More Than Words: Kissed By A Muse #3 (24 page)

‘She’ll live,’ a tiny voice said sweetly, and Ryan’s heart ached. He looked up to see Rya melt from the darkness, not fast enough yet to keep up with her mother, but still close. Rya’s fingers were white in the moonlight as she laced them around her mother’s, but her eyes remained on her father’s and they were so like his own that it was akin to looking in a mirror. ‘Mummy… you know she’ll live.’

Calliope began to weep in earnest, falling to her backside on the rock and hugging her knees to sob into her sodden skirt. ‘I’m not ready…’ she moaned. ‘I’m not ready!’

‘You’ll never be ready,’ a third voice interrupted, its tone venomous but still light, like poison spritzed from a diffuser. Ryan looked over his shoulder, feeling a multitude of rattling emotions when Imogen stepped out of the rapids below him, her face the delicate one he’d known in Helicon, not the glamorous one she often used on earth, and not even close to the wrinkled mask she’d worn as his savior. ‘But maybe…’ her eyes fell to Honey’s shivering, limp form. ‘Maybe I am.’

‘What?’ Calliope demanded brokenly, getting to her feet.

‘Where did she come from?’ Honey asked, sounding more alert. He felt her fight to get out of his arms again so he helped her to her unsteady feet. ‘That’s Imogen, right? The muse of the written word?’

‘It is,’ he said, pleased by how Leigh had re-animated like the ultimate fangirl she was, and Imogen’s crooked smile came straight from the ego. ‘She’s also the woman who nursed me back to health, left me a life to fill, and talked me into chasing you as Isabelle the other day.’

‘Wow.’ Leigh reached out her hand. ‘I knew you were too beautiful to be for real. Those eyes…’

Ryan felt a rise of anxiety. ‘You saw her eyes do the thing?’

Fuck! This could be as much Imogen’s fault as Calliope’s!

‘Yes, she did- accidentally. I picked up on her emotions which were so like my own, and instantly tried to see if she was destined to work with me…’ Imogen took Leigh’s hand but instead of shaking it, stared down at it in fascination. ‘But Calliope’s right, there’s no writer in here. And yet… I wonder…’

‘You wonder WHAT?’ Calliope demanded, sounding exasperated. ‘Imogen I know that you’ve never been shy about stepping up to the rivalry thing, but acting as though you’re considering giving up your calling for a girl who writes fan-fiction is a stretch of all of our fucking imaginations.’

Ryan gave her a death stare.

‘Can everyone stop fighting over me please? And I could really do without the fan-fic jokes.’ Honey gave Calliope an arctic look over her shoulder. ‘My stories suck, but my love of good books got me into a theatre to watch Les Mis and my god… Russell Crowe? Really?! That USED to be one of my favorite books and now I have nightmares for the oral accompaniments!’ She turned around and embraced Imogen tightly, cutting off her laughter, as well as Ryan’s and Rya’s. He turned to exchange a grin with his daughter, pleased to know that she’d inherited his sense of humour, and she winked and he knew, without a doubt, that she was on his side. Maybe, together, they could convince Calliope to put a mortal ahead of her work, just once.

‘Thank you,’ Leigh went on, before Calliope could throw a tantrum. She buried her neck in Imogen’s shoulder and whispered: ‘For him- and he’s enough, okay? I worship at your feet, and if you leave...’ she sobbed. ‘There’s no world without books, but there will be readers without me!’

Ryan’s heart burned, and over Leigh’s shoulder, Imogen caught his gaze and he was shocked to see her eyes well with tears again. How much she’d changed in eight short years!

‘Thank me after I make his dreams come true,’ Imogen pulled back, holding Leigh’s elbows and stared hard into her eyes. ‘When you get to keep him.’

‘No!’ Leigh shook her head violently, her knuckles white around Imogen’s paler skin.

‘Great books don’t happen without love like yours to inspire them, Honey-Leigh.’ Imogen’s voice was a whisper. ‘Just like great songs don’t happen, without soul’s like Ryan’s. There’s no question of sacrificing one for the other, don’t you see? It’s an eternal trade.’

Ryan felt light-headed. He didn’t understand what Imogen was saying but eh wanted her to continue to say such things!

‘Keep him? Trade? How?’ Calliope demanded. ‘You know she’s sick- you can see it in her aura. It’s awfully angelic of you to offer to die for her but it won’t balance anything if you do.’ Calliope sounded more rattled than she had since Ryan had last bade her farewell. ‘Do you think The Harmony will take kindly to you obliterating everything it has helped you create, by doing Ry here a solid?’ Calliope stepped forward, her back to Ryan and her shoulders squared. ‘I’ll do it, all right? But I’m not taking Hunter, not yet!’

‘I don’t want Hunter Marks to become a widower because of me!’ Honey insisted plaintively, looking from one sister to the other. ‘And a world without the beauty of books is a hell-scape for me anyway! I have until Spring, I must- it says it in the song. That gives me nine months at least with Ryan-’

Ryan’s gut clenched as he remembered the little girl who, after escaping death- chased him barefoot under the cruel Grecian sun and down the road until she collapsed from fatigue. If she talked them out of saving her, he’d wring her neck himself!

‘Oh, so now you’re ready for sainthood?’ Imogen asked, looking annoyed and ignoring Leigh completely. ‘Calliope this isn’t a competition-’

‘Everything between us is, but that’s neither here nor there right now, is it?’ Calliope asked hotly, and she sounded so upset that Ryan’s heart began to pound with hope once more. Was she seriously considering doing as he’d asked?

‘She’s right,’ Rya said in that tiny voice. ‘I want her to live for daddy too, Aunty Imogen… but mummy already has me! in the time it will take for you to join with your Nikolaos and make a child to replace you-’

‘I don’t need to make a child to replace me. And I’m not going to be talked out of it.’ Imogen inhaled deeply and exhaled heavily, and the sky above them lit up with lightning. ‘I’m tired, you guys- so damn tired! I love what I do and I’ve never, ever contemplated giving it up before… but only because I never thought I’d find anyone whose passion for this art could rival my own but…’ Imogen reached into the folds of her skirt and retrieved a small, clothbound book. She stared down at it as she bit her lip, tears running down her porcelain features before she lowered her lashes and handed it to Leigh. ‘I left this in Vegas for you, just to see what would happen when you opened it but you didn’t and… here.’ She pressed it into Leigh’s hands. ‘Do it now, please, before another word is said.’

Leigh held the book, but her eyes remained on Imogen. ‘Why?’

‘Yes Imogen… why?’ Ryan stepped up and rested his hand against the small of Leigh’s back. Lightning cramped the sky followed by the death-rattle of the clouds holding onto the rain, illuminating the title again, and the fat raindrop falling upon it. ‘Black Beauty?’

‘It’s Black Beauty for me- now,’ Imogen said, eyes shining with love as she surrendered her talisman to someone else. ‘But in the beginning, it was a codex of The Iliad, and if it changes when Leigh opens it, we’ll know...’

‘Know what?’ Calliope’s voice was a breath and no more. Leigh opened the book and her face was bathed in light that made her dewy skin shine like a leaf in the rain.

‘It’s The Hardest Fall…’ Honey whispered, lifting her eyes to Imogen’s, her expression bright with wonder, her eyes swirling like pastel clouds during a squall. Every cell in Ryan’s body began to pulse and fire to the point that he gasped and that sound seemed to shake the tears from Imogen’s eyes as she began to fade. Her eyes were still lovely, but her very being was dissolving within the shower of rain suddenly falling from the heavens above.

Honey is her…? She’s leaving now?!

‘Imogen!’ Calliope shrieked, stumbling forward and lifting her skirts. Ryan had never heard a more broken sound- like a needle scraping off a record only one of the saddest song.

‘I did some wild, irresponsible and wonderful things in my time,’ Imogen whispered, leaning in to kiss Honey’s cheek softly. ‘I hope you, my daughter, will prove to be the best of them, and do better.’ Her eyes shifted to Ryan and she reached out and stroked his hair. ‘I love you all...’ her last smile shone with loss. ‘More than words.’

And then she was gone, and the rain began to pour.

Honey

Honey fell to her knees with the book in her hand, her heart breaking while her mind asked a million questions and her soul answered every one of them on some instinct she’d never known she possessed. At first she thought she could still see the goddess dissolving  but then she realised it was just the rain exploding against the rocks where Imogen had been standing and she began to shake, hugging the book to her chest and feeling its sheer power.

I had a real mother...

Layers of Honey’s soul began to flutter like pages in an open book, tearing from the bindings and scattering until her history swirled in the air around her. She held fast to the novel against her wet dress- which was now made of the finest white silk and clinging to her skin, and saw what Imogen had left her to inherit- memories of her own history, of her losses and wins, memories of chasing the kind worker from the farm down the street until her lungs were set to burst, memories of being loved and cherished always, over and over again- dying young, then being nursed back to life in someone else’s arms. Always protected, always shielded and loved but never connecting back the way she ought to- always questing for something else- someone else like a firefly fading within the wrong set of hands.

And then she was in Ryan’s arms in front of the fire in his bedroom and just like that, the search was over and the pages stopped turning. How long had she searched for him for? Eternally?

‘She was your mother? Oh my god…’ Ryan knelt beside her. ‘I thought your parents used-’

‘They must have either given up, or she tricked them,’ Honey pressed her face into Kathryn Praser’s book and sobbed. ‘Why would she do that?’ But even as she asked that question- she felt the answer.

She didn’t love me. She didn’t want me to take what was hers so she left me. And I’m not the only one… but she did the right thing, by Ashleigh and Lee Dallas-Hone, and I did what was right by Ryan and for that, we’re bound eternally. I’ll see her again and she will cherish me...

‘It’s not a rare thing,’ Calliope whispered, sounding every bit as distraught as Honey felt. ‘Some of the muses have mothered children and abandoned them. I never could- Rya is my only but I think Clio is the worst. She must have dozens by now…’she sniffled. ‘Still I…’

Leigh swallowed hard, processing all with a mind so sharp that it sliced through incomplete thoughts as it formulated the next. ‘Will I live?’

Ryan pulled her to his feet, staring at her with awestruck eyes. ‘Live? Honey, you’re the muse of the written word now! You can’t die!’

Excitement, fear and loss shivered in Leigh’s veins. ‘But you-’

‘Guess I’m going to have to prove myself to be worthy of you, so Zeus makes me your soul mate, huh?’ Ryan teased pulling her into his arms and kissing her everywhere. ‘Mind the language but fuck me, has their been a power switch here, or what?’

Calliope has a lyre, I have a book, Hendra a sword… aunt Calliope of bloody hell really? Thespia, Clio-

‘Because… because I’m a muse now?’

Stephen King, Nicholas Sparks, Geraldine Brooks, Audrey Niffenburger, a girl on Long Island and one in Capetown she’s feeling the truth behind...

‘Zeus’s grand-daughter. Gosh… I wonder who your birth father is…’

Honey cringed as his words brought her out of her swamped mind to the surface of the ugly reality. She didn’t want to think about that but knew that she would eventually have to find out. ‘Zeus…’ she closed her eyes, knowing that if her bible-school teacher could see her now, he’d be pissed. ‘God don’t tell Poppy Hone- he’s really competitive.’

Ryan hugged her so tight that it should have broken something and yet, Leigh felt strong. He chuckled into her hair and then kissed her- it was brief but sensual and made her nerve endings sizzle. ‘Okay. Hey, I wonder... if you decide to keep me around, does that mean I’m going to end up as an author?’

Keep you around? Descriptions of heroes in books are going to all be dark-haired, blue-eyed rock stars if you kiss me like THAT too often!

‘No- in that way you’ll always belong more to me but-’ Honey gave her a snarled version of her smile and Calliope flushed, her tear-wet face abashed. ‘But your lyrics will improve.’ Her eyes went back to Ryan’s, and Honey dared her silently, to check him out in front of her. ‘And as for your life span I…’

‘I’ll live only as long as you, regardless of what happens.’ Leigh pressed her face into Ryan’s shirt and breathed him in, too excited to feel the guilt for Imogen’s sacrifice fully, too guilty to let her excitement for having Ryan as hers and hers only make her strip him on the spot- too pissed at Calliope’s words: ‘Belong more to me’ to let go of her husband and introduce herself properly to his daughter. ‘I love you, Ry.’

‘I love you too, Honeybee.’ He pinched her backside gently. ‘This works, by the way.’ His lips glanced off her ear. ‘Yes baby, you’re hotter now too… not that you weren’t before.’

Leigh grinned and looked up into his beautiful blue eyes and knew she’d never be able to create anything more perfect than what her birth mother already had. ‘Yeah?’