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  INSPIRE

  CORA CARMACK

  Inspire

  Copyright © 2014 by Cora Carmack.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction.

  ISBN 978-0-9883935-1-6

  For Amy-

  For letting me spoil every book I ever write so that I can talk through it with you.

  I can still picture the exact moment I first told you that I was writing a book way back when. We were shopping, and I told you about those characters as we flipped through clothing racks, and you made me feel like it was more than just a far-flung dream. You made it feel inevitable. And for that, I will never be able to thank you enough.

  As far as sisters go, you’re a keeper. :)

  PART ONE

  Kalli

  “What nourishes me also destroys me”

  Christopher Marlowe

  Chapter One

  Balloons.

  There are balloons filling the entire hallway when I exit my English and Composition class. And rose petals. A trail of pink, delicate rose petals that draw my eye to …

  Shit.

  I cross the hall quickly, trampling petals as I go.

  “Van, get up.”

  My ex is on his knees, blocking the stairwell and all the people trying to leave. All the people who are now staring.

  Of course they’re staring. I would be staring too, if it weren’t me. It’s like something out of a bad 80s romantic comedy (who am I kidding? There’s no such thing as a bad 80s romantic comedy. Even the bad ones are brilliant). But this … this is bad.

  “Hear me out, Kalli.” Oh damn. I’ve heard that tone before. “I’m lost without you. I can’t think. I can’t sleep.” Can’t shave apparently, judging by the badger living on his face. I feel a little bad for that insensitive thought until he continues, “I can’t write without you, baby.” And that’s what it always comes down to. Not missing me. Missing what I give them. “I haven’t put down a single decent word since you broke up with me.”

  This is the thing about dating artistic types. They’re fun and charismatic and passionate, but that passion easily tips over into obsession. Believe me, I’ve been with enough of them to be intimately familiar with that particular character flaw (along with their penchants for narcissism, mood swings, and a general disdain for a good haircut). If I didn’t need them as much as they needed me, I would gladly avoid the whole lot of them. And as someone who has spent a long time dealing with the artistic types, I am entirely qualified to say that their peculiarities get old really fast.

  It’s hard enough when a relationship ends. But when a relationship with an artist goes bad, it goes spectacularly bad.

  Exhibit A: Van Noffke.

  Potentially brilliant literary mind.

  Wildly creative.

  Total momma’s boy.

  And apparently not above humiliating himself.

  I take hold of his elbow and pull him to his feet. I tug him away from the stairwell so that people can get by, but it appears that we’re more interesting than whatever classes these people have to get to, and almost all of them stick around for the show.

  Gods, I swear.

  “Van, we talked about this. I’m sorry that you’re having trouble moving on, but we aren’t getting back together. It just won’t work out.”

  I know it’s wrong for me to be frustrated with him. He doesn’t know why we can’t spend any more time together, or that I’ve already stayed longer than I meant to. But I find myself angry all the same. I am continually baffled by humans’ complete and utter lack of survival instincts. You would think some voice in the back of their minds would fight to preserve their safety, their sanity, but if there is such a voice, it’s drowned out by the wild beating of their hearts as they chase after their desires. Success. Power. Love. Sex. It doesn’t matter what the desire is, they all blind just the same.

  Van runs his hand through his tousled black hair and gives me a pleading look. I think he might actually cry, and I am so not good with tears.

  “It could, Kalliope. It could if you gave me one more chance.”

  Ugh. He’s the only person who insists on calling me by my full name. I’d dropped the ‘ope’ off Kalliope ages ago, after I got tired of the pronunciation being butchered by modern mouths. I got Kally-ope, Kay-lee-ope. Someone fumbled it so badly once they called me Cantaloupe. And after one too many times having to draw out my name as Kuh-lie-oh-pee, I just gave it up entirely.

  Which is what I have to do with Van now. I need to cut him off completely. For his own good. Maybe one more nudge of inspiration will end this permanently.

  I step in close, and Van’s eyes search mine greedily. I place my hand on his cheek, and he immediately seizes my waist and pulls me against his body. His breaths come faster, and for just a moment, I’m swept away by the pleasure that comes from being wanted this much.

  That’s what my gift feels like, too. The inspiration. It’s this heady rush, like I’m breathing through every pore of my skin, pouring out the energy that poisons me if I keep it too long. For them though, it’s like a drug that activates all the dormant parts of their brain, opening them up to ideas and thoughts and visions that they could never have on their own. It’s like being high, but sacrificing none of the focus or reasoning skills. But like with most drugs … there are consequences. Addiction being one of them.

  I want to step away because I’m not exactly immune to Van either. I have a connection to all of my artists. And when energy passes from me to them … well, let’s just say I enjoy it as much as they do. But it’s my responsibility to make certain that neither of us gets too attached, and if Van’s big gesture is any indication, he’s on the line. Even so, I hold on for a few more seconds. Touch will make this last push more effective. And then we can be done with it.

  I concentrate, let down my carefully constructed mental shields, and allow the energy to spill out of me. Like the first breath of air after too long spent underwater, the release consumes me for a moment. Relief. Pleasure. I force my eyes open before the sensation can sweep me away and focus on the task in front of me.

  “Van, it’s over, and for that I’m sorry. But we’re not getting back together. We can’t. I won’t. Maybe if you write about how you’re feeling, it will help you get past it … the writer’s block and me.” He tries to pull me closer, but I rip his hands from my waist and step back. It aches for a moment, stopping that exchange of energy, pulling it back into me. But it’s necessary. “Use this. You’ll be fine.”

  Then I break for the stairs and try not to meet the eyes of any of the students watching. No doubt we were sending off some serious soap opera vibes.

  This is what it is to be a muse. I walk the line between want and need, between power and submission. And I make the hard choices.

  Always with the hard choices.

  Thank the gods it’s my last class of the day, and I can just go home. Or better yet … the grocery store. Because ice cream makes everything better. Especially break-ups. And by my estimate, Van had the privilege of being, oh … my ten thousandth one of those.

  There’s a small grocery store off the edge of campus. It’s a little ghetto and just has the basics, but it’s popular among the students for late night beer and food runs. I grab some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, plus some cookies (because it’s not enough to just have the cookie dough in the ice cream). The Greeks might have been responsible for many of history’s greatest accomplishments, but they would be pissed if they knew they missed out on the perfection that is chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. I grab some soda and some gumm
y bears, too. You know, the essentials of life. Or college life anyway.

  Major perk to being immortal? My body renews itself daily, so I can eat whatever I want, and I’ll wake up tomorrow looking just as I did the day before. The way I’ve always looked. Same goes for cuts and bruises and hair dye and every possible change I could make to my physical appearance. Nothing holds. Nothing lasts beyond the start of a new day. Definitely a complication when you’re trying to live among humans without revealing just how very different you are from them. There’s no disguising who I am, no changing my appearance so people won’t notice my distinct tendency to stay the same age.

  As I wait in the express checkout line next to a wall of magazines, my eyes catch on a guy a little older than me (or a little older than I appear anyway) with a girl who must be around five years old. He's dressed in a white button-up shirt and a loosened tie, with blond hair that looks like he’s run his hands through it one too many times. He's the complete opposite of the kind of guys I spend all my time with. He's put together and refined and mature with dark glasses across the bridge of a strong nose. The little girl’s white blonde curls are even more out of control than his, and he's looking down at her like she's his whole world.

  She tries and fails to sneak a giant candy bar into their cart. He laughs, deep and throaty, and returns the chocolate back to where she found it.

  My lips split in a smile, but a dull throb moves through my chest a moment later, eclipsing it. Thousands of years, and I've never known what this guy has. I've never known what it's like to love someone, to build a life, to grow older … because loving me is dangerous. I’m the drug.

  It may be my purpose to inspire people, but I ruin just as many as I help.

  That’s why I don’t get to have what he has. I get short, passion-filled flings. I get excitement and adrenaline and creation. I get a new life and a new home. I get temporary attachments. Again and again, that’s all I ever get.

  Touching the lives of mortals, influencing them, inspiring them … that’s the closest I ever come to really living. For a little while anyway. Brushing up against that kind of talent and genius … it’s exhilarating. But the closer my artist and I become, the more involved, the less real it feels to me. They say such beautiful words, create such gorgeous art, and call me their muse without ever having any idea how right they really are. It's always the artist falling for me. And I shouldn’t be so naïve, not after the life I’ve lived, but just once I'd like to let myself do the same.

  My eyes are drawn back to the father/daughter pair. He’s flipping through a sports magazine while the cashier ahead of us calls over a manager to help her with a problem on the register. The little girl looks up at him in awe, the way all little girls seem to do with their fathers. Then she picks up a magazine like him. When she holds it up high, I see that it has a dark-haired woman on the cover, barely covered by the skimpiest swimsuit I’ve ever seen (and I’ve been around a long time), her body posed in a way that is entirely not appropriate for a grocery store magazine rack. My jaw drops open just as she speaks.

  “This one,” she says, her small mouth transforming the words into something adorable.

  The guy is distracted reading an article, but looks up when she holds the magazine closer to him and says loudly, “I want THIS ONE!”

  His face pales, and he snatches the magazine out of her hand, lightning fast. First, her lips form a circle, then the bottom one curls down. Her eyes squinch and her shoulders hunch, and only when her entire appearance has been transformed does she begin to cry.

  “Gwennie, don’t.”

  “But I want to read a magazine, too.”

  “Not that one.”

  She opens her small mouth, and the wail she unleashes reverberates around the checkout area. He scrambles to stuff the magazine behind a few issues of Good Housekeeping, but by the time he looks back, little Gwennie has already grabbed another from the same spot she found the first. But she’s still crying.

  “I said no, Gwen.” He tries to steal it away again, but this time the little girl is faster. She backpedals, bumping into the older woman still waiting on the cashier and the manager to solve whatever is holding them up.

  “It has a pretty girl on it,” she says, sniffling, tears threatening to return at any moment. She holds the magazine up to the older woman behind her in an attempt to gain some allies, no doubt, but the old woman splutters a shocked, nonsense response.

  “We’ll get you a different magazine with a pretty girl,” the guy tries.

  “But she’s pretty and she’s going swimming. I like swimming, and I never get to do it anymore.”

  The magazine is indeed about swimming. Or rather … the best beaches to find sexy, single women. It’s also about fast, easy ways to get your girl hot (direct quote), a definitive list of the world’s best tequilas, and the manliest cars (whatever that means).

  The guy kneels in front of his daughter and says, “Please …” But then he just sighs as she darts around him again, and this time she comes to me. But when she stands below me, the magazine falls forgotten by her side. This close, with her eyes impossibly wide, I can see the beautiful mix of blue and green in her irises.

  “You’re pretty,” she tells me. “Are you on a magazine?”

  “I’m not, no.” I smile at her, and the one she gives me in return is brilliant.

  An ache breaks through my chest like the sun through clouds.

  History says I have children. Orpheus. Linus. Mygdon. More. But the stories are wrong. They’ve been twisted and mistold over the years.

  And the only thing worse than not really having a life is hearing lies about one that can never be true. Like I said … my body renews daily. It doesn’t ever change. Nothing about my existence ever changes. Not because of too much ice cream. Not hair dye. Certainly not something that would take nine months of changes.

  I force the smile to stay on my face … because hey, at least that means I can wear the same clothes and shoes for as long as I want. Silver lining, right?

  If only I could make myself believe that.

  The little girl looks down at her magazine, considers the scantily-clad woman on the front again, and then switches her gaze back to me. With a very serious expression she says, “You should be on a magazine like this. Do you swim?”

  The man pops up behind her. He tries to pluck the magazine away, but she pulls it tightly against her chest.

  He says, “I’m so sorry.”

  My eyes resist leaving the little girl, but when they do, I’m not sorry.

  The guy is younger than I thought from his profile. Early twenties, I’d guess. And I knew he was broad and masculine, but now I’ve got an up close and personal look at the way that his shirt hints at the slopes and curves of a muscled chest beneath. He wears a tie loosened around his neck, and the few undone buttons reveal a triangle of sun-tanned skin. He’s not at all the kind of guy I’m normally attracted to. He’s clean-cut and serious, and yet I see something now that hints at more. The glasses say stoic and sophisticated, but the hair … those not-quite-tamed curls are just begging for a pair of hands to mess them up the rest of the way.

  It almost makes me think this is what my artists would look like all grown up. Only they’ll still be working on “growing up” a decade from now, and he’s already there. He’s also outrageously, handsomely embarrassed. He rubs at the back of his neck with a chagrined smile, and I’m not sure that I’ve ever met a guy who can pull off uncomfortable and sexy at the same time.

  You can’t look at a guy like this and not picture him as a husband … a dad. He might not be like the artists I usually date, but he’s the kind of guy I would want to settle down with.

  If settling down were even a thing I could do.

  When I go too long without answering, little Gwen says, “I don’t think she likes you.”

  My lips pull into a smile, and I flick my gaze up to his face once more. And God, that’s not true. Not true at all. And maybe m
y thoughts are in my eyes because his gaze sharpens, turns hot and hard, and it makes me think of ripped fabric, sweat-slicked skin, and bruised lips.

  The pull toward him is electric, irresistible, like a siren’s call, only it’s not sound that’s a danger to me … it’s everything else. He might look clean cut on the surface, but I’ve looked into the eyes of enough men to recognize the spark of wickedness hidden in those pale blue depths.

  “I like him just fine,” I say, finally answering Gwen’s statement, and the crooked grin he gives me makes something swoop in my belly.

  “Just fine? Is that all?” This time, I do notice his voice, and maybe it’s even more like a siren call than I thought. Low and musical, it slides against my skin, stirring the energy just behind my lungs that makes me what I am.

  Only this man isn’t the type to need a muse. In fact, I think the opposite might be happening. Something about this guy speaks to me. Maybe it’s the soft blue of his eyes or the chiseled jaw or that loosened tie that I could use to pull him closer and closer …

  Yeah. As improbable as it is, he’s the dangerous one here.

  And for possibly the first time in my existence, I can feel my nerves threatening to overwhelm me. I should be able to think of a flirty reply. That’s what I do. I should be able to turn this guy’s head so fast he’ll have whiplash. Instead, I’m too bothered by his presence to even meet his eyes again.

  I bend my knees until I’m level with the little girl. I tuck one blonde, disobedient curl behind her ear and touch a finger to her tiny, perfect nose.

  Her cheeks pink, and I tell her, “I think you’re much prettier than the girl on that magazine.”

  “Really?” Her eyes go wide, and she looks at me as if I hold all the answers. And I do have so many answers, so many insights about the world that are just fighting to break out of me. So many things I can never share. With anyone.

  “I do,” I promise her. “But the thing is … there are more important things than being pretty. “