Confessions of a Muse

By Edeline Wrigh

Selene only knows three things: She's in New York City, she's a muse, and her destiny is to save the world.

 

When a muse finds herself in The Big Apple with no name, no history, and a mission, she's determined to break into the thriving arts scene. Telling lies and falling in love along the way, she digs herself into a hole even she can't magic her way out of.

 

Meanwhile, this manipulator finds herself falling right into someone's plan, and it's not just the artists whose visions she's bringing to life. But with no memory of her own, can she figure out who's causing chaos in New York before it's destroyed and before her men can find stardom?

 

Confessions of a Muse is a standalone paranormal romance novel written in the style of a tell-all confessional. If you like enchanting protagonists with shaky moral codes, sexy artists, and questioning human potential, you'll love Confessions of a Muse.

 

Buy Confessions of a Muse to find out Selene's secrets today.

---

This is a high-heat, Why Choose novel with sexy men and a couple of monsters for good measure. Have fun!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rainbow Dreams Media LLC
• Release date: Sep 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223705635

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

If Helen of Troy has the face that launched a thousand ships, I, Selene Katrina Carrington, have the whisper that’s inspired a thousand poems.

Maybe more. It’s tricky to keep a count, even a rough one. It’s an impossible endeavor, truly: there’s never any way of knowing if glancing at someone across a dance floor will inspire them to write a poem. I imagine my number goes up dramatically when we include the lines written on phone apps, never to see the light of day again, and even higher if we think about the phrases that pop into people’s heads, only to disappear into the aether before they’re ever able to put pen to paper or fingertips to keyboards.

It’s hard being me.

You see, I’m a muse. And, further, I don’t remember what happened before I woke up dressed in rain-soaked rags in a New York City alleyway. All I remember is the sun on my face, a rainbow in the sky, and the sound of pigeons flapping their wings.

How’s this for honesty: The day I came into being was perhaps the greatest gift to the city’s art scene in recent history.

As a muse, I exist for pretty much one purpose: to inspire artists.

And, I swear on my beating heart, that’s what I’ve done since the moment I opened my eyes. Every action I’ve taken—no matter how controversial—has been for that reason alone.

I don’t want to mislead you, so I’ll make something clear early on: Much of my self-concept is entirely based on fabrication.

It’s out of necessity, mind you. Someone who believes in their own fabrications is alluring… inspiring. An amnesiac? Someone with no known or admitted history? Someone to pity, at best. Or fear.

Which, again. Don’t get me wrong. I’m okay with people fearing me, but I’m not the kind of being who wants people to fear me because they don’t understand who I am or what I want. I want people to fear me precisely because they know exactly what I am and because of the power the gods bestowed on me.

Oh, yeah. They exist, too. But we’ll get to that.

In the meantime, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me back up.

It was an average New York Wednesday. The traffic didn’t come close to what it would be on Friday, but even from my corner in the alleyway I could hear the cars and sirens a block away, hammering on their horns and revving their engines. It had spent the greater part of the evening raining. I assumed this, anyway, if the puddles on the ground and the dampness of my dress told me anything. It was bright, and over the layer of dirt that always coats such a street was a layer of sparkles, sunlight reflecting off drops of crystal moisture, and everything was beautiful, and everything hurt.

I knew what I was the moment I woke up, and that was about it. I didn’t know the place or the time, didn’t even know I was in New York until we’d rounded a corner into downtown Manhattan an hour later. But then, all I knew was that I’d been sent to this place for a purpose, and it was to see beauty in the minuscule details, to breathe life into the people who had given themselves over to the arts who had not been loved back adequately.

Yet.

I searched the corners of my memory: what had I been doing last night?

As far as I could remember, nothing. Not that I’d been doing nothing, that was nonsensical, just that there was nothing to retrieve in my mind, as if I had been brought into being mere hours before.

I didn’t even have a name. I’d need one, I knew, so I made one up: Selene Katrina Carrington. Something beautiful and proper and just exotic enough that people could concoct ideas about me. Because I knew they would.

I stood, brushing myself off, or trying. I was dressed entirely in white, and the dirt clung to me, giving me an earthy vibe that may have worked on a shore somewhere but looked nothing but rough in the inner city. The dress was also sheer, and there was only so much I could do about the way my nipples pressed against the fabric.

Sigh.

I could enchant someone into giving me clothing, I was sure of it; some shopkeeper who had dreamed of being a famous novelist but had been blocked for years, perhaps, could be persuaded to let some items go missing. Getting to them was another story, but the advantage of being here instead of on that proverbial shore was that people were far less likely to pay attention to me, so, small bonuses.

I wished someone had bothered to give me shoes that were more substantial than these damn gladiator sandals, though.

I was picking gravel out from between my toes when I saw him. Tall, dark, and handsome, and I wish I could tell you I made that up, but no. He walked in, all 6’3", casting shadows down the alleyway. He had jeans that ran low on his hips, a thin strip of patterned boxers peeking from above, Jordans sneakers with some wear, and a hoodie half-zipped up over his naked chest. A messenger bag crossed over one shoulder to the opposite hip, and he dug around in it.

He didn’t see me, not at first, and it gave me leave to stare at him. My mouth might have been open, even. He pulled out an aerosol can, popped the lid off, and shook it, then aimed it at the brick of the building and began to work.

I was transfixed, but I’m a… professional isn’t the right word. I’m a natural. From my place outside of his awareness I reached a tendril of consciousness toward him, something invisible to others but that I saw like a light ray, a silvery rainbow that transformed before my eyes, hitting him with a sparkle.

Inspiration.

It coursed through him in silver streaks, and he worked in a fever, grabbing and switching cans and barely remembering to check to make sure no one at the end of the alley watched him. There were moments of insight, of elements coming together, and it could have been hours or moments before he finally finished, signing the bottom right with his symbol, then putting the lid on the last can and flipping his bag shut.

He backed up, considering his work. His face changed, ever so slightly, and the pride and excitement I felt coming off him was enough to make me fall in love with him, just a little.

It’s beautiful, I said, finally tearing myself out of my reverie enough to walk next to him.

He jumped about three feet into the air. He blinked at me, as if trying to take in the blonde girl who had appeared out of nowhere. And perhaps I had, after all.

Look… he started.

I didn’t know what he was going to say. We both knew the people at the building would never have given him a permit to draw a five-foot monster on it—though if you asked me, it was a massive improvement to the neighborhood decor—and I’d watched him paint the entire piece from start to finish.

I shook my head. It’s beautiful, I repeated, meeting his eyes in an attempt to say, I see you. I know who you are. I know what you’re capable of. How long have you been painting?

Hands in his pockets, he stared at the ground, then raised his eyes to mine, a side smile showing white teeth. He was breathtakingly handsome, and I was definitely smitten.

Forever, he said, then paused. You like it?

I nodded. Definitely.

His smile widened. So you’re not gonna narc on me?

His expression thrilled me. I shook my head. I have a feeling the owners of the building won’t see eye to eye with me on your work as an improvement of the neighborhood ambiance. But hey, if you ever wanna be in an art show, let me know.

He raised his eyebrows. That’s never quite been my scene, if you know what I mean.

I could read between the lines well enough. I get it. No pressure. But the offer's there if you want it.

Let me be clear: When I offered this, I had zero idea how I would follow through on it if he said yes. But I had the sense, even then, that everything I said would come to pass, and I trusted myself just enough to take that risk.

I’ll think about it, he said seriously. Then, as if to lighten the mood, he asked, What are you doing here, anyway? Party too hard?

Something like that, I said, doing my best at a coy smile and fluttering my eyelashes. To be honest, I’m not sure. Blacked out, you know how it goes?

Where do you need to go? I can take you, he suggested.

Quite the gentleman. I liked him. Not that I had the slightest idea where I was trying to go, but that was a small detail I could work out later.

I have a suite for the week at a hotel just down the road, I told him. This was a lie.

The Bellevue? he asked.

Yeah, the Bellevue.

Fancy place, he said. He sounded skeptical that the woman more or less wearing rags in front of him was staying there, and with good reason. After all, I was lying.

But I was fast with my lies, too. I figure I might as well see the town in style. YOLO or something, right?

Where did I know about YOLO from, you may ask? I wish I knew. But it popped into my head, and I went with it, and somehow it worked there.

Well, fair enough. Let me escort you to the Bellevue, he said. He put out one arm for me to take as if he were leading me to the ballroom floor, and I took it to let him escort me to the hotel I didn't have a room at. Yet.

And, man, I really liked him.

Money is a human concept that far too much stock is put in. It’s an illusion, a shared social delusion that people fight and die for, and yet it rarely makes them feel alive.

The Bellevue Hotel costs a lot of this currency. More than I can imagine even on the days when I can imagine money, which, truthfully, isn’t often. I deal in inspiration and inspiration alone, and given that most humans desperately wish to feel inspired, that’s usually worth more, anyway.

Money can’t buy happiness, or something.

But it could buy a room at the Bellevue.

The place was all glamour even before we walked to the entrance. The artist who escorted me—Ryan, his name was—departed before we made it there, but not before scribbling his phone number on a piece of paper for me to follow up with him after I found my cell phone. I was pretty sure I didn’t have one, but those weren’t the kinds of details I wanted him to know. Instead, I took it and thanked him and made my way past the bellhop with his golden cart, through the revolving doors, and to the receptionist behind a marble counter.

Can… can I help you? she asked. She was perfectly polite and entirely judgmental under her veneer of Good Customer Service worker.

I didn’t blame her, but I also desperately needed to get into a room, clean myself up, and get situated into my new life.

I’d be a New York City socialite. It was the only way ahead for me: the only way I could reach the people so devoted to the arts they’d made it into their entire lives. I was here to claim my disciples in creativity and I would not be stopped by something as mundane as money or respectability.

The woman behind the marble counter was staring at me, a slight smile printed on her face while she waited for me to respond to her. She was young, perhaps an upperclassman in college from a nice middle-class family who couldn’t quite give her a full ride or a recent graduate in hospitality itching to ascend the ranks and become the manager of a prestigious hotel before she turned thirty. I gazed into brown eyes that held the depths of a life, lost, a shot at becoming a ballerina her parents had put to a stop far too soon, and into the glimmer of hope that remained. I formed my story.

I’m a dancer for a touring ballet group. Perhaps you’ve heard of us? Le Swann Ballet? I have a suite reserved by our manager. It should already be booked. Selene Katrina Carrington is the name.

Her eyes lit up, and her lip twitched for a moment before she began searching through the papers on her desk. She said nothing but nodded, and she wanted to believe me, so she gave it a second pass.

I’m not seeing it. Weird. Maybe they emailed. She tapped the papers on the desk to straighten them, then turned to the computer.

The sounds of other guests and employees echoed behind me, but