Page 23 of Blue Embers
“I’ve heard of you,” she said.
“I should hope so. I own this place,” I said, raising my glass for a drink.
The woman laughed. “I heard you have a way with the ladies. Care to have a way with me?”
Inside, I was chuckling at the shallow invitation, which I would have normally accepted, but now I was a bit irked. I threw the woman another smile, taking in the obvious beauty of her round face and full, red lips. Only thing was, inside that head there were so few things happening. Short-term thoughts, perhaps. Animal desires. No ambitions. Simplicity defined this woman...and all the other women I’d fucked before her. That was just it. She was a body. One that was willing and generic. Sliding my eyes down her exaggeratedly feminine form, I wondered if it would benefit me to indulge for a minute.
“The name’s Candy,” she spoke over the club’s beat.
Gods...Candy? Immediately, the potential for arousal was reduced to a sliver. But, Candy was an ideal object to experience for a fleeting and forgettable moment. Perhaps she was perfect. Perhaps I was out of my mind. Perhaps I’d tasted something more refined and now warm bodies weren’t cutting it.
10
Persephone
. . .
I stayed late at the museum, finding things to do and then doing them two or three times just to keep myself busy. I’d lied about wanting to go home and indulging in a hot bath. I’d never wanted to do that in my life and honestly, there were only a few wines I actually enjoyed and because of that, I never owned any bottles. I was more of a chocolate and berries person.
My mind had a hard time straying from the idea that Artemis was keeping much bigger secrets than I thought. I found myself in my car at the end of the night, sitting in the darkness of an empty parking lot, going over a past that seemed to be creeping up on me all of a sudden from the dust of my memories. Convinced I wouldn’t be able to function without getting a few answers first, I headed to the hospital.
Walking through the doors into the quiet building where Artemis had been the past few months always felt lonely and stagnant. I hated it, but I hated that Artemis was stuck there more than anything, dying in a bed that wasn’t her own. I came to her room, part of me hoping she was sleeping so she wouldn’t be able to scold me for staying with her for hours. Another part of me wanted to find her awake so I could talk with her. Hear her voice. Ask some questions.
Stepping into her room, I found her laying with the TV remote in her hand, staring up at the screen mounted on the wall in front of her. She looked my way with a smile when I entered, her cheeks holding more color than usual. I smiled back, elated to see that she was looking well, and took a seat in my usual chair in the corner, pulling it closer to her bed to talk.
“Hey,” I said, leaning in to kiss her on the forehead. “How are you feeling?”
“Not bad,” she answered, a raspiness in her voice that always gave away the fact that she was sick, no matter how she looked. “What are you doing here?”
“I just wanted to see you again,” I said. “Things are a little strange right now and I like seeing your familiar face.”
“What’s that mean?” she asked pryingly, grinning like she was about to get the latest celebrity gossip.
“I don’t really know,” I chuckled. “You know that guy I told you about a while ago? The Draak, Killian Valentyne?”
“The museum guy?”
“Yeah. Well, I finally met him a few days ago and…” unsure how to explain things, I kept stumbling on words that didn’t quite fit in my head before the right ones came out. “Things sort of...happened.”
“What?” Artemis gleamed. “What kinds of things?”
I was reluctant to say, hanging on to my self image. I thought of myself as a much classier woman than the kind of ladies that would sleep with a man they hardly knew. More than that, as much as Draak fascinated me, I was never one to fall all over them like the women who wore red around town to let everyone know they were on the buffet table. But, alas, I did sleep with a man I hardly knew. A Draak.
“Are you guys…” Artemis trailed off as if wanting me to finish her sentence.
“No,” I denied. “We’re not a thing. We’re not together or anything, but I sort of...did something stupid and completely unlike me.”
“You slept with him?” she said too loudly for me to brush off. I pressed a finger over my lips, a bit embarrassed. “Seph, you’re always so uptight. How’d he seduce you?” she said, amused.
“He didn’t,” I defended. “It was kind of a mutual need. We’d both had a bad day and next thing I knew…” I stopped, changing pace. “But it’s nothing.”
“Nothing? Then why are you telling me?”
“Honestly? I don’t know,” I laughed. “Because you’re my sister and I miss talking to you.”
Artemis reached out, grasping my hand with hers. Her strength was lacking and her fingers were icy, reminding me yet again that she was deteriorating.
“I miss talking to you, too,” she said, looking at me with a gentle, almost maternal gaze. “So? Is he as handsome in person as he is in the media?”
