The Sun Revolves Around Apollo (The Gods Are Back In Town Book 2)

by Serena Akeroyd

  Achilles cleared his throat. “We can speak telepathically.”

  Hecate didn’t seem surprised. “Yes, I can imagine that was the case. That will only happen once you rely upon rutilated quartz. If you switched to citrine or another stone, for example, that particular gift would come to an abrupt halt.”

  Ella gaped at her. “Really?”

  “Truly, child.” Hecate smiled at her, then thrust the tiger’s eye at her once more. “Hold it, see what happens.”

  Ella, with tentative fingers, reached for the stone. There was no loud gasp, no outward change that could stir concern in us, no difference at all until…

  “It begins,” Hecate stated with a proud smile.

  The glow began to dissipate, and Ella’s eyes, once a turquoise shade, began to emulate the tiger’s eye.

  Hecate peered at Ella. “Well, that wasn’t anticipated. But it doesn’t matter unless you’re around humans. Might be handy when it comes time for a new incarnation. Easier than wearing contacts,” she enthused. “Let’s try you with garnet.”

  We all laughed as Ella’s hair turned red, then we stopped laughing when she shot us each a look and rather than a glare, there was such heated passion in each glance that I knew I wasn’t the only one adjusting my cock in my pants.

  Hecate huffed. “Let us persevere.”

  After the twentieth crystal, we’d come to see that though the stones Hecate insisted were aligned with solar energy muted Ella’s glow, they all came with a visible side effect.

  When Hecate placed a rutilated quartz bangle around Ella’s wrist, things seemed to calm down. Her hair turned strawberry blonde instead of blazing red when she touched garnet for example. But what truly helped was when she wore the quartz bangle with moonstone or selenite or opal.

  “The solar crystals mute that energy, while the others enhance my tie to her.” Hecate hummed again. “I should have expected that.” She reached out and tilted Ella’s head back so she could stare in her eyes. “I think you need to get accustomed to wearing crystal jewelry, child.”

  Ella snorted, but though I could sense a snarky retort heading straight for Hecate, none was forthcoming. Ella managed to control herself—would wonders never cease?—and murmured, “Yes, Dam. I think you’re right.”

  ❖

  Lux

  I was edgy as fuck when we returned to the limo, and I knew I wasn’t the only one.

  Each crystal that Ella had worn had triggered a visual reaction, and my visceral response had gone deeper than that. I felt like I’d experienced each one myself.

  Was that because we were all bonded now?

  I could only assume so.

  It wasn’t that my hair had changed color, or that I’d begun glowing, it was that I’d felt the whispers of Ella’s power sliding through my veins like a silken caress. It had made it damn hard to concentrate, if I was being honest.

  “So, there’s no solution, no cure, we can only manage the glow,” Apollo stated the second we’d set off and were on our way back to his building.

  “Seems like it,” Achilles replied grimly, and I knew we were all disappointed by how little we’d learned from Hecate.

  I knew we’d all been expecting a cure-all, and now that we hadn’t received one, we were destined for disappointment.

  “Guys?” Ella’s voice was a little shaky, a lot confused.

  “Yes, ó chrýsion,” Apollo murmured, reaching for her hand and entwining her fingers with his.

  “You know that dog?”

  “Hekuba?” I prompted.

  She bit her lip. “I stroked her.”

  Because her agitation didn’t match up with the words, I snorted out a laugh. “Could that sound anymore inappropriate?”

  She huffed, and I was amused to see her stick her middle fingers up at me. “I just played with her ears. Nothing major.”

  Apollo stiffened. “She didn’t bite you, did she?”

  “No! Did you hear me cry out in agony?” Ella grumbled. “I mean, when I stroked her ears, I saw something.”

  At my side, Tor tensed. “What do you mean? What did you see?”

  She bit her lip. “It was strange.”

  “I’d imagine any vision is,” I told her calmly, any teasing in my tone disappearing.

  That my wife was freaking out was beyond evident now, and I was irritated that none of us had picked up on that yet.

  How long had she been fretting?

  Christ, could we suck any harder as husbands?

  This time, the look she shot my way was grateful. She dipped her chin and murmured, “It was a building.”

  “A building?” Apollo repeated. “Where? Could you see it?”

  She bit her bottom lip. “You believe me? You don’t think I’m crazy?”

  I had to tease her then, she’d left herself open to the shot. “Oh, you’re crazy, all right, but not as crazy as us. You called it earlier.”

  A light laugh escaped her, and that it wasn’t as shaky, relieved me intensely. She shot me a sheepish grin and said, “I know where it was.”

  “How?”

  “It was odd, like I said. The building was in the background, and then you were there too, Lux.”

  “Me?” I pointed at myself in surprise. “Yeah. You were holding a letter. 555, New Birch Road, Upper East Side, Manhattan.”

  I snorted. “You shitting me?”

  “Why would I be shitting you?” she grumbled. “I mean, like this isn’t weird enough, like I’m not strange enough to make a Goddess buzz with curiosity. I know I see you holding letters. It’s hardly fucking exciting, Lux.”

  Tor snorted. “She has a point, brother.”

  I shoved him in the side. “Yeah, yeah. Less of the shit.”

  “You know what the address is? The building?”

  Apollo frowned at me. “That’s the orphanage where James was raised, isn’t it?”

  I dipped my chin. “Yes. The last one we closed down.”

  “Well, that’s a sign, isn’t it?” Ella chimed in.

  “A sign for what?” Apollo questioned, cocking a brow at her.

  “That we need to open it again.”

  I laughed. “What makes you think that?”

  She smirked at me. “Because of the date of the letter. There was a date stamp on it from the post office. It was sent next year.”

  “Well, she has us there,” Achilles retorted dryly as he folded his arms across his chest.

  Apollo frowned. “You think this means we’re supposed to reopen the orphanage?”

  Ella shrugged. “How am I supposed to know? I figure that’s what it means. You’re the ones who are more used to this kind of crap.”

  “Another fair point,” Achilles agreed.

  I rubbed my chin. “You closed those orphanages for a reason, Apollo,” I warned him.

  “Yes, but I’m here now. I have to do something with my days, don’t I?” she retorted. “And it’s not like I can go back to the burn unit, not without going through the whole process of getting a degree again, and while I’m not averse to that, at this moment, with all the stuff I have going down with my energy and this glowing shit, I’d really rather not be worried about getting my nursing degree again.”

  “You have plenty to do—”

  “No, I don’t. I don’t have plenty to do,” she argued. “I can’t just flop around like Cleopatra. I need to do something with my days. I mean, it’s been okay these past few weeks because Cressy was there, but I’ve been going nuts at the rehab center because I’m bored out of my mind.”

  “That was before you had us to entertain you,” I quipped.

  She snickered at me and reached over to grab my hand. “As fun as that sounds, honey, you can’t entertain me all the damn time. You have things you need to do as well, and that’s fine. But you can’t just expect me to swan around like a lady of the manor.”

  “Why can’t we?” Apollo groused, and she shot him an eye roll that had him grunting under his breath.

  “B
ecause if you don’t want me to be cranky, then you’ll give me something to do.”

  “Manhattan isn’t exactly next door to the center,” Achilles pointed out. “That building requires a long commute.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t have to be involved with the day to day running of it. I can organize things, can’t I? Build up the DiStefano name from scratch, right the wrongs James did. Maybe people would accept that from me. Maybe it will help me bring Dolly out from under his specter.”

  “It’s not a bad idea, Apollo,” Tor pointed out softly.

  The God heaved a sigh. “Perhaps not.”

  “We haven’t decided where we’ll be living,” I remarked. “Achilles, it isn’t a fait accompli that we’ll be living in the Hamptons.”

  “We will have no choice but to live there,” Apollo countered, as he placed his hand over Ella’s knee. “At least there, Ella can have some freedom. We have private areas on the grounds where she can be true to herself. Wearing the crystals, with their effects, could grow tiring. Here? She will not have that option.”

  “We can come and stay here for short trips though,” Ella stated firmly. “Can’t we?”

  He nodded. “Yes, of course. We’ll have to. But I’ll have to do as Tor and Lux have been whining at me for years—move my headquarters to the estate. It won’t be a hardship.”

  “Does this mean you agree to let me set up the orphanages again?”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “Only for as long as you are without child. You heard Hecate. That is when things really will start to change.”

  She winced. “Do we have to talk about me spawning little Gods?”

  “Yes,” he mocked. “At some point, you will have to talk about it.”

  “How about when I’m knocked up? That sounds like a great time to discuss it.”

  Her chipper tone had me snickering, and the crazy thing was? For the first time in my very long life, the future shone as brightly as she did. She was like a beaconing light that called to me, demanding I live, that I look forward to times ahead when the future had only ever felt like a formality before her.

  Now?

  I had the prospect of children again, I had the prospect of laughter and love, of hope and dreams, and they were only a part of my world once more because of her.

  If the sun revolved around anyone, it wasn’t Apollo.

  It was Ella.

  Always Ella.

  Chapter Nine

  Ella

  Fourteen months later

  I shot my ‘mother’ a tired smile. “I know you don’t agree—”

  “Don’t agree? You’re in no state to be doing anything other than resting,” she growled, and considering Dolly was polite as pie, the growl came as a surprise.

  I huffed out a breath, but when that made my side cramp again, I just sank back into my chair and stared up at the ceiling.

  I’d never had a mother before Dolly, and now that I had one? Christ, they were a pain in the ass. Such a responsibility!

  It didn’t help that she was totally in the dark about my life, always would be, and now that I was pregnant? Things were worsening day by day.

  Apollo had to insist she didn’t move into the estate with us, and she’d only listened because Achilles had told her she was stressing me out—which, of course, had made her start crying.

  The woman was an emotional wreck, and had been ever since I’d opened up the first DiStefano House for Waifs and Strays. Yeah, that was the name. My idea. Cool, right?

  I’d felt like a waif and stray, and I’d made a thing out of it. In the home, there were two Houses. Like Harry Potter Houses. You were either a Waif or a Stray. It seemed crazy to label kids like that, I know, but it was tongue in cheek, and because we worked hard to employ staff who gave a fuck and weren’t just there for the paycheck, the kids rolled with it and took it for the joke it was.

  It was like throwing down the title enabled them to own it, and own it they did.

  The Waifs wore green tees and sweaters with an emblem of a Stradivarius violin on it. The Strays? Their red tops were emblazoned with Fender guitars.

  When a kid walked through the doors for the first time, they had a choice which House they were embraced by, and it was down to them where they went.

  The trouble was, Mom was the kind of person who wanted to live in the shadows, hide from the public spectacle of her husband’s deceit, thievery, and lies. I wasn’t allowing her to do that anymore, and she didn’t like it. Had been using my pregnancy as a means to get me to take a step back.

  Ha.

  Like that was going to work.

  “Mom, please, you do realize you’re stressing me out more than the kids do, yeah?”

  She huffed and began pleating the hem of her skirt. “I don’t see how that’s even possible.”

  I rolled my eyes, and was supremely grateful when my office phone rang. It took me longer than I’d like to get off my ass and waddle over to it, and all the while, she was glowering at me with disapproval.

  When I picked it up, I stated, “Cindy, here.”

  I didn’t hate the name any less, but it helped only using it in public, and that the guys, Cressy, and her dudes called me Ella? It soothed my growing pains at having Cinder-fucking-Ella for a first name.

  “Cindy, Lee’s here.”

  Pleased that Dr. Jericho had arrived, I asked, “What about Farrah?”

  “She’s in her room. Want me to get her?”

  “Yeah, I’d appreciate that. Can you ask someone to take Holly to the nurse’s room?”

  “You know she’ll freak, right? Isn’t it best to take them to her room?” my assistant, Dana, asked.

  I hummed. “Maybe. You think that would work better? Wouldn’t she feel like we’re invading her personal space?”

  “Could do.”

  I narrowed my eyes as I thought about it. Holly was special. Of course, all the kids here were special. It wasn’t that I was into nepotism. I didn’t treat some better than others like my darling husband had. Everyone was equal here. You proved yourself by doing the best you could do, and whether that resulted in middling grades or a 4.0 GPA, there was a place for you here at the Home of Waifs and Strays.

  But Holly?

  When she’d arrived, I’d held her hand as I led her into the building, and the minute she’d stepped into the foyer, I’d had a vision.

  The crystals were a nuisance. I wasn’t going to lie.

  They were more than a nuisance, in fact. Lots of random shit happened to me all the time. Not unlike tiger’s eye, I couldn’t use turquoise without my eyes turning a weird blue, and don’t get me started on what rose quartz did to me if I dared to get into the bath—okay, I’d spill the deets. Orgasms? Hell yeah.

  But rutilated quartz always worked the best at controlling my outer glow when I used it in conjunction with another crystal, which meant I had to wear it all the time and deal with its after-effects constantly—one of which was the telepathy and the visions.

  The visions were a pain, and I didn’t think I’d ever get used to them. When I’d seen Holly, standing on the bottom step of the staircase of the orphanage, as a twenty-year-old woman, slapping Poseidon, the God I’d come across on the night that will forever be titled The Night To End All Nights… well, yeah, the abilities the crystals gifted me with became more of a nuisance than usual.

  Holly was Poseidon’s.

  I’d seen that, and had told my husbands. We hadn’t informed the God, though. Mostly because Holly had enough to handle without having one of the Gods hovering around the place watching her grow up, micromanaging everything on her behalf.

  But we were treating her a little differently than most, and I was being very cautious about the other kids seeing that. Not only did I not want her to stand out from the crowd so she wouldn’t be picked on, but I didn’t want her feeling weird either.

  “Take her to the pool,” I decided after a moment’s thought. She was Poseidon’s future wife. She had to have some aff
inity with water, right?

  At least, that was what I was hoping.

  Dana chirped, “Sure! See you down there in twenty?”

  “Great!” I replied, and shot my mom a look. “I have to go, Mom.”

  She looked displeased at the gentle dismissal but didn’t argue. “You need to rest more, Cindy,” she chided as she walked over to me. When she cupped my chin, she tutted. “Why you insist on changing your hair and wearing contacts when you’re pregnant is beyond me.”

  “It washes out,” I argued, regretting my choice of wearing garnet and tiger’s eye today. I hadn’t known she was popping by, and aware that Farrah and Lee were, I’d decided to up the crystals I was wearing in an effort to avoid visions of the future thanks to the quartz.

  I wanted to focus on Holly, not on some stupid random effect my gifts triggered.

  She tutted again. “Promise me you’ll go for a nap this afternoon.”

  I nodded. “I will.” I was tired. The sun was at its zenith as midsummer was tomorrow, and we’d discovered that its waxing and waning, as with the moon, affected me.

  Apollo kept messing with the ozone layer, trying to limit its effects, but whatever he was doing when he went to his temple in the woods never lasted long. Well, long enough for my benefit. The humans were rejoicing—people in places like Argentina, Australia, Chile, and New Zealand were no longer suffering from a depleted ozone, and the ‘holes’ were no more thanks to his tinkering.

  I was happy for them, I really was, but yeah, I wished his messing with the forces that be would have more of a long-term effect on my energy levels.

  Yeah, I know #firstworldproblems.

  “Holly’s the child who was abused, yes?”

  I dipped my chin, sickness swirling inside me at what had happened to her. “We’ve brought in a doctor from Mount Sinai and I’ve hired the nurse who cared for me when I was ill last year to work with her.” I cocked my brow at her. “Turns out she’s a psychiatric nurse.”

  Mother flushed. “I was worried about you.”

  “I’ll bet. Anyway, Holly is in good care, I just need to introduce her to the new guys.”