The Kiss That Saved Me (The Tidal Kiss Trilogy Book 2) (35 page)

“Yeah… I know,” I admit, not wanting to think on the amount of action I haven’t taken.
 

“You know, Orion. Father always thought you could do this. He wouldn’t have told me so if he didn’t,” Starlet puts her hand on my shoulder. She’s being so kind and it’s completely freaking me out.
 

“Azure… What did you do to Starlet? I think she’s being… nice!” I give a pretend gasp and Azure covers her mouth to stop herself from laughing. I can tell their relationship is on new, very thin ice at her self-consciousness.

“Oh shut up! Hell, I always thought I’d make a good ruler. Give me that damn thing!” Starlet reaches for the crown and I swat her hand away.

“Oh, so you don’t want any of the responsibility, but the pretty hat you’ll take?” Azure cocks an eyebrow at me and Starlet laughs again. Moving back with one simple undulation of her magenta tailfin, she looks cool and collected once more.

“I suppose I don’t have much of a choice with the responsibility. Everyone is looking to me for answers, and I’m just trying not to get everyone killed,” I shrug and Starlet frowns slightly, a serious mood befalling the scene far too quickly.
 

“Orion, there are things here beyond your control, but there is also a lot
within
it,” Azure pipes up slightly, her eyes sparkling. I wonder how much of the darkness within her is thinking about ripping the crown off my head for real.

“Meaning?” I ask her, crossing my arms attentively.

“Well… I was with the Psiren’s for a long time. I know how they think. While you’ve been spending your time decorating ballrooms and throwing parties… you know what they’ve been doing?” She starts to swim lengths, a furious whirlwind of acute thought, coming to life. She’s always been smart, been observant, it’s a wonder I hadn’t thought to put her to use before this. She looks at me… answering her own question. “Preparing for this war that you’re all so determined isn’t going to happen.” She looks serious again.

“So you’re saying we’re not doing enough?”

“I’m saying you’re comfortable… a predator with enough food and a warm bed can’t evolve, Orion… it turns into a house cat.” I realise she’s right.

 
We do drills, we train, but there haven’t been demons for over a century. The last time the Psirens had been in the city they had murdered so many… How strong would they be now that they’ve had an extra five months to train, recruit more?

“We’ve gotten lazy,” I nod at Azure, her dark hair looks sleek as Starlet grabs her hand, calming the flurry of passion that had sparked her little speech. She’s scared Azure is going to turn back to the dark, that she’ll lose her again. I am free of that now. Thank goodness. “We need to start evolving again. Or this is going to turn into a bloodbath.”

“Yes,” they both nod in unison. A twin thing that has always been eerie.

“Will you help?” I ask them both and they look startled.

“You want our help?” Starlet asks me, looking proud.

“Of course.”

“But we’re only maidens…” She continues. “What will Saturnus think?” Her fear of him is evident. I wonder what he’s said to her to make her so unsure of herself. Azure looks at her with a confused, but slightly angry expression.

“You’re not
only
maidens, Star. Nor will you ever be. You’re my sisters. The blood of the Crowned Ruler runs through you two and Azure has particular knowledge which will be incredibly useful.” She looks at me with wide eyes and I realise that some decisions of a crowned ruler can be easy. It feels right, having all of Atlas’ children helping to rule together. Suddenly I don’t feel so alone. “Come on, we’ve got some family business to attend to,” and with that decree, we get to work.

CALLIE

I open my eyes, having banished my consciousness in the dark of the night before as Vex had fallen into a sex-induced slumber. I don’t remember where I am for a moment, feeling slightly panicked, sore, and above all else: confused. I move, running my fingers through the black of the sheets. Nothing. Vex is gone.
 

I pull the sheets around myself. How long have I been out? Where the hell is he?
 

I turn, placing my feet down on the floor, the bare skin of my soles brushing against the cheap tortoiseshell pattern that sucks all light from the room. I stare over at the door in the gloom. The chair isn’t propped under the handle anymore, and a stark, white, lethal light is creeping in through the crack underneath. I know the lock is busted and I instantly worry about the owner of the motel checking the room and finding me inside.
 

I creep over slowly, as if any movement will cause me to have a panic attack, placing the metal chair beneath the door handle again, barricading myself inside.
 

I collapse against the wall next to the door, the black sheets crumpling around my body as I pull them to myself like a cornered animal. My black hair falls around my shoulders in disarray as I feel the cold air prickle at my bare skin. I shudder, alone and vulnerable.

What the hell have I done?

My limbs stretch out in front of me, extending forward from the wall next to the doorway. I examine their tenderness. I’m black and blue with bruises and bite marks all down my legs, even on my feet. Why did I let him do those things to me? Why had I done those things to him?
 

It had felt good… I can’t deny that, but it was too good, too good not to mean anything. The fact he’d left me here, vulnerable and naked, in a room with a broken lock and the sun at my back tells me exactly what it had meant to him.
 

I sigh, allowing the cold air to fill my lungs, shocking my system and letting my post-coital haze lift.

I had broken away from everything I had thought was causing the problems in my life, and yet I’m still not free, not really… who am I kidding? I’m more trapped now than I’d ever been. In a seedy motel room, caged by the light of the sun, by a man who I’d trusted with my body. I’m scared, no longer fooled with feelings of grandeur, of power; I am no more than a mouse in a mousetrap.
 

I get to my feet, feeling my joints creak in protest as I stand. Everything is sore on the outside, but my insides are numb.
 

I walk across the room, past the bed and stand in front of the double mirror, looking at myself hard. My eyes are bloodshot, really bloodshot. My skin is mapped with dark veins and my hair is black as soot, messy and knotted down my spine. My body is a paint by numbers of pleasures and pains that now haunt me… I had given in to the darkness, I had let Titus take control of me… I think. It couldn’t have been me doing those things. That’s not who I am. I know that now. I also know I’m alone. I have nobody, and that’s just what I had wanted. How stupid can you get?
 

I had only ever been with Orion, and now I have given myself to someone who doesn’t… who can’t, respect me. I have given myself willingly and mere hours after I’d ended things with somebody who had meant so much.
 

I feel dirty, like my skin is crawling with the scent of perversion, it is invisible, but just like Vex’s post-climax smoke it has crawled over me, leaving only memories behind.

 
Tears find their way into my reflection, the blacks of my eyes expanding as I watch the darkness move through me, following the regret that I am riding like a storm. I reach out to the glass, wrapped in the black sheet like some kind of gothic tragedy. The feel of the mirror on my palm is cool, hard. My reflection watches the outline of my hand as it traces over the image of my cheek, pale and spiked with black magic. I let a tear fall, the image of Orion’s face slowly passing through my mind like a dream. It hadn’t been like it was with him; it had been fuelled by careless abandon, of wanting to be free.
 
It hadn’t been right and I wonder if after this, anything would ever be again.

Oh stop whimpering. You loved it.

The voice of slithering, snake-like tongues comes to me just at the wrong moment and I snap.

“GET OUT OF MY HEAD YOU BASTARD!” I scream without restraint, slamming my fist into the mirror. It shatters. Blood trickles down my arm as pieces of the reflective glass fall into the sink below. The scarlet fluid runs down my wrist in lines. I try to mop it up but end up cutting my palm on a piece of shattered glass that’s fallen behind the basin as I move to turn the tap. I gasp,
shit
, as more blood runs down the clean white skin of my previously uninjured limb.
 

I look up momentarily and the image that greets me is like something out of a horror film. My eyes and hair are a nightmare in onyx and my arms are stained and soaked with my own blood. The fractures of the glass edges crawl outward in jagged cracks, some pieces still remaining in the mirror’s frame. The image of myself is broken, just like my insides.

I realise I don’t want to be looking at the broken image anymore; its unfaltering reality is a display of how much of a mess I am.
 

Moving briskly from the mirror, I fall into the bathroom door, my arms held upward trying to stop the blood from trickling down my limbs. The door opens and I move inside, pulling back a cheap, semi-transparent and partially mouldy shower curtain that is falling off its rings. I turn the shower on, untie the sheet I’m wrapped in, and step into the bath, the showerhead looming over me. The water is scalding, but I let it burn, surprised at how good the pressure is considering how crappy the rest of the facilities are.
 

I watch the fluid run red, my blood mixing in with it and swirling down the drain in a torrent. I sit on the floor, huddled in the corner as I let the shower beat down on me, erasing the last twelve hours from my mind. I try to let everything clear in my head and with the achievement of this come to a startling realisation. I’m responsible for the decisions that I have made. Titus is with me that’s for sure, but I had asked Vex to sleep with me, I had hopped on his bike with him, I had chosen to follow him to the rave the night we’d first met. Those were my choices. Nobody had forced me. Vex certainly hadn’t. In fact, I doubt if he would have cared much for my company at all if I hadn’t persistently hung around with him, drinking with him at the party and luring him into bed.
 

I could have gone with Daryl. But no. It was always him. And as with everything that has happened as of late, he was the wrong choice.

I have made bad decisions and there is nobody to pick me back up but me. In this moment I want so badly to feel my mother’s arms holding me, making me the baby, taking care of me and fixing all my wrongs, but she isn’t here. Orion isn’t either and now I think about it, he’s been cleaning up after me all this time. I had thought that he couldn’t love for me who I am, but perhaps the problem was that I was too immature to love myself enough to make choices that were best for me. I place my head in my hands, my black hair beaten smooth and wet by the showerhead, my palm and wrist still stinging from the glass. I guess I hadn’t really known what I was asking for when I had asked for independence. I had thought it meant doing whatever you wanted without anyone to stop you. I realise now that it’s being wise enough to stop yourself, in having maturity enough to see the consequences of your choices before you make them.
 

That takes a kind of strength no magic can give you, only time.