Pure Requiem - Aja James Page 0,49

don’t have the strength to argue further. I’ll let her have her delusions.

“I do.”

Must she always have the last word?

“We should get out of here before we melt into a puddle of goo,” I note.

“Better than a puddle of poo,” she retorts.

“Har har.”

“Or a pile of doodoo.”

“You’re such a brat.”

“A brat who loves you.”

“Stop that annoying rhyming,” I bark, though her words fill me with reluctant warmth.

“Only for you, babyboo.”

“I mean it!”

Snickering at my aggravation, she shakes her head at me.

Yeah, yeah, I’m easy to rile. She hasn’t lost her touch.

My lips twitch traitorously with humor and affection.

“Come on,” she says, rising from the bench. “Cloud and Rain are giving Benji and Isolde watercolor and Chinese calligraphy lessons. I’ll take you to them. Then, I gotta head out. Hot date with my girl in an hour.”

And so, Liv deposits me in a large craft and arts space adjacent to the Shield’s library before leaving me to my own devices. It’s the same place where Benjamin always goes to draw and practice whittling and carving with Tal.

As Liv described, my buttery-blond boy is currently busy at work with watercolors, sitting on a tall stool, hunched over the long wooden crafts table, while Rain weaves one of her silk paintings at one end of the table, and Cloud writes Chinese calligraphy with a gigantic brush at the other end. The little girl Isolde, Tristan and Ayelet’s daughter, is making a mess across the table from Benjamin, mixing the paints with her bare hands and smacking them onto a large piece of paper.

I clear my throat to announce my presence, though I’m sure the well-trained Elite warrior knew I was here even before I arrived.

Benjamin whirls to face me on the swivel stool, his eyes alight with happy surprise.

“Ere! You’re just in time! We can practice our paints together!”

I resist the urge to stick my finger in my ear to clear it out. That boy has a disproportionately booming voice for so small a body, and he only has three volume levels: loud, louder, and loudest.

“Indeed,” I calmly acknowledge. “How do I get started?”

Even before I finish asking the question, Rain has already spread a new sheet of sturdy watercolor paper on the table next to Benjamin’s. She places a few brushes and other implements on the side.

“Do you like to paint, Ere?” she asks in that dulcet, slightly accented voice.

Really, the Pure Ones’ healer is everything gracious and sweet, but she still creeps me out with that pale kabuki doll face and knee-length silvery white hair that floats around her as if she’s perpetually surrounded by her own bubble of water.

Too, that hair has a life of its own. I know this intimately. It used to be my prison. Even when cut from the source—her head—the damn things retain some kind of sentience, enough that they still obey her will. Which was to make sure I didn’t get into any trouble when I first arrived at the Shield, by binding my hands and feet.

Shudder.

I don’t know what the Protector sees in her.

But what do I know. I’m hardly an expert on attraction and sex.

“I dabble,” I reply with a shrug.

Truth to tell, I enjoy everything artistic, creative and literary. I love singing in the shower, in my underground karaoke bar that I had before the Pure Ones’ invasion a few years ago closed up that hidey-hole.

I love romance books, especially the historical ones. They make me laugh, and occasionally tear up (though I won’t ever admit it, even on pain of death). I love long-haired kittens and angora rabbits, though of course I’ve never had any pets.

If I did, Medusa would undoubtedly find them, torture them, and kill them before my eyes. Can’t expose any weaknesses where that she-devil is concerned.

I love baked desserts, especially those made by Mama Bear, otherwise known as Ishtar in her old-woman form at Dark Dreams. I have an unlimited supply to her cooking now. It’s helped to fatten me up a little.

I think if I could start all over, I might in fact become what my alter ego Ere was—a college professor of ancient history. Maybe I’ll write novels, paint and sculpt on the side. That sounds like a beautiful, simple, heavenly life.

A fine fiction.

If only…

I pick up a brush and dip it in water, then dab it in some indigo blue paint, followed by a little chartreuse green. I have in mind to paint Liv a blue-green heaven. I never repaid her for her kindness