She glanced around the room at the men and women still pouring in, her blood chilling when she laid her eyes on a man she’d recognize anywhere.With or without a mask.
For starters, he couldn’t help but make himself obvious, drawing attention wherever he went, and tonight was no exception, it seemed.His ivory suit and mask were sharp and regal, and all the gold accents—from his chain to his cufflinks to his gilded mask—were so on the nose, Callie wanted to roll her eyes.
Even if hedidlook appealing dressed like a bloody angel, complete with a set of white feathered wings.
But Pegasus was no angel.Far from it.What he was, was annoying as hell.Pretty, but annoying.
“Does he ever stay home like a normal god?”Calliope mused aloud.
Hattie laughed.“Who?Chucky Doll?Are you serious?”
“Dead,” Calliope murmured, sipping her martini.The tartness made her pucker her lips.
“I mean, can you blame the guy?His partner in crime’s all settled down now, which I still can’t believeMarsof all people could ever settle down, period, let alone with a human mate...”
Calliope chewed her lips in annoyance, and that was the moment Chuck met her gaze.He smiled his perfect toothpaste commercial smile and waved at her.She gave him a smile that was not quite genuine, clearly annoyed that she couldn’t even come to the DeLux Cafe without running into someone she knew, apparently.
Is the world really that small?
She looked away dismissively, returning her attention to her friend who was tsking her.
“I mean, you gotta give the guy credit fortrying,you know.On hisown.Without his wingman.”
“Chuck is not looking for a soul mate, Hattie.He’s looking for a body to warm his bed, nothing else.”
Hattie sighed in exasperation.
“People change, you know.”Her voice was strangely soft to Calliope’s ears.
Calliope tensed, for she knew what her friend was going to say, and she could not stop her.But that did not mean Calliope wanted to hear it.
“All I’m saying, is you can’t be a hermit forever, Callie.What happened with David?—”
“Hattie, please...”She groaned.“Don’t...”
Just the mention of the man who’d gotten into her heart...who’d held it in his hands and crushed her dreams along with it...it was enough to make Calliope scream.
Like so many of the men she’d encountered in her long life, she’d thought she was providing David Green a sound service—inspiring him to be the great writer he was meant to be.He was charismatic, bright, and his talent was severely malnourished and she knew with the right hand to guide him he could be an absolute star.
And when she’d offered him the same deal that she offered all her patrons, their dreams on a silver platter in exchange for the love and devotion she craved, she rationed David Green was worth it.His words, his art...it was all too important tonotoversee.
And at first, the bond of praise and submission, the give and take, was heavily weighted.Calliope gave and gave all she could to feed into David’s lofty ideals and dreams of grandeur.She had given him everything she could, including herself.Her heart.Her body.Until she had nothing left, no sparks left to give.
And he’d taken it all in greedily, spitting it back out in the form of a book—a book about Life and Death, as an entangled star-crossed lovers’ tale.
It was a lovely tale of fiction, but he would never see its success.Not now, not ever again...
Calliope could feel the tears festering behind her eyes.She did not want to think about David and his NYT bestselling book,A Tangled Web, which was apparently being made into a movie.She did not want to think about his dark laugh, or his nights of madness, hunched over his computer.And she certainly didn’t want to think about his poetic, gifted words born from her spark and his madness, or the fact she’d been too late to save him.
It seemed, in the end, his darkness, his void—had too strong of a hold on the man, and no amount of inspiration could have enforced a will for him tolive.
It had been nearly six months since he’d taken his own life, since Calliope felt the void form in her heart.And though she wanted more than anything to paint, to process the grief and pain, the guilt, she could not find it within herself to do so, and that fact, above all else, spoke to the depth of which David had altered the muse’s very being.
She had loved him the same as she had those before him, but his words, his promises, were far too tempting to believe.He was a devil with his words, more so than Plato or Lord Byron or Poe.And so, Calliope fell down into David Green’s dark void, making the gravest mistake of all.
She believed that he lovedher.That he was her soul’smate.
But David Green was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.He did not love anyone.He did not even love himself.
