Of Flames & Fallacies (The Arterian #1)

by Courtney Whims

“The one son.” Her voice grows louder. “Chosen to lead them all. Wasn’t a son but a maid.” I cradle her face in my hands and stare into her blue eyes as I brush my thumb over her right cheek. “It’s okay, it’s just a dream. I can get your medicine. Did you take it this morning?” “Until binds of death did that grave deed bade…” With each word, her tone tips toward hysteria.

Five things I see. Four things I feel. Three things I hear. Two things I smell. One thing I taste.

Perhaps death was crueler to those it left behind. To miss, and wonder, and long for. To hold all of those memories in the palm of your hand, desperate to not let them go, but painful to keep them all the same.

What you are to me, I may never be able to justify in the significance of words. But you are, always have been and always will be, my beginning and my end. And every breath of my existence in between.

All of it releases in a single breath as he shakes his head. “Gods, I always want you. Every beat of my heart is a profession of what life you instill in me. The day I no longer want you will be the day I’m buried in the ground, far from feelings or thoughts. Because it’s you. Always you.” “Then shut up, Cole.” I lean forward, pulling my wrist out from his weak grip. “Save the chivalry for some other time, and kiss me.”

“Sometimes love is our greatest strength. And sometimes it’s our greatest weakness. It all just depends on how you wield it.”