It was like watching a small child as it tried to sort out the world and remember something. There was no telling from one minute to the next what would come out of her mouth. She saw things clearly, like a child.
If you had a problem, you killed it.
End of problem.
Subtleties and politics were beyond her.
Simi just was. She wasn't amoral or vicious, she was just an extremely young demon with godlike powers who had no comprehension of deceit or treachery.
How he envied her that. It was why he shielded her so carefully. He didn't want her to learn the hard lessons that had been dealt to him.
She deserved to have the childhood he had never known. One that was sheltered and protected. One in which no one was allowed to hurt her.
He didn't know what he would do without her.
She'd been nothing more than an infant when she'd been given to him. Barely twenty-one himself, the two of them had pretty much raised each other. They were both the last of their kind on this earth.
For more than eleven thousand years it had been just the two of them.
She was as much a part of him as any vital organ.
Without her, he would die.
The door of the temple opened. Simi hissed, baring her fangs, letting him know Artemis had returned early.
Ash turned his head for confirmation. Sure enough, the goddess was striding toward him.
He let out a tired breath.
Artemis pulled up short as she saw Simi sitting at his feet "What is it doing off your arm?"
"Talking to me, Artie."
"Make it go away."
Simi huffed. "I don't have to do nothing you say, you old heifer cow. And you are old. Really, really old. And a cow, too."
"Simi," Ash said, stressing her name. "Please return to me."
Simi cast an evil glare at Artemis, then became a dark, amorphous shadow. She moved over to him and laid herself over his chest to become a huge dragon on his torso with fiery spirals that wrapped around and down both of his arms.
Ash laughed darkly at the sight. It was Simi's way of hugging him and tweaking Artemis at the same time. Artemis thoroughly hated it whenever Simi covered so much of his body.
Artemis let out a disgusted sound. "Make it move."
He crossed his arms over his chest. "Why are you back so early?"
She instantly became nervous.
His bad feeling tripled. "What happened?"
Artemis walked to the column at his feet, wrapped her arm around it and leaned against the marble. She played with the gilded edge of her peplos as she worried her lip.
Ash sat up straight, his stomach knotted. If she was this evasive something had gone mind-blowingly wrong. "Tell me, Artemis."
She looked exasperated and angry. "Why should I tell you? You'll just get angry at me and you practically stay that way anyway. I tell you, then you'll want to leave and you can't leave and then you'll yell at me."
The knot in his gut tightened. "You have three seconds to talk or I'm forgetting about your fear that one of your family members will discover I'm living in your temple. I will use my powers and I will find out what has happened on my own."