8. Artemis
8 ARTEMIS
Our daring escape from Saint isn’t as thrilling as I hoped it would be.
By the time we emerge from the fighters’ area—there are separate shower rooms for the men and women, and I keep a box of my things in my brother’s quarters—changed and dry, Saint is nowhere to be found.
Seems he took me at my word.
“Now,” Kade says. “My turn.”
I sigh.
A tendril of unease winds through me, but I shove it down.
The last thing Saint can be is right .
Kade’s blacked-out SUV is parked beside my bike.
And since I purposefully took the bike to not be a chauffeur…
I suppress my vocal groan and follow him to the SUV.
As we walk, I find myself analyzing him like I would a fighter.
How he moves, how he holds himself.
But then I get distracted.
His ass is dangerous in his jeans.
In the light of day, he seems overall different than the man who fought Saint two days ago.
There are less demons clinging to his skin, for one.
Maybe the ocean water washed them away, not the fight, like it erased the feel of Saint’s hands on my body.
I climb into the passenger seat and look over at him.
His dark hair is still damp.
I unbraided mine and dried it before rejoining him in the hallway, all my armor put back together.
Although, isn’t it strange?
I felt more at ease underwater, mostly naked, than I do right now.
Fuck these favors.
If Saint had won, would he have asked to be rid of me?
Or was he planning on asking for something worse?
Kade pulls out onto the main road, heading toward North Falls.
There’s a road that follows the cliffs up toward the more popular, touristy neighborhood of Sterling Falls.
We pass the spot where town folks regularly cliff jump.
Although empty today, it’s a popular spot because of how the coastline is.
There’s a little protected pocket where the water is considerably calmer.
Plus, a staircase carved out of the rock instead of the insane ladder.
I face forward. We crawl past Bow & Arrow, dark and silent this early in the morning.
Halfway down the boardwalk, the pristine white-sand beaches that the tourists flock to is empty minus a few runners.
It’s weird seeing it at this time of day.
Usually, I’m leaving Bow & Arrow just before dawn, with everything cast in shadow.
“Where are we going?”
He doesn’t reply.
We continue down the road, and my throat gets tighter as soon as we move off the main strip of businesses and into the high-end residential neighborhood.
People who paid an extraordinary amount of money to have mansions built with an ocean view—but not the cliffs.
They wanted sandy, private beaches.
Somehow, I know what house we’re going to before we arrive at it.
Because of course. It couldn’t be easy, right?
It couldn’t be a rental farther east, toward the reservoir.
It couldn’t even be Kade bringing me to the forest to do wicked, cruel things to my body.
I might enjoy that more .
But when he turns into the exact driveway I predicted, all I can see is blood spilling across it, and her body?—
I didn’t see her body, though.
I wasn’t here when it happened—I was trying to avert another disaster and nearly got blown to pieces in the process.
Not that it matters.
Nothing matters when her death is thrown in my face over and fucking over again.
“What’s wrong?”
The house is different.
It was all dark, bulletproof glass and stone before, kind of ominous in the way it had been fully morphed into a fortress.
Not to mention riddled with bullet holes and blood.
It was sold. Changed.
But they’d have to bulldoze it and cleanse the land to erase the death that sticks to this place.
I ignore his question and ask one of my own.
“Why are we here?”
He climbs out.
I let out a long sigh—again—and follow.
I skirt the pavement where Nyx’s blood once stained it.
In the year following, someone’s gone to a great amount of trouble to either refinish it or replace the slab entirely.
There’s not a trace of her anymore.
It still makes my hackles rise when Kade and I go inside.
Whether this has been redone or left the same is a mystery.
I didn’t venture into the house, my curiosity sated by standing in the driveway.
But he leads me down a hall to a kitchen in the back and grabs a folder from the counter.
He tosses it across the island to me.
“What’s this?”
“I haven’t been entirely honest with you,” he says.
I scoff. “You’ve told me nothing, so…”
“I didn’t want a date , per se. More like, I wanted your expertise in a matter.”
I inch closer.
Sunlight streams through the huge windows, giving the room a bright and airy feel.
The ocean is just outside the door, the sand smooth and free of footprints.
This house sits at the end of the neighborhood, after all.
To my left there are huge sand dunes, and going right along the water would lead me back to the boardwalk.
What I mean to say is: I’m not trapped.
I flip open the folder and stare down at a photo of a side profile of a man.
My stomach drops, but I try not to show my hand to Kade.
I keep a blank face and scan the rest of the short write-up about Reese Avery.
Parents: deceased.
Siblings: none.
Occupation: unknown (last documented doing construction).
His bank accounts are active, but only in the form of monthly payments from a trust set up by his grandparents.
There’s the occasional withdrawal of cash from a small bank chain in Emerald Cove, the next town over.
“I don’t understand,” I say, my gaze flicking back to the photo.
It looks like a screen grab from the bank security feed, slightly grainy and the angle all wrong to have been taken by a normal camera.
It could’ve been zoomed and cropped from one on the ceiling.
His expression doesn’t reveal anything.
There’s no sense of fear or urgency, just a stoicism that seems foreign to me.
“I need you to find him.”
I don’t want to find him.
“Why?”
Kade rests his hip on the counter.
“He’s been missing for two years.”
I scoff before I can help myself.
“Missing?” I wave my hand over the folder.
“Missed by who? No one wants to find him.”
Anger flashes across his face.
“I want to find him.”
I scowl.
“No.”
“What do you mean, no ?” He steps closer.
“I asked?—”
“You asked for a date. If you wanted to find him, you could’ve just?—”
“No.”
He could’ve asked Jace for help.
Between Jace, Wolfe, and Apollo, they’ve got the whole city covered.
Informants, alliances, bribes.
Maybe not so much of the latter, with the lack of gang wars in Sterling Falls, but still.
They’ve got the network to make a search possible.
Me? Not so much.
And more importantly, I will not be digging up old wounds.
Owning the building where I used to be regularly forced to have sex is bad enough.
Knowing Terror is still right there, under the club, has given me equal amounts of grief and peace over the last few years.
If I keep it, it’s like a tourniquet.
It stops the bleeding…
for a price.
Sacrifices the limb .
The better method would’ve been therapy, but fuck that.
Kade exhales. “I have reason to believe you’re the only one who can find him. He talked about you.”
He knows.
Panic constricts my throat.
I don’t want him to know.
I don’t?—
The front door opens.
And I must be on edge, because I draw my gun and spin.
And end up pointing it straight at Saint.
He stops dead, his focus going from the barrel to my face and back.
His expression is as distressed as I feel, and another bout of guilt washes over me.
He followed me. He didn’t want to come here any more than I did, but he followed me anyway.
“We’re leaving,” I inform Saint.
I holster my weapon and storm up to him, grabbing his hand.
His fingers automatically thread through mine, and he allows me to pull him out of the house.
Past the driveway, where Kade’s SUV nearly hides the very spot…
I keep us moving all the way to Saint’s fucking motorcycle.
Of course he couldn’t drive a car.
I climb on and scoot back, allowing space for him.
He wordlessly hands me his helmet and swings his leg over.
I slide the helmet on and buckle it, my fingers trembling.
It takes me too long, and by the time I’m ready, the bike has roared to life under us.
I glance at the house, where Kade stares at us with a dark expression.
“Go,” I urge Saint. “For God’s sake, just get us out of here.”
He grabs my wrists and drags me forward.
I’ve got no resistance in the leather and slide down the seat easily, my chest colliding with his back.
I dig my fingers into his abdomen, and I think I catch a faint groan.
There’s no time to analyze it, though—he hits the gas, and we shoot away from the house of horrors.
We end up at his tattoo shop, Starlight.
He has his own parking spot in the back, out of sight, and he dismounts faster than me.
He slips inside and leaves the door open for me.
I move slower, although I’m officially spooked.
When I enter, Saint’s got most of the lights on.
The front is chic maximalism, dark walls covered in gold-framed prints, a white couch, a neon sign.
Plants. Those were my contribution, since I spent many nights in the beginning waiting for him to be done with clients.
Afraid that he was going to do something stupid like leave Sterling Falls altogether, maybe, or stab himself in the eye with his tattoo machine.
“Sit,” he orders, pointing to the tattoo chair.
The piece of furniture is a work of art all its own, nearly every part of it adjustable.
Right now, it’s a chair without a headrest, and the leg portion is up.
Meant for a recline, I guess.
He once mentioned how much it cost, and I felt sick inside.
Bow & Arrow isn’t cheap, by any means.
And I certainly know how to support myself.
But I don’t like to be frivolous.
It isn’t until I sit in it and lean back that I get it.
He sits on the stool to my left, rolling closer.
He’s snapping on gloves and wheeling a tray with his tattoo machine closer.
“What are you doing?” The alarm in my voice gives me away.
He smiles.
Dark, tortured, broken Saint Hart…
smiling . I haven’t seen the man smile since before the love of his life died in his arms.
His gaze runs over me again.
“Hmm…”
“What. Are. You?—?”
He stands and comes around the front of me.
He points to my jacket.
“Off.”
“I’m not?—”
“You take it off or I cut it off.”
He’s freaking serious.
For the second time today, I roughly undo the buckles and zipper, shrugging out of it.
He touches my blouse, hooking his finger along the collar and tugging.
“This, too.”
“Fuck off.”
He sneers.
“You’ve evolved from ‘fuck you,’ I see.”
“Clearly a mistake,” I counter.
“Worst sex of my life.”
“Yeah? So going another round solo in your bedroom wasn’t you trying to relive it?”
“I did no such thing,” I hiss.
His sneer morphs into a smug smile, and he grabs the hem of my shirt without warning.
He yanks it up, my arms automatically lifting to help him.
Goosebumps prick along the backs of my arms in the cool air.
I belatedly cover my chest, although my bra isn’t super revealing.
It’s one that I had lying around Olympus, since my original was wet.
He sits and scoots his stool closer.
“Here.” He presses on the ball of my right shoulder.
“This is payment for me saving you earlier.”
I roll my eyes.
“Are you going to tattoo a realistic dick on me?”
He pauses.
“Um…”
“Because if you do…” I lean over and tap his chest. “I’ll flay off your favorite tattoo.”
Saint turns away abruptly, finished readying his equipment and my skin.
And then something soft drops into my lap, and I pick up the strip of my blouse.
“Did you seriously just cut my shirt?”
“Yep. Tie it around your eyes.”
I growl.
“Or I will tattoo that realistic dick on your face when you’re sleeping.”
“I’d never sleep through that.”
He chuckles.
“You’d be surprised at how much drugs can hold you under.”
He doesn’t know .
My shoulders creep higher, but I force myself to remain calm.
It seems like everything lately is a reminder of my past. Dark hallways, bruises, pain.
And then floating along the bottom of the river, swept away by a powerful undercurrent…
Some days the longing to go back there is stronger than the horror of what I faced.
It’s those days that I fight at Olympus.
I let out a slow breath and tie the scrap of fabric around my head.
I go still, every muscle tensing.
It’s silent in the shop, and the first touch of something against my skin makes me jump.
He laughs at me. “It’s a marker.”
He continues for some time, switching to a sharper one, and then, finally , the tattoo machine buzzes to life.
“Tell me what he did.” Saint’s voice curls in my ear.
“I…” I lick my lips.
“He brought up past trauma.”
The needles bite into my skin at the same time that I finish my sentence, and I suck in a sharp breath.
My abdomen clenches, my hands ball into fists.
“Past trauma,” Saint questions.
“There was a boy from… a dark time in my life.”
“You have a dark time in your life?”
I don’t like not being able to see.
I don’t like not knowing if he’s mocking or serious.
And the bite of the needles as he drags them across my skin is surprising.
It hurts, yes, simultaneously worse and better than I would’ve expected.
Better because it scratches that itch.
The one that wants me to float along the bottom of the river, half unconscious, or stand at the bottom of the ocean and wait until my lungs are bursting.
Worse because the pain just goes on and on and on…
“Was this past trauma why you fainted at the club?”
I clear my throat.
He lifts the machine away from my skin, wiping at it, but he doesn’t restart.
“Yes,” I admit. “And now I have to find him.”
“The boy? Why?”
“Kade wants him found.” And I’m going to do it.
I’ve already decided.
It was an unconscious decision.
Subconscious. Whatever it is, I know in my bones that I won’t go back on it.
“Fuck him.” Saint resumes the tattoo.
I sink farther into the chair at the next pause.
“This is weird punishment.”
“Payment,” Saint says.
“When else do I get to pry into your head?”
I frown.
“Don’t scowl, you’ll get wrinkles.”
“Okay, Mom.” I don’t stop, though.
If anything, it just intensifies.
Because when was the last time Saint and I had a real conversation?
Before Nyx…?
“What about you?” I ask.
He sucks in a breath.
“Any past trauma I should know about?”
“Just Elora,” he says softly.
The tattoo machine goes silent. “We’re done.”