was home.” I hear his story. It doesn’t sound awful. He offers me a puff on his cigarette and I shake my head.
“Sounds a lot nicer than when I died,” I admit and he laughs.
“When you were in that ritual?”
“Well… both times I suppose. Being The vessel hasn’t been easy,” I remember my life slipping from me, the freedom I had felt after it was gone.
“The vessel, what’s that, Love?”
“I can absorb the powers of other mer,” I explain to him and he frowns slightly.
“You are powerful. I was right,” he looks away from me again and continues to smoke. The silence envelops us for a few moments until a disturbance of the shimmering surface of the water breaks the dreamy pause.
It’s small, barely a speck in the macrocosm of the surface’s sparkle, but I know that it’s the face of someone I haven’t seen in a while. Someone whose face I’ve been trying to forget. I freeze, my blood coursing through me like an icy river, rushing at uncontrollable speed.
“What?” Vex senses my unease and follows my gaze, which is glued to the dark break in the moon’s half reflection. I feel a breeze at my back. I know it’s him calling to me. He doesn’t need the air to summon me though. My adrenaline level spikes, icy blood at the mere thought of him is enough, and I hate him for it.
“It’s him. He’s here,” I whisper, feeling my heart pound at the thought of another heavyweight fight. I swallow momentarily as Vex snorts.
“Onion head?” He throws his cigarette butt into the sand. I follow it’s trail as it smoulders to black.
The Kiss That Saved Me (The Tidal Kiss Trilogy Book 2) Page 20
