The Kiss That Saved Me (The Tidal Kiss Trilogy Book 2) by Kristy Nicolle Page B

to fall over my field of vision once more.

    I descend through the water that fills the palace, moving my tail gently and allowing the weight of my body to carry me downward. I know where I’m headed as I feel the pearls in my hair stir with my movement against my ears. I look down at my body and take a moment to appreciate the nautical attire. I’m wearing traditional pearl studded fish netting up my arms and around my tailfin and a gossamer lightweight halter crop top in lilac over my breast scales. It’s stylish and as much as I loved my ball gown, I’m glad I’m not carrying the weight of it any longer. I reach the throne room and find it filled with mer who have come straight from the Lunar Sanctum. They’re dressed in aquatic finery, fish-netting, pearls, and metal plating used in the most unusual designs you could imagine. As I emerge through the jade crystal archway eyes turn to me and a kind of familiar hush falls, I know this kind of hush, because as an ex high school student of America I know when people have just been talking about me. I look around and mermaids place their hands over their mouths, blushing. I turn around me and at my back is Saturnus staring right at me. What the hell are you looking at? I snarl internally at his smugly serene expression. The bruise on his jaw is gone from earlier, healed in a flash just like so many other mer injuries. I look back across the stained glass image of Atargatis that makes up the floor, the early rising sun causing spectacular kaleidoscopic light to bounce around the room, leaving rainbows in its wake. Orion sits in the place of Atlas, in the throne made from the Olive tree of his origin island, somewhere off the coast of Cyprus. I look at his face, and in all honesty he looks a little green. Can mermen get sick? God I hope he doesn’t puke in water that’s going to be a nightmare.   I think to myself as he rises. Skye comes up behind me, wrapped in decorative netting and with sea stars clinging to her tresses.
    “Go to him. Go on,” she pushes me forward and I scowl back at her, rushing to get away from her.
    “Geez, okay. God, stop manhandling me!” I snap. She frowns at me and rolls her eyes.  
    I look back around and Orion has risen from his throne, crown multihued in the light. His eyes are wide, like he’s seen a ghost and I watch his fumbling fingers.  
    “Callie…” He breathes, shaking slightly. He takes both my hands and we rise until we are around six feet above the floor. The crowd stares up at me. What the hell is going on? Did someone die or something? I look into the eyes of Saturnus curiously and notice the mermaids around the room blushing insanely. Oh Goddess… What on earth? Then it clicks and something inside me realises what’s happening before, only God knows why, Orion pushes back from me and lowers himself so the tip of his tail is touching the floor. He pulls the shell from his belt and before I can say a single word he’s opening it and speaking the words I had thought were years away. My heart falls through my chest as they hit the air, smashing my rose tinted haze so completely I feel faint.
    “Callie Pierce, you are the woman I’ve waited for, the woman I’ve longed for, and the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. Will you marry me?”  

SOLUSTUS

    It trembles. I can hear the susurrations of its blood, coursing in frantic folly around its spindled skeleton. I raise my rapier, my beautiful Scarlette, so named for the litres of blood she has spilled, the marks she has left on another, her long slender length sharper than the wit of any woman I’ve ever known. The seahorse, pitiful creature that it is, moves again as I block its path, the power of Scarlette exerting itself over its meaningless existence. I could kill it, but that would be too easy. Torture, pain, stamina; those are the real challenges. My tail is cocked over the edge of the throne in which I sit, a throne of death, a throne of bone.