From Darkness (Hearts & Arrows Book 3)(18)

“What a sweet little buck, Artemis. Noble effort.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And where is your prize, Orion, King of Hubris?”

Orion jerked his chin toward a rack where his buck hung, and she held her breath as she counted the points with haste.

“Twenty? By the gods.” Exasperation was thick in her voice, and the buck was forgotten behind her.

Eleni approached. “Shall I finish cleaning this for you?”

“Yes, thank you.” Artemis took a seat next to Orion, and Sirius followed, curling up next to him with her eyes on the fire.

“You may tell me how superior I am now, Artemis.” The firelight cast shadows under his jaw and the slope of his lips as he taunted her.

“Oh, may I?” She crossed her ankles in front of her. “You are fortunate that I am exhausted and in no mood to smite you.”

“You would never smite me.”

She smiled at his certainty. “Would I not?”

“No,” he said with a chuckle as he shook his head. “I do not believe you would.”

“I have smote so many. You would just be one in a very long line.”

He leaned toward her, a smile playing on his wide mouth, his deep eyes twinkling. “You would never smite me, as you know what lies in my heart.”

He was so close, she could see his every eyelash. Even in the dark, she knew his eyes—blue with flecks of green and gold that shone in the firelight. Her breath quickened, and she wondered what was happening as she leaned into him, drawn to him like a siren call.

Eleni cleared her throat, and Artemis blinked a few times with a laugh as she turned away and dusted off her boots, the sound far less awkward than she felt as she tried to find her footing again.

“Well, nicely done on your buck. You won today, friend, but tomorrow, you will not be so fortunate.”

Orion leaned back with a strange look on his face. “Yes, Artemis, there is always tomorrow.”

Confusion wriggled through her as she realized that she had almost kissed him.

Is that so hard to believe?

Orion was everything she wished for in a companion, and she wanted to be with him always.

And it was then that she wondered…could she feel love?

But it was impossible. She could never take a lover.

Artemis was a virgin goddess, the maiden. It was a title she had requested from her father, Zeus, wishing to escape the prison of marriage and duty that women were bound to, preferring to retain her freedom. But Orion already held power over her, power she didn’t understand and hadn’t knowingly given, and for a fleeting moment, she understood what love was, saw it laid out before her like an ocean.

Artemis pushed the thought away and cleared her mind. She had no care for love, or so she told herself, but still considered speaking to Aphrodite. The goddess of love would understand the makings of her heart better than she and perhaps would give her guidance.

But she balked at the ludicrous notion. Artemis, in love? Pure fantasy.



Artemis looked up at the sun pouring into the skylight, the rays cutting through the dark water in wedges, as she floated in her reverie. Looking back never brought peace, only pain.

In that way lies madness.

She knew all too well that was truth. She had tortured herself with the past for so long that she was a shell, so constricted at her core that she was calcified, a hardened version of who she had once been.

Orion was the closest she had ever come to love, but he had been stolen from her, gone forever, and she could not heal. The wound only festered, and the sadness and unfairness of it all twisted around her heart, poisoning her.

Artemis swam through the open crag, looking up at her nymphs as she made her way back to the present, leaving her memories in the black below. They watched her as she swam away with longing.





The sun was barely up when Josie rolled over in bed, and her mind switched on like a lightbulb as she ticked through her schedule for the day. It would start like it always did—with a run, then shower, breakfast, and work. Her day was planned out, every minute filled with something productive. She hated the feeling of having nothing to do, mostly because, when she was idle, she couldn’t help but think about all the things she’d lost.

She saw Jon’s face behind her closed lids and opened her eyes to banish him. She stretched for her phone, sighing when she noted that her alarm wasn’t set to go off for another fifteen minutes.

Jon. His name rang clear in her mind, unbidden and unwelcome.

She hated seeing him, hated how she felt after, like someone had cut her kite string and she was left untethered, whipping around in the wind.

Josie slung her legs out of bed and forced lingering thoughts of Jon from her mind, wishing there were a way to permanently eject him from her head and life. Her temporary fix was yoga, which was equal parts therapy and exercise, a way for her to control her body and find focus. It was the emotional equivalent of a reset button.

She lifted her arms up in a sun salutation, breathing deep and exhaling before she bent over, hanging her arms, her knuckles grazing the rug, breathing in time as she pushed out to downward dog.

Exhale the bullshit.

Her smoky-gray cat, Ricochet, strutted into her eyeline and flicked his tail in her face.

“You’re crushing my Zen, Rick.”

He meowed back.

She sighed and stood, scooping up her cat to kiss him on the head. “I’m sorry. You hungry, kitty boy?”