Page 23 of If You Give an Artist a Killer Muse

She twirls the paintbrush between her fingers, her eyes sparkling with unstable glee. “Why? What will happen?”

I falter, “What?”

“I wanna know what will happen if I don’t back off.”

I just stare at the crazy ass woman in front of me. She’s going to kill me. I just know it. I can already feel my blood pressure increasing and my heart about to give out.

“Don’t leave me hanging,” She continues, “What will happen?”

“You’re fucking mental,” I whisper, not able to keep my eyes off of her because I refuse to believe such a person exists.

Briar flashes me that grin again, the kind that promises mischief and danger, sending a shiver down my spine.

What the fuck?

She bites her bottom lip. “You're so cute even when you hiss and snarl at me, kitty cat.”

My brain short-circuits.

Once I can form my thoughts into words, I snap. “Cats have claws that can fuck you up.”

Briar shrugs and extends her hand to offer the paintbrush back. I stare at it as if it’s about to spring a couple of arms and sink its claws in my skin.

She chuckles, snapping my attention back to her. She shoves the brush in my hand and pats my head before stroking it.

“As long as it’s you that does the fucking.” She chirps with a wink.

I feel my cheeks puff up, wanting to hiss some more. But then she’ll call me a fucking cat again, and I’m not in the mood to entertain this psycho.

So, I’m going to ignore the hell out of her again. I bat her hand away and turn around to face my canvas.

Focus, Rurik. Focus.

“You’re a great artist, Rurik.”

I should say thanks like a good guy, but no. Instead, I make this grumbling sound like a fucking child and don’t say anything.

“Down, kitty cat.”

This fucking — I stop. My chest is doing that thing again where it aches, and it’s distracting the hell out of me.

I close my eyes and inhale slowly.

One. Two. Three.

Exhale.

One. Two. Three.

I open my eyes again and return to work, blending in the yellow until it looks good. I sigh as the silence between us stretches, but for once, I’m not feeling out of sorts. Seconds turn to minutes, and I am back in the flow. The painting is turning into something different than I originally envisioned, but… I don’t hate it.

I’ll never tell her that, though.

I move on to work on a second layer of paint for the sky but feel my heart lurch the moment a second brush that is not coming from me enters my line of sight. I whirl my head to see Briar standing right beside me. Her face scrunches up in concentration as she uses another brush and starts painting my canvas.

My canvas.

My painting.

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