Chapter 50 Purify Mermad´s energies
Chapter 50 Purify Mermad´s energies
W
hen I couldn’t drive anymore, I settled us into a motel. The first thing that bitch did was build her pillow wall to separate the two sides, but
she didn’t moan and groan about going so far away we needed a room, so that, at least, was a step in the right direction.
I stared at that wall of pillows, wanting nothing more than to flick a bottom one out and collapse the whole structure. A nightly thought since she started doing it. I’d hoped by now she’d be sick of building it every night, but it never failed.
I peeked between two pillows to watch her sleep. She scratched at my mark and whimpered in pain. She had nightmares every night, and every night I fought the urge to tie her up or whatever would settle her nerves.
“Kam,” she cried out for me, her pretty features twisting in agony.
“I’m right here, Mal,” I promised her like I did every night, and she sighed in relief. Her fingers twitched to find me, but she relaxed into a deeper sleep before she could.
Right as the scent of salt water filled the air, Maleene’s face jerked up from her cell phone wide-eyed and finally studied her surroundings. A melody that I instantly recognized poured from Maleene’s lips. A sound of yearning, yet excitement. I once asked her why she did that whenever she went near the ocean and Maleene explained Ocio was always singing. The song changed based on her mood, but the singing never stopped.
“The Pacific,” she said when she realized. “I’m not going to Atlantica.”
“No one mentioned Atlantica.” I snorted. The last thing I wanted was to deal with her sisters. “Just a vacation.”“I haven’t touched the sea in…” I waited for her to finish, without inserting that if she had to think that hard, it had been too fucking long. “Kaylen was a toddler. Under Ocio’s command, I took him to The Meg Cave, so he could receive her favor.”
“You rejected your goddess,” I whispered. We were so close to the sea, she might hear me and take out her wrath on Mal.
“I wasn’t rejecting her. She knows that,” Mal whispered, too. “You were rejecting me.” I realized.
“Avoiding.” She sighed. “If you truly left me then, my pride couldn’t bear to think I went looking for you. I made excuses for the first couple of years. You’re primordial, you don’t feel time the same way. Maybe you didn’t realize how long you’d been gone. Then a decade passed, and I wrangled back and forth with myself. Then the bond turned into a frail little thread of nothing, and Kaylen looked at me and smiled with that stupid fucking grin of yours… I expected a snap or crack when it broke, but my soul shattered into a billion pieces instead.”
What could I say to that? I’m sorry? Sorry would never fix the pain she felt or the agony she endured. I couldn’t buy roses or chocolate to make it go away. I couldn’t use nails and a hammer to repair the damage.
“I understand.” Stupid.
Go fuck yourself would have been a better response.
Her shriek shattered the windshield right on a curve and managed to make my ears ring. I’d developed a tolerance for the sound over the years, but that one was for the books. I pulled off to the side of the road to avoid the cars now slamming into each other. We’d been lucky. She completely destroyed our windshield, but for the car coming the opposite way, she cracked theirs to shit until the driver couldn’t see.
They hit the car behind us when they swerved. We fled the scene, and I parked in an empty house’s driveway, jacked the tarp from the garage, and put it over the car. “Let’s go. The car is under an alias, right?”
“You should have just left me at the compound,” she hissed. I grabbed her hand and dragged us towards the beach.
“These are on me,” I barked at her. “It’s not your fault.”
If I hadn’t stupidly let my pride test what I already knew. If I hadn’t been so shitty at resolving conflict. I could never ask her to be someone she
wasn’t. Maleene was the sea. A wild force of roaring waves and extreme weather. If I disrupted the equilibrium, that was my fault. The closer she was to the ocean, the more the sea controlled her. The thunderstorm rolling overhead and the heaving waves were proof that Mal was being taken by the tide. I led us the short distance to the cabin I rented us for when we needed it. I unlocked the door with the code, but she ran to the ocean, peeling off layers as she went.
She kicked off her boots and stepped ankle-deep into the water. She lifted her head back and sang a soft tune of relief and comfort. I set our bags inside and locked it back up. She floated on her back and let the change take her. Her milky pale legs fused and blue sequin-like scales coated them until her tail flared off. The sea visibly calmed as she sang her song.
I walked in after her and pulled off the skirt she forgot about. That way, her gloriousness could shine in the sunlight unhindered. That was her cue to roll and dive deeper into the water. I followed, sinking into Ocio’s embrace. It had been too long.
I took a deep breath, letting her flood my lungs and drown out the memories of a dark, warded cell. Once the freedom Ocio promised filled me, I shifted into my beast form.
For all her shit-talking about Ocio, Maleene was ecstatic. She darted around the ocean floor like a child in a candy store. I’d spared no expense to get us a private cove tucked away from any hoopla the humans would be causing further down on the beaches. When I saddled up beside her, she went still and sunk onto my back.
Her cool skin seeped into my soul and eased the part of me that needed her touch. The fact that she’d taken up her old sleeping position was frosting on top. I let us drop down until my belly rested on the seafloor and before I knew it I was lights out.
I blinked awake when I sensed movement in the water. Something big enough that my instincts considered it a threat. The sun goddess wasn’t awake anymore and everything was dark. I glanced up and realized it wasn’t that there was anything big. It was a ton of humans up at the surface. The humans moved their party down here. Great.
“We could just stay here,” Maleene’s words bubbled.
There was too much that could go wrong. I wanted to stay here too. We’d been separated from our element for too long. Most likely none of them
would delve this deep, but there was always that chance some idiot would find us.
Maleene slid down my face to grin her evil smirk. “I have an idea.”
She shot up to the surface, and I followed to linger under her. She broke the surface and shrieked. “Shark!”
“Bullshit,” someone yelled back.
I swam up, letting the tip of my fin go over the waves. And nudged my nose against the brilliant woman’s back.