In the Veins of the Drowning (The Siren Mage, #1)

by Kalie Cassidy

“He’s gentle,” I blurted, eyes locked with his. “And when you feel like you’ve been whipped and thrown, if you let him, he will be an anchor.”

He was devastating, standing before me looking windblown and anguished. I wanted to touch him, to smooth the lines etched into his face.

I turned in his arms and gazed up with a smile. We were heat and racing hearts. My senses tangled into an impenetrable mass—every one of them filled with him.

I looked to the bed, then back at Theodore. It was comfort I wanted. Oblivion, distraction. I wanted to lose myself in him, wanted to let him burn away the scourge of despair that grew within me. The feel of his body still lingered over my own. I opened my mouth, the request just forming on my tongue: Come with me. I am weary and empty, and you can make it right. But I stopped myself.

For I was as undiscerning as a storm, as ruinous as a tidal wave crashing, and I could never live with myself if he was caught in

my devastation.

It was no wonder he couldn’t see reason. For my soul was the water, shifting, wild, rolling through destructively, but Theodore’s had roots. They burrowed deep, held strong, and I had poured through their empty spaces—drowning him.

“You have shone a light on me. You made me feel fury and terror and joy and longing. How do I curl myself back into the darkness after being so alive?”

The absence of you has shown me that, if you will let me, I will happily carve myself open again and pour you back inside me. I