More Than Words: Kissed By A Muse #3 (16 page)

His Brown-Eyed-Girl…

Agony ripped through Leigh’s insides and she clutched at her stomach with one hand and her heart with the other, wanting to rip them out of her so they wouldn’t burn so hotly. Sobbing, the woman collapsed around Ryan and pressed her lips to his head, kissing him madly. ‘You’re alive! I don’t know how but you’re alive!’ They were a tangle of wet silk and black leather and Leigh glanced down at her frilly, romantic dress and her sparkling shoes and understood that she’d definitely hijacked the wrong love story.

‘Melody…’ Ryan sobbed to the ground. ‘I should have known! And… and the voice of an angel-’ he twisted and the little girl froze on the spot. Leigh watched her worst fears come true while heart-broken tears slipped silently down her cheeks. ‘I remember!’ He wrenched his gaze back to Melody. ‘My soul-mate…’ he croaked, reaching up and touching her hair. ‘My destiny.’

The words knocked the life out of Leigh, but Melody Marks were the lethal ones. She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, and then turned to the little girl. ‘And this is your daughter.’

Rya froze and in the light, Leigh saw that eyes as blue as diamonds swirled like the lightning was trapped within them. She pressed her own tiny hands to her chest and approached Leigh’s world with tentative steps. ‘Daddy?’ she whispered. ‘Really?’

The little family hugged one another and began to cry, and Leigh knew that lightning could break through the opening above them and they wouldn’t notice- just as they wouldn’t notice her leave. Pressing her hand to her mouth to keep the tears inside, Honey turned and ran out of the car park, like a broken heart was something that could be out-run, dropping the rose as she ran, which shattered like so many broken promises.

Ryan

The memories came back to Ryan hard and fast filling every cell inside him with the recollection of century-old emotions and experiences, gains and losses- melodies and turned pages, but it was the shattering of glass that penetrated through and no sooner had he realised that his name truly was his name, then he remembered that he’d given it to someone else, and she wasn’t holding his hand when he needed to cling to her more than he’d ever needed to hold tightly to anyone. He spun and cried out when he saw her silver shoes sparkling in the muted light- she was leaving! Not just leaving, but running! And she’d left his heart shattered on the ground behind her. Fear closed around his now hollow chest with icy talons.

‘Oh my god, Honey NO!’ Ryan pushed Calliope’s grasping arms off his wet sleeves and though she also cried out, demanding to know what was wrong and who was that, but he had no time to explain that his reason for living was running away from him. And of course she was running! Rya had called him daddy! And he’d referred to Callie as…

My soul-mate! My destiny! I called another woman such things in front of my new wife! Oh my god!

The urge to vomit, something Ryan rarely encountered, made his stomach roll as he flew over the broken rose and towards the street. He saw Leigh reach the top and he put on a burst of speed.

‘Honey! Honey, wait baby!’ He ascended onto the street level, pushing the security guard out of his way when he tried to intercept.

‘Sir, if your wife needs a minute-’

‘Get out of my way!’ Ryan grunted and almost lost his footing on the sidewalk. ‘Honey!’

Leigh was only ten feet away from him, and when she whirled to his voice, she looked so broken that Ryan could have died on the spot. ‘You don’t have to-’ her voice broke off as it was threaded apart by the wind. She shook her head and turned away. ‘Just let me go, Ryan…’ she hugged herself and backed away from him. ‘You have a family. I-’ she dropped her face into her hands and shook it, her little shoulders wrenching from the strength of her sobs. He ran toward her and got close enough just in time to hear: ‘I knew it was too good to be true…’ before she spun around, stepped onto the street- and right into the path of an oncoming car.

Ryan screamed, but he didn’t even know if he made a sound. Leigh was lit up like an angel by headlights as she stumbled in her dainty heels, from behind him someone else screamed- but just as he reached out for her, everything went black.

And then there was nothingness.

SIXTEEN

Mount Helicon

H
e came to in what had always been Calliope’s version of Helicon- clear blue skies, fluffy clouds, emerald grass and a stream not deep enough to warrant its opalescent hue, and Ryan was so annoyed to be reminded of how tightly linked her and his ‘soul mate’ were that he ripped out a handful of grass and threw it, letting out a frustrated moan of aggravation.

This place was NEVER mine!

It was all coming back too fast- too clearly. Thousands of years worth of data being wedged into his very being, but while his very being was already chocked full of panic at the memory of seeing his sweetheart being run down by a car. He staggered to his feet and towards the lake, knowing that he needed to get back to Honey, but as he stepped into the lukewarm and silken water, he realised that he didn’t have the faintest clue as to how. As Calliope’s non-corporeal other half, he’d spent most of time existing there, without ever truly existing. Walking on grass he couldn’t feel, and lying beneath a sun that had never penetrated his skin…. He’d been trapped, and only when he’d begged to be made a mortal, had he been able to leave.

But he didn’t remember how. One moment, he’d been begging Memoria, as Ardos, to send him back and the next, he was in a shed during a cyclone in a body he didn’t know as Ardos, but inhabiting the mind of someone who did know the body of Ryan Weaver. He’d come into that world as an infant demi-god… so how the hell was he supposed to go back, as an adult mortal? He’d seen the muses come and go by dozens of means- stepping into the water and vanishing from sight, vaulting off the edge of the sharp, cloud framed precipice surrounding the sacred land, and sometimes, they merely disintegrated into the air around them!

But he didn’t know how or what the magic words were or where the ennead was to guide him home and it made him feel desperate. He kicked up a splash of water while his heart palpitated in his ears and his eyes leaked in silent terror, and the water soared like air born diamonds beneath the glittering sun, mocking his anxiety with beauty. ‘Shit! Curse you Zeus I-’

‘The girl lived, Ryan!’

Ryan spun, facing Calliope and feeling winded at the sight of her, yet again. ‘How do you know that? The car was-’

‘Someone grabbed her from the other side!’ Calliope, as Melody Marks, rushed forward and clamped her tiny hands around his own. ‘I swear it to you Ryan- I grabbed you back and somebody else grabbed her! A little old lady! The girl was hurt, I think, because she went down pretty hard but-’

She’s alive! But she still needs me!

‘Then take me back so I can see her!’ He wrenched his hands from her grip. ‘I don’t want to be here!’ Calliope’s brown eyes widened, and they were every bit as beautiful as in his dreams and he immediately regretted having spoken so harshly to her, without knowing the circumstances. He turned away and smushed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. ‘I belong down there!’

She didn’t die, she didn’t die! Oh my god, Honey please be okay!

‘How do you know that? Ryan, what happened? How are you alive?’

He looked at her, bewildered. ‘What? You don’t know?’

Calliope shook her head. ‘I don’t understand ANY of this!’

That was weird- beyond weird because he’d been assuming that she was responsible for his resurrection. But he pushed the ‘How’s’ and ‘Why’s’ to the side. ‘Well, you’re the one who pulled me out so I don’t care how I got there in the first place- all that matters is that I get back!’

But Calliope raised her hands in a defensive posture. ‘I don’t know if I should! I pulled you out of there in a panic, but you feel human to me Ryan, and weak and you’re shaking… if I take you back, I don’t know that you’ll make it. Mortals aren’t meant to come here, and I don’t know what the policy is on them leaving but you’re so white you’re almost see-through and--’

‘Then you should have left me there!’

‘You would have been killed! If I hadn’t melted you into my imagination we would have both been hit!’ A sob escaped her. ‘I’m sorry Ry, I really am but-’

Ryan roared again and sank to his backside in the lake and above them, the sky darkened. It was only for a moment, proving that his imagination didn’t have one hundredth of the strength of Calliope’s- for hers was maintaining the sunny sky while also in a state of flux- but it was slightly mollifying to have had any effect at all. For years, his gilded cage had mocked him with his powerlessness, and he wouldn’t abide it again.

I can’t abide it again! I can’t stay here! If I die trying to get back, then so be it! But why? What’s the point of all of this?

‘This is...’ he covered his face and felt his tears against his clammy palms. Calliope was right- he hadn’t noticed before but he was shaking like a sapling in a monsoon. ‘How could I be alive without your help?’

‘I was never your keeper, Ryan…’ Calliope sank down on the bank behind him, the sheer white fabric of her toga puddling in the edge of the stream. ‘All I know is that you died for me, and there was no way of getting you back. For years, I appealed to mother and The Harmony and when father returned, even Zeus! But I could think of nothing to offer in exchange for such a trade, and it had never been done before so I let you rest, thinking you’d suffered the mortal coil long enough...’

Ryan didn’t need her to explain anything. He’d known, when he’d died for her- that that would be that. There had been a trade to make, and he’d made it, and he did not resent Calliope for assuming that was a done deal, and moving on with her own existence, which was as crucial to the universe as light and sound.

But he, well, he had never been much more than a boy, with a handsome face and a guitar riff or two to offer the world- as Ardos Karalis, or as Ryan Weaver. The stories said that demi-gods were the result of a birth between a god and a human, but that was the myth veiling the truth. There had been no Hercules or Helen of Troy- they had been stories. Ardos Karalis had been born to two mortal parents, and had earned the blessings of a god for saving a little girl wrongly accused of theft- and his heavenly thank-you, had been the chance to win Calliope’s hand. Recalling that made Ryan’s heart twist.

The little girl I dreamed of… she wasn’t a product of my future, but the explanation of my past! Does that mean that I’m not destined to have children with Honey after all? I was so certain!

‘Zeus is alive again?’ he asked weakly, clinging to the one statement Calliope had made which made sense. He didn’t want to think of his history with the muse of music- the woman who had decided to love him and die for that love, only after he had vowed to die in order to win it.

‘Zeus and mother. Hendra’s strength has returned as well, though for a mortal, those are hardly glad tidings. Imagination brought them all back…’ Calliope sighed. ‘But they were gods. I don’t see how anything was powerful enough to revive you when….’

Ryan’s eyes narrowed, as he silently finished her sentence: ‘When entities like Elvis Presley and Princess Diana and Joan Of Arc and Jesus stayed dead, despite the universe willing them back.’ It was true of course- but it still hurt to understand how inconsequential he was to history.

A gentle hand rested on his shoulder. ‘Do you remember being there? In Oblivion?’

Ryan closed his eyes and nodded, for he did. It had been like being a fog, within a thicker fog- one pleasant and scented of honeysuckle and lilacs. One where he felt a harmony between his very soul and every other… one where he dreamed of defenseless blonde girls in fields with lyres, of Calliope twirling on a stage as Callie Clay…of his daughter’s beautiful blue eyes… His heart swelled, as it had when Leigh had agreed to marry him. Rya! At first, he had fought to keep his connection with Calliope alive but after a while… he’d sent music, and love, for his darling Rya. ‘I sent you music,’ he whispered. ‘Didn’t I?’

‘Yes. All the time. Me… and then Rya.’ She paused. ‘You may have played for Rya all along but of course, I didn’t know until she was old enough to point out that she hadn’t turned the radio on…’ the hand fell away from his shoulder. ‘I hope you two get to meet, properly and spend time together. She’s such a wonderful combination of us both- she has my naughty streak, your devotion…’

Ryan’s forehead spasmed as his throat closed over a sob. He had a daughter! ‘She is?’

‘Oh yes… you’d have to see it for yourself to understand…’

Ryan nodded, lifting his shirt to wipe at his eyes. The emotions inside him were churning. ‘I have to go back. I have to. For her- and for Honey…’

Leigh sucked in her breath. ‘I went by Honey once.’

Ryan thought it over, and then nodded. ‘That’s right. You did.’ He rose to his feet, water flowing from his sodden clothes. ‘You inspired that song, didn’t you?’

‘Yes- decades ago. The girl… she was named for it?’

‘She was.’

‘Wow that’s…’ Calliope cleared her throat. ‘Are you in love with her?’

It was like being torn apart from every angle. He turned to face the once love of his life and nodded. ‘More than I’ve ever…’ Calliope looked stricken, and he couldn’t blame her. The connection they’d shared may have flipped about like severed wires for centuries upon centuries, but when they’d finally come together for that one, beautiful night, it had been nothing short of magical. Stronger even, then what he’d had with Leigh, but he couldn’t compare the two. After all, he’d waited millennia for Calliope to fall into his arms- he’d only known Honey for a few days!

But what mattered was what he felt now- and as he looked into his soul mate’s eyes, he felt nothing but warmth and fear and sentimentality. ‘She’s my wife,’ he finished softly, hearing the possession in his tone. ‘And you, from what I’ve gathered- are Hunter’s.’ The word Hunter felt strange rolling off his tongue.

‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘He and I married a month ago.’ She lowered her head. ‘I waited eight years- I mourned you like no woman has ever mourned another man… but he and I…’ she wet her lips and smoothed down her skirt. ‘The music wouldn’t let me stay away from him for long.’

Ryan didn’t know what to think about that. It was no surprise that they’d ended up together of course, because he’d always known that Calliope’s connection with Hunter must have been magnificent for her to have returned for a mortal man at all, and because he’d once loved Hunter so dearly, he could only imagine how thrilled his best friend must be. But a muse living with a human she loved was incredibly risky, especially if that human’s destiny had already been fulfilled. Wasn’t the rest of the harmonious world suffering because she continued to lavish the one man, not only with all of her attention, but her affection?

‘Are you okay?’ Calliope asked. ‘About Hunter and I, I mean?’

Ryan scratched his head. Feelings were funny things- they were completely circumstantial and yet circumstances had little to no bearing on them once established. He felt jealous, envious, confused, angry, elated, wary and possessive all at once. And beneath all that, the overwhelming desire to give Hunter a hug, like back when they’d been closer than any two people had ever been, made his arms and lips twitch.

He was the only true friend I’ve ever had… and Callie, of course.

‘Does he know?’

Calliope lifted long dark lashes, and then cast her eyes away to the waterfall. ‘He suspects. But he’s human, and his mind can only process so much… It’s Rya and her likeness to you that bugs him, more than my likeness to the Callie Clay he believes is dead.’ She hugged herself. ‘I don’t think he knows that his Melody and his Callie are one and the same. But he thinks I’m some gift from the heavens- possibly her reincarnated, with your child.’ She smiled prettily, and Ryan heard the music again. ‘He wrote a song, ‘Second Chance’ about us the day after we met… about finding a kindred spirit, with a connection to a former flame.’

Ryan studied her profile, amazed that it had been so easy to recognize her, though he’d never spent time with this version of Calliope before. She looked about thirty-two or three, and her skin was at least five shades darker than it had been as Callie Clay, her hair closer to jet-black than mahogany, her eyes slightly slanted, much more Grecian than she usually preferred. She was fuller in the bust, whereas Callie had been almost pancake flat, and voluptuous in the hips and thighs. Still beautiful, still flawless… but she wasn’t his Callie Clay any more and after centuries of loving the idea of her, he saw now that he’d only ever known Callie. And without that face, he’d never see the two entities as the one again; he’d never see his old soul mate again, and relief swept through him. He hadn’t lied when he’d sworn to Leigh that his heart was his to give- not even a love as old as time could dilute the way he felt for her after four days.

Ryan felt panic and excitement stir within him like a sudden squall. He had to get back to her and explain that. He didn’t care what the fucking rules were either- he’d tell her absolutely everything and if she was truly the girl he thought she was, she’d take him back with open arms.

‘I have to get back to her.’ Ryan moved to wring out his clothes, but they were bone dry. ‘I don’t care if it kills me Calliope- you have to take me back.’

Calliope stared at him pensively, but then sighed and nodded. ‘Ryan you know I couldn’t ever deny you anything…’ she bit her lip and rose. ‘Will she be in Vegas? Do you two live there or-’

‘No. We were only there today- to marry. She’ll be there though, probably at our hotel or one of the hospitals, but if she’s not, I’ll catch the first flight back to Niagara.’ He ran his hands through his hair. ‘That’s where I live, and where most of her things are. She’s on holiday from Australia so-’