𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐎𝐅 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐒✔️

TWENTYTHREE|INTOXICATEME

I grabbed the bottle, holding it like the last thing tethering me to this earth as I sank to the floor besides a book shelf.

I twisted off the lid with fingers that didn't shake then but seemed to now, suddenly deft in their eagerness, pressing it to my lips.

At first I took tentative sips. The whiskey burned my throat like a bitter fire and warmed my chest from the inside out, but then something within me snapped. The last strands of my resolve that held me together and I drank greedily, only stopping once the pain in my lungs became too much from the absence of air.

Though the bottle sat on the hardwood beside me, I didn't dare let it go, my fingers firmly wrapped around the neck as I tilted my head towards the ceiling as the world swayed and danced before me.

I felt lazy, relaxed. Like nothing else mattered.

I still heard Ozymandias' words.

"Flick is pregnant."

Over and over and over.

But It was like I didn't care as much anymore. Though a small part of me still tugged at my sleeve like a small child, calling me back to reality.

A rain drop crawled down my cheek before falling to the floor. I opened my eyes, looking for the source of the droplet,

When I found none, only the crisp white above, my eyebrows furrowed in confusion. I pressed two fingers to my cheek, tracing its path.

It was me.

I hadn't realised the tears that spilled from my eyes, maybe I was too far on to even know what I was feeling anymore.

It was like every breath that heaved it's tired soul from my lungs ached, a deep throbbing feeling, not like any pain I had ever felt before, milder, softer and yet somehow... stronger?

It was strange, this blissful agony that writhed in my chest, like a scream that started in the base of my spine, slowly travelling, growing, clawing... until it got to my chest where it caught in my throat. I couldn't let it out.

It was trapped inside, like the caged wild... maybe it was her? The wild inside me calling out, crying, begging. Screaming.

She, and she alone understood what I felt, what had been taken from us.

Whiskey scorched my throat, drowning the scream that raged inside me.

I hadn't noticed the door open. I hadn't even noticed him come in. I didn't even spare him a look when he sat down beside me wordlessly.

Before, I felt the overwhelming urge to hit him, to slam my fists against his chest, crying out the only word that echoed through my mind.

Why.

Now, those scarlet feelings had faded into grey. It was an all encompassing nothingness that plagued me now. I just couldn't bring myself to care. I wasn't angry at him anymore, I was angry at the Gods. At the world. And a small part at her.

He took the bottle from my shaking fingers, putting it to his lips he drank. I had half expected him to take it off me to hide it. It was a comforting feeling that came with his presence, the fact that he didn't need to ask.

He didn't need to know to realise that I was hurting. He handed me back the bottle, for a brief moment he met my eyes, before he buried his face in his hands. He was hurting just as much as I was.

The look in his eyes seered into my soul.
I watched as he raked his hands through his hair.

The hands that begged.
The lips that asked.
And the eyes... the eyes that asked without words to do what no one could but someone must.

And how the child's blood spilled into foreign dust.

Maybe I was sick in the head. Maybe.

But I couldn't stop the voice that screamed for the death of his unborn child. Willed it, even.
The part of me that wished for it's death before it came to the world. I couldn't be responsible when it's blood spilled.

But it would happen, one way or another.

I held the bottle, staring at it with hatred. It messed with my thoughts. It made me feel this way.

It stole one feeling and replaced it with another. It was wrong. Unnatural.

The words that came to my mind made no sense. Was I going insane?

It was him who saved me from myself with his sonorous voice. "What have I done?"

He was silent for a while, we sat there. Unmoving. It was a comfortable emptiness between us.

"She knew her heat was coming." He shook his head in defeat. "She knew and instead of running to the bunkers to warn the others she ran to me. She knew exactly what she was doing."

I bit my lip as I handed him the bottle, a female in heat was almost impossible for a male to resist.

Almost.

"Everything she did.. she did deliberately." He didn't try to hide the falter in his voice. This was him, raw and exposed in the purest form.

"What do you mean?" I couldn't look away from his pained countenance, every curve and plane of his jaw contracting and relaxing.
Unmarked. Flawless.

His fists balled around the bottle so tight I worried he may shatter it. "She left her fucking scent for me to find. Knowing I wouldn't be able to resist, that's the sick part."
Once he started, he couldn't stop. The worlds came tumbling out, as the damm he had spent years building snapped to ash and dust.

His golden eyes seemed to glow with hatred. "She knew my wolf was on edge, that the slightest push would send him over the edge and she still did it."

"But why would she-"

"She was angry Artemis." A shiver crawled along my arms at the way he said my name. "Because I had refused to sleep with her ever since.."

He didn't continue, instead he stared seemingly ashamed at the lip of the bottle, taking another swig. Maybe it was the whiskey, but I couldn't help but stare at the sharp line of his jaw, his long dark eyelashes. His amber eyes that now pierced my own.

My voice was barely a whisper when I spoke.

"Since what?" My eyes flickered down to his plump lips for just a second. A second too long. I absentmindedly bit my lip, finding the sweet burn of whiskey still lingered.

"Since you came."

***
I can't get the ARTEMIS banner to load so I'll just add it on later😁
Also Just so you guys know I'm going to be selling the digital rights to AMORA very soon, so if you want to read it I would suggest doing it sooner rather than later :)
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