The Kiss That Saved Me (The Tidal Kiss Trilogy Book 2) (33 page)

“So you want me to give her a little time in the vents. See what happens?”

“Yes, brother. We need answers. I want that seal unlocked, serving under
him…
that crowned fool, I’m about this close to ripping throat out,” Saturnus looks grim. He’s brave, at least I don’t have to act. He’s the Occulta Mirum’s greatest kept secret, a Psiren,
the
Psiren right in their midst. He plays his role as though it were true. I certainly wouldn’t have the patience.

“Speaking of the seal, have you noticed any changes?” I ask him this question in a quick, clipped tone, it’s something I always ask and it repetitively sparks his rage.

“I’ve been sat on top of this damn thing ever since Regus erected the Alcazar Oceania around it over three hundred years ago. Trust me, Solustus, if there had been a change, I’d have already told you about it. Why don’t you do yourself a favour and desist on asking every
single
time we have these meetings? Incompetence is not my forte,” he narrows his eyes, so damn volatile, it’s a wonder he
hasn’t
killed Orion yet.

“Apologies, I was just being diligent,” I bow my head, a sign of respect.
 

“Apology accepted. To be honest, I’m grateful nothing has shifted. The second the seal starts becoming active, my role in all this will become clear. I need the information from the Beast before we can move into the next phase.” I nod at him, twisting my mouth slightly.

 
I relish the thought of the next phase, when we will shed the blood of the mer and take the city that is rightfully ours. After all, it is built upon the resting place of The Necrimad, Poseidon’s most powerful child. Made from all the darkness he didn’t think I could handle. I shudder, trying not to remember the day his angered expression had come to the forefront of my psyche, screaming at me to desist in the murder. He drained some of my power, giving me my mind, my consciousness back. I hate him for that. These thoughts move through my head at an accelerated speed, my intelligence surpassing that of a mere mortal.
 

“Where is the girl?” Saturnus asks, suddenly curious.

“Out with Vexus. He’s helping her find her inner demons.”

“I wonder if she’ll ever be controllable. She is a loose cannon. The imbecile cannot rule, it’s a joke. He’s running after her like a schoolboy. It’s a shame she doesn’t realise just how much power she has,” Saturnus muses, a sharp prick of anxiety seeds in my heart, the kind only the judgement of a brother can plant.

“Let’s hope it stays that way,” I mutter, wondering now if it is such a wise move to acquaint her with her inherited Psiren darkness after all.

“I have to go brother. There’s another demon approaching the city limits and The Knights are asking for my assistance. I must leave,” he looks over his shoulder, clearly distracted by something.
 

“Very well. I’ll contact you again if the girl manages to yield answers,” I nod at him, reassuring him of my future success. He vanishes as a grey mist falls over his end of the looking glass. I turn away from the mirror’s reflective silver with a smile. I will have answers.

CALLIE

Pain, followed by pleasure, melding into a torrent of dark eyes, fingertips, and jagged, grazing teeth. A fight between two equally matched, hungry animals, clawing, biting, and scrapping for everything they can get. Vex is like a toy, a man-sized, sexually errant toy with the stamina of a prized black stallion. My fingertips spark electricity, coursing through the alabaster taught of his skin. He moans, hands behind his head…

“You are… wild,” he pants, his compliment washing over me like warm water, this is the fifth time he’s passed these words in a matter of hours. I feel the power of his appreciation flow through me, out of my fingertips and into his neurons, causing him to climb to the height of ecstasy against any remaining will of his own.
 

We had already destroyed the desk, wallpaper had been torn and scrunched in sweating, desperate palms, and the television had been smashed in the ferocious haze of seizing forbidden fruit. My pupils are fully dilated, light pouring in from the surrounding shadow and my lips throb, plumped and raw. I realise now that Titus
is
with me. I have his magic, his ability to manipulate electricity. I know now how he became so dark, because in watching Vex beneath my hands, it’s easy to picture myself making him bend to my whim, causing him pain, making him submit. I don’t love Vex, I just want him like a starving man wants meat, raw and succulent to taste. It’s easier that way. Easier than it had been with Orion. So maybe the whole soulmate thing had been a load of bull.

Everything I had been afraid of, the darkness, the power, his touch, belongs to me now. He had given it to me along with the confidence to take control over another person, over my life, in a world where Gods and Goddesses seem to have the only power over the drift and tug of life and its final destination. The power isn’t like I had thought, it’s better, a drug stronger than any venom coursing through me, making me invincible.

 
Maybe that makes me evil, maybe evil is just subjective; a word thought up by people who don’t have power and need to justify being so weak. Regardless, the power was an immovable part of me now.
 

It’s
mine.

  
AZURE

The back of my skull is still tender from where my brother thrust me backward into the wall outside the small council chambers. The look on his face, the anger there, pissed me off… and I can’t for the life of me work out why.
 

I had been going over it in my mind for days... and I am done. I’m headed for the outskirts of the city, and this time I’m not coming back. I’m so tired of this crap, no wonder his soulmate had up and left him. He deserved it.
 

I bite my lip, feeling my heart palpitate slightly.
 

No. He didn’t
. A tiny whisper, a tiny slither of something resembling what had once been my moral compass, has somehow navigated the inky waters of my mind, surfacing unexpectedly.
 

Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m still going.
I think to myself, allowing a reprieve in the pattern I had sought for comfort all these years,
attack, recoil, retreat.
 

I turn, reaching the outer limits of the bowl holding the city, looking back on it. The glimmer is all too familiar, the light seeping in from the surface too bright, but something about it holds my attention, not permitting me to look away. Her face wanders into my mind, like it always does at moments like this;
Starlet
. Her name a cursed prayer, carried on currents; those same currents that allowed my compass, long lost and broken, to surface once more.
 

I can see The Knights, floating as a unit on the city limits, Orion must have called them back after his return from seeing Callie again. I had heard rumours that demons were roaming these waters once more, but I figured, like I usually do in these types of life and death situations, that it’s really none of my business.
 

I think back to Callie’s face, the contortion, the twist in her soul that had allowed Titus to step in. I understand that more than anyone.
 

I frown slightly, rising and then sink to the sand, perching on the edge of the sandy slopes, surveying the city. The feeling I have toward Callie isn’t one I expected and it makes me wonder, as I look down over the mer, over their pitiful attempts at beating back the dark, why I don’t envy her, but rather find pity for her.
 

I think back to the night Titus had turned me, made me what I am. It’s all so foggy, so grey and withered, like something rotting, that I can’t quite remember whether I had given anything like consent. I remember him shooting me up with venom from a Lionfish, something he always had on hand from Caedes. I wonder now if consent from my drugged lips would even count under those circumstances... I mean, I probably would have said yes to anything.
 

It is perhaps the first time ever, that I have looked at what happened to me from my father’s view. I was taken from him. I didn’t swim away. It was something that happened
to
me, not something I had become by choice. All this time I always thought Titus had given me a gift, which is perhaps why Starlet thought that my leaving her was a choice. She had been in my head the whole time, seeing fragments of my degradation. That makes it all the worse.
 

I run my fingers along my arms, shivering at the gentle friction of my long nails across the white of my skin. It’s true, I had loved Titus, but like with Callie, he had infected me. I hadn’t asked to be bitten, he had just done it. No questions, no asking. Just an act that had changed the course of my fate.

I will never be the same. My lust for power, for darkness, is too great to ever leave me. I know that now. I wonder why I had returned here, why I hadn’t just become nomadic, been free, not bound to any one place.
 

I find my eyes lingering on the tall, smooth glass spire of the Alcazar Oceania, my heart constricting. I let my defences drop, for just a moment, allowing myself to admit the truth. I had returned here, I had saved the mer in spite of myself, because the ties that bind me to her had never really fallen away. I have family here, family who desperately need a leader, someone strong to hold them together. My father is gone, that’s true, but this is my home.
 

A thought that’s not quite guilty, but curious occurs to me. I wonder now if Atlas would still be swimming around in his throne room, muttering to himself and looking over the Kingdom if it hadn’t been for me. For my allegiance to a man whose heart was black as sin. I should have just killed Titus while his back was turned, or while he was passed out high. It would have been better for everyone. If nothing else, I know now that despite my being immortal, that does not mean I won’t one day be sand, drifting along the sea floor.
 

The light from above sparkles, torturing me with the promise of atonement. It’s all just too taboo, the idea of being…
good.
The word feels sticky, like my tongue is covered in syrup at the mere thought of uttering it. Could I even be better? Be different? Or am I too far gone?

I ask myself these questions, but I know that forgiving myself won’t be the problem, I love myself. In spite of the fact I probably shouldn’t. Self-loathing has never been a part of my character. I’m far too strong for that.
 

I know now, as I sit and ponder, the reason that I can’t bring myself to leave and the reason I can’t quite bear to stay.
 

I want to see forgiveness in
her
eyes, because if she can still love me like a sister after all this time, then maybe I’m not so bad after all.

I’ve been skulking in the doorway for hours. I don’t know what possessed me to do such a thing or to even come back. I should definitely have vanished into the deep, never to return. But I didn’t, and now I’m here.