The Kiss That Saved Me (The Tidal Kiss Trilogy Book 2) (30 page)

“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 to 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.

“Yeah,” I turn back to the ocean and see that the speck of black is gone. I guess he’s waiting for me underneath. I get to my feet reluctantly.

“What are you doing?” I look back at Vex as his eyebrow stands at its usual angle, cocked.

“I’m going in there.”

“Why?”

“Because if I don’t, he won’t leave.”
 

“Why? Why do you care?” Vex asks me and I stop in the middle of pulling off my leather pants.

“I…” I start but I can’t answer the question. Why do I care? Orion turned his back on me because he couldn’t force me into an expectation carved over hundreds of years. He’s just the kind of man you can’t change. He’s too old, too set in his ways. I don’t owe him anything. My black hair falls forward and I relish the shadow it casts on my face. I’m not the same girl I had been the last time he had seen me. I’m not his girl anymore.
 

But wouldn’t it be nice to make sure he knew it.
 

The whisper is back, small and in the back of my subconscious. Not so foreign now, melded in with my own wants and desires, I listen to it.

“I’ve got something I need to say. I need to set the record straight. I need him to see I’m playing for the other side, let him see my power.” Vex’s face is surprised, more surprised than I’ve ever seen him in fact. I smile to myself slightly, I enjoy being the opposite of what he expects.

“Alright, Love, but I’m coming with. Don’t want you getting kidnapped now do we?” He begins to get undressed alongside me, the wind whipping around our chilled bodies. I feel myself shake slightly at the thought of seeing Orion, but it’s not nerves. It’s determination, fuelled by my rage.

The warm water sloshes over my limbs as I descend, letting my tail return, scales running upward from my toes and binding my legs together in an onyx scaled seal. The aquamarine is long gone, no traces left, the darkness having leeched into my physical self, as well as my mind. I move into the dim navy of the water, seeing the icy blue of the eyes I can’t get out of my head.

“Callie…” I hear my name from Orion, he sounds like someone has winded him, kicked him in the chest and taken his breath away, but behind that breathlessness anger stirs. I can tell this isn’t going to be pleasant, and momentarily wonder if I should have bothered coming to speak with him at all.

“Yes,” I snap out.

“You look…. Awful,” he rubs the back of his neck as his form comes into view. My Psiren sight allows me to see through the dark of the water and my tail stirs. The water at this depth is nothing, easier to swim through than air.

“Gee thanks, so nice of you to say so.” I feel the water at my back stir and I know Vex is moving in behind me.

“What is that…
thing
doing here. Did he hurt you?” Orion’s chest is puffing out, trying to assert dominance, ownership over something he discarded.

“No. I want him here. He’s my friend,” I say the words and I feel Vex’s eyes on my face as he moves in beside me. Orion’s expression contorts, his statuesque beauty taking on a hardness that makes him look stunningly cruel.

“Your friend? It isn’t your
friend,
Callie. It has tentacles. It’s just a cold, dead
thing,
” he looks disgusted.

“Hey, mate! I’m right here you know.” I hear Vex complain and I feel a smug smile crawl over my face.

“He’s my friend, Orion,” I repeat the statement and Orion’s eyes bulge even further. I almost want him to keep acting like a jackass, it makes him easier to hate, it makes it easier to remind myself of why we can’t, nor should, be together.

“Callie, listen to me,” Orion comes forward through the water in one jerk movement, it stems in continuous undulation from the tip of his fin to his waist. I let myself hang in the darkness, looking into his face, into what lies behind the disgust at the darkness within me, the normal underlay of worry and fear is still there. “This isn’t
you,
Callie
.
Titus, when you died, when he died, something happened. His soul latched on to you, or you absorbed it… or something,” his words surprise me, not the apology nor the condemnation I had been prepared for. But an answer. An answer to the voice in my head.
 

I go to exclaim in reply but Vex pipes up as I inhale.

“Don’t give her that, you just can’t stand a woman who has more power than you. This is her decision. She chose to stop bending over for you. You just can’t take it,” he snarls the words and I wonder what is motivating his rage towards Orion.

“Pfft. What would you know about her?” Orion snorts.

“More than you, Nancy boy.” Vex moves forward, his tentacles curling and recoiling.

“Look, stop!” I call out and both of the seething men turn to look at me. Orion looks somewhat ashamed and I square up to him. “You need to leave.” I feel the sentiment roll out of my mouth, like a wave. It drenches Orion in the chill of my rejection and I watch him sigh.

“You’re choosing him?” He looks at Vex and I shake my head.

“No. I’m choosing me.” I look at him and he shuts both his palms into fists.

“You can’t just end this, Callie. We’re destined. We’re supposed to be together,” he spits out the sentiment and I feel Vex snigger behind me. I turn to him.

“Vex… can you just give us a minute. I’ll be back with you in a second.”

“Sure thing, Love. You just let me know if you need any…. assistance.” I feel his eyes travel over my shoulder to Orion and he smirks. God I hate men. Why is everything some kind of penile measuring competition? I stare at him, letting him know I won’t stand for anymore fighting. I need to deal with Orion in my own way. I need to let him know this is who I am now, and that he can’t just come and find me when he feels like it and screw up my night. I move back to him, folding my arms.

“Look. You can’t just do this.”

“Do what?” Orion throws a faux innocent shrug at me.
 

“You can’t just show up here. I’m not your concern anymore,” I bite out the words and Orion’s brow creases.

“You’ll always be my concern, Callie… What I said… about you leaving and not coming back… I was angry. I didn’t mean it,” he puffs out air, blowing bubbles and looking uncomfortable.
 

“You think this is about that? Really?” I look at him exasperated. He seems so smart and yet he’s totally obtuse as to what’s going on.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”
 

“It means I’m going to lay this out for you, one last time.” I run my fingers through my stiff mermaid locks, frustrated at his determined single mindedness. “I’ve had a lot of time to think, so I’m going to tell you my thoughts. I don’t want an argument. I don’t want some bullshit show of masculine strength. I want you to listen. Then I’m going back to Vex. This isn’t a window to get me to go anywhere with you. This isn’t me bending to what you want. I just think I owe you an explanation. You don’t seem to be able to see why I’m angry, or why I need to move on. So I’m just going to lay it out for you. No holding back or lying. Okay?” I exhale after my miniature rant and Orion looks like he’s between exploding in anger or crying. I can’t tell which anymore.

“Okay.” The word comes from him, like a white flag, a show of defeat.

“Okay… Ever since we got together, a lot of stuff has happened. I get that it’s not been easy for you either and I know that I lied to you about the prophecy. I know that. The reason I didn’t tell you, is because you waited hundreds of years for me. That’s a hundred years of moulding me into what you wanted me to be in your head. You wanted me to be like every other mermaid in the Occulta Mirum.” Orion looks at me intensely and I almost melt into his eyes. Almost, but not quite. “But I’m not. I’m not a Princess or a Queen. I’m not a leader. I’m not a wife either. I’m just Callie. I don’t do what I’m told. I know this world is dangerous, but I don’t want to be sheltered. I have immortal life. So why shouldn’t I live it? I feel like you had this amazing idea of who you wanted me to be, this perfect dream of your soulmate. But that’s a dream, Orion. I can never be that girl. I am flawed and despite looking far from it, I am human. I have darkness in me, especially now if what you say about Titus is true,” I take a breath and Orion’s eyes are wide.

“I see,” he whispers.

“The thing is, I do love you. If you’d have just given it some time. Waited for me to get comfortable and settled, let us work on the things that needed work, marriage wouldn’t have been such a big step for me. But you couldn’t wait. It was just your way of pushing me into this mould you’d created. That’s not the way I want to be married, or loved,” I say this and I think he finally understands. His eyes are glazed and his form is still, frozen under the power of my harsh words.

“And the boy?” He gestures to where Vex has retreated to.

“Vex is my friend. He doesn’t expect anything of me and he trusts in me enough to know that I can look after myself. I’m happier when he’s around right now,” I say the last word and Orion looks like he might start becoming the source of Tiffany’s next season collection. I want to comfort him. Apologise. I know I’ve done wrong too. This isn’t all his fault.
 

Still a tiny and now recognisably Psiren voice is whispering in my head,
you’ve just got to be selfish, this isn’t about him. It’s about you. You deserve to be powerful, be unstoppable, it’s what you were made for.

 
I shake my head slightly, the black ribbons of my hair flowing outward in the shallow waters of the shoreline.

“I had better go, and please Orion. Don’t come after me again. I’m a big girl. If I get into any trouble, I know it’s my problem. I’ll fix it,” I breathe out and his eyes harden into two icy shards.

“I know. I get now that you don’t need anyone,” he looks at me with scorching condemnation. “I’m done waiting.”
 
He turns and disappears into the dark blue of the night’s seething waters.
 

His last words sting me, I can’t deny it. But instead of allowing them to swallow me and consume me, bring hardening tears to my eyes, I turn and head back to Vex.