A Thousand Salt Kisses Forever (Third Book in Salt Kisses series)

Total Eclipse

Llyr and I were now deep beneath the surface, enveloped by a mass of deep blue water. At times we saw little fish swarm past, but generally, we were alone.

I had chucked my clothes and phone into a rowing boat that Dad had bought recently from one of the fishermen. It had been pretty much abandoned at the bottom of the jetty ever since, and I imagined my stuff would be safe there.

We had begun our descent immediately for fear of being spotted again, and I had shifted into mer, and now wore only my tie-dye blue bikini top. It matched my glittery tail perfectly.

During my stint in the kingdoms, I had been dressed every day by three mermaids so that I could fit in. This usually had entailed a variety of natural materials, such as oyster shells, flowers and pearls, although the odd man-made item, such as a fishing net, was occasionally incorporated into my outfit. Ever since, however, in absence of my faithful maids, I had just had to make do with bikinis.

I swam closer to Llyr, pushing my tail up and down quickly to keep up with him. He had wanted to go for a swim in the pink sea gardens, apparently, they were quite spectacular this time of year. He said the leaves on the trees had turned to more of an orange shade, and the pink fruits were slowly floating away as autumn spread to the sea bed.

It sounded wonderful, and I couldn't wait to see the trees. After an hour or so, true to his word, I saw a coppery-pink mass in the distance. I had not been here for some time.

"The last time I was here was with Jasper," I said, as we neared. "And we hid behind a bush because we saw you here with Kara."

It was true. We had been horrified when we found Llyr swimming around like a zombie, under his beautiful but evil then-fiancé's spell.

Llyr grimaced. "I hate to think of such things," he said.

"So do I," I said, remembering another hideous detail about the occasion. "She was wearing sea urchins on her boobs."

Llyr bit his lip and looked at me. "I don't remember any of this," he said, disturbed.

I felt bad all of a sudden. Ever since he had spent a lot of time making it all up to me, and I had not really considered how he must actually feel about the whole thing. It must be pretty traumatic for him.

"How are you about all that, anyway?" I asked. "It must be a little... weird."

"I'm okay," he said, taking my hand. "The sea urchins sound a bit scary though," he continued, his eyebrows raised.

He really didn't remember.

"They were," I said. I decided not to go on about it too much more.

"Well, I much prefer bikinis," he said, looking at me.

"Oh my gosh, you said it!" I cried, laughing. He had never been able to get it right before. He kept saying 'binini," or 'bikiki' or even once, 'belini'.

He grinned proudly. "I knew I'd do it one day," he said.

"Well, you did," I said as we cut into the gardens. We were now surrounded by tall underwater trees, with ruby-coloured bark. They did look stunning with their amber-tinted leaves.

We swam hand in hand for a while as I gazed up in awe.

"Some humans would just die to see a place like this," I said. "I mean, they would be taking pictures of themselves here and putting them up online..."

Llyr laughed, although I saw a flicker of worry in his eyes.

"I would never do that, you know," I said quickly.