For The Love of a Friend: Dante and Apollo

by Noah Harris

  “No fucking more!” Apollo raged, punctuating it with one more swing, throwing everything he had into that last, final punch.

  Half of the thick pillar simply broke away, huge chunks of wood scattering through the air to slam into the wall and clatter along the wooden floor. In one instant, Apollo had ruined one of the few artifacts of The Grove, and his own hand in the process. Blood ran down his fingers, dripping in a steady stream of droplets to splatter on the ground.

  Apollo’s knees gave out, and he dropped to them, voice weak. “No more.”

  A hand came to rest gently on his shoulder, squeezing. Apollo looked up, breathless and weak as his head swam with memories and more emotion than he knew what to do with. His parents, his sister, and now he could only see Dante, broken and dead, alone without anyone there to have helped him, to save him. It could have easily happened in the mountain if Apollo hadn’t been there to save him.

  And Dante had chosen to save Apollo just a little and broke his own heart in the process.

  “Come with me,” Samuel said softly.

  “Where?” Apollo asked.

  “To my quarters. There are some things you should know.”

  “About Dante?”

  Samuel’s fingers flexed. “And your parents.”

  Chapter 11 – Dante

  ~~*~~

  Plucking the rock out of the dirt, Dante twirled it between his fingers. Cocking his head, he eyed the small lake, calculating what needed to be done. Pulling his wrist back, he flicked it forward, releasing the rock at just the right moment. The rock shot from his hand, skimming over the surface of the calm water in a series of hops and jumps before finally spinning up into the air and dropping beneath the surface.

  At the near dozen skips, Dante smiled, before his mouth fell into an unhappy frown. Normally his little excursions out into the wilds around the main center of The Grove’s territory helped him to clear his mind. Whenever an assignment weighed heavily on him, Dante only needed to excuse himself out into the middle of nowhere, enjoying the peace and quiet, and the comfort of nature at its most wild and gentle.

  This time, he couldn’t find the peace he normally dug up when he was on his own. It had been days, and his mind was still plagued with images of Apollo’s shattered expression. His own words, which grew crueler and more harsh with every mental retelling, haunted him constantly. His sleep had been restless when he could bring himself to sleep, and even the sweetest fruit tasted bland to him.

  “You did what was best,” Dante whispered, unsure if he was reminding or convincing himself at this point.

  Not liking the thought, Dante bent down, searching for another rock. So far, the only respite he gained from his dark thoughts was to busy himself with some inane or menial task. Building himself a sturdy shelter while out in the woods had taken the better part of a couple of hours the first day, and it had really been the only productive thing he’d done since. Every other task he’d assigned himself had been as pointless as collecting more firewood than he needed for a month’s excursion, or as mindless as trying to identify the various birds which came to the lake.

  Which was how he got stuck trying to perfect the skill of skipping stones. In the dimmest parts of his memories, he could recall a dark-haired woman showing him when he was very young. He remembered the frustration at how easy it had seemed for her, his mother, and how difficult it had been for him. Dante had never managed more than a single skip then, and now as an adult, stuck in the memories of the past, he had devoted himself to getting as many rocks skipped as possible.

  The next rock flew from his hands, skipping eleven times before sputtering out and dropping below the water’s surface with a soft sound.

  Before Dante’s sigh of disappointment could finish, a voice spoke from behind him. “I believe I have never seen anyone manage to attain so many skips before. Consider me impressed.”

  Dante whirled around, his mental hackles rising before he realized it was Matalina. The small but dignified matriarch stood near the edge of the trees, where the forest stopped before the ground continued down to the lake. She was dressed simply, a white blouse over the top of a skirt of light material billowing around her feet. Matalina was barefoot as she walked forward, somehow seeming to float along the ground, much like Dante had seen Lucille do.

  Dante looked away. “I’m sorry, Mother, I didn’t know it was you.”

  Matalina chuckled. “No, I would not expect you to. You seemed quite preoccupied in your endeavor of skipping rocks.”

  Dante glanced at his dirty hands. “It…passes the time.”

  Matalina looked out on the water, features serene. “Is that why you have chosen this spot for so many years for your escapes from The Grove? To pass the time?”

  Dante blinked. “I…you…”

  She looked at him, smiling softly. “Know you have come here almost every time you choose to hide your face? Yes.”

  “Um, how?” Dante asked, thinking they were a few miles from The Grove’s village, and that he’d never spoken of this place to anyone.

  “You are not the only one to possess a few tricks up their sleeves.”

  Dante wasn’t sure what to say to that and was even more puzzled by Matalina’s appearance. The matriarch wasn’t known for her wandering, and she tended to stick mostly to the Main House. He knew she possessed a great deal of information and wisdom, and that much of her time was spent pouring over the legends of the past, as well as all sorts of things about werewolves and the world, things Dante couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  But why would that bring her out to the lake, to him?

  “You never answered my question,” Matalina told him.

  Dante jerked. “Oh! Oh, uh, well…yeah, I guess it’s to pass the time.”

  “And what, pray tell, are you waiting for that you need time to pass so often?”

  Dante snorted softly. “My head to stop hurting.”

  “Your head, or something a little deeper?”

  “Yeah, I guess that too.”

  Matalina strode forward, allowing her feet to slip into the cool water of the lake’s edge. Looking upward, she let the sun stream down on her face, closing her eyes as she took a deep breath. She never moved, looking more like a statue than a leader of a pack of werewolves.

  “And would you say that it helps?” She asked, her lips barely moving.

  “Coming out here? Yeah, usually,” Dante answered with a shrug.

  “Usually. But not this time?”

  Dante was glad she wasn’t watching him and missed his guilty grimace. “Not as much this time, no.”

  Matalina smiled, bending forward to let her fingers dance in the water. “You always were so difficult to get a read on. Even as a boy little older than six years old, you were a challenge. Sometimes I thought Samuel would despair as he tried to figure out how to integrate you into our pack.”

  “Yeah, I guess I didn’t make that too easy on him, huh? That’s a troublemaker for you,” Dante said with a light laugh he didn’t feel.

  “You were a child, who had lost the only parent he had ever known, thrown into a group of strangers you were dependent on, even as they were none too subtle about their wariness of your status as an outsider. It was no surprise to me that you experienced difficulties, and in truth, I took heart in seeing you fight back,” Matalina said.

  Dante blinked, a little taken aback. “You were? I was always getting into fights and driving people to come you to complain.”

  Matalina laughed softly. “How could I not feel comforted? Here was this small boy who blatantly refused to be pushed into a corner, or to accept the label others would have chosen for him. I told Samuel, you needed only to find your place, and that you would, in time.”

  First had come Apollo, and with him was always his twin. Artemis was as attached to Apollo as Dante would have expected a twin to be, understanding Apollo in a way Dante could only envy. As much as he had understood their closeness, he’d always wished sometimes to h
ave a little more alone time with Apollo. He would never have done anything, of course, nothing could have come between Apollo and Artemis, and Dante wasn’t fool enough to try. That didn’t mean he hadn’t wished for more times where it was just him and Apollo, where he could dream safely of his best friend.

  “Perhaps Father should listen to you a little more,” Dante said, smiling softly.

  Matalina pulled her hand back with a throaty laugh. “I have been telling him that for many years as well. I knew once you had your connection, the thing that brought your heart into the fold, things will take care of themselves. From there, it was marvelous to watch as you grew closer to them, allowing them to pull you further from your shell. Now you can count my children and a certain spirited druid among your close circle.”

  Dante snorted. “You saw all that coming, did you?”

  Matalina stepped out from the water, still looking up toward the sky. “I knew only that once you found your place, you would begin to blossom. I will admit, I did not expect you eventually to come to be Samuel’s third hand.”

  “I suppose it should be comforting to know that I can keep even you guessing,” Dante said.

  Where Matalina was Samuel’s immediate right hand, his partner and advisor, and Mikael his left hand, the one to come from behind and take his place, Dante was none of those things. He was the one that no one paid attention to or didn’t want to notice. Dante was the one who purposefully secluded himself from most of The Grove, and especially its public affairs. From there, he could slip away without his absence being noted, and from the shadows, he could work whatever tricks he needed to protect his home.

  “Though I was less surprised that you gave him so little choice,” Matalina added.

  Dante snorted at that. “Father has always had a choice; he just chose me.”

  “After you successfully eavesdropped on a private conversation between him and myself, and then slipped away from The Grove without anyone being any the wiser. Even more impressive was that you were able to reappear days later, with the very books I had discussed with Samuel. Certainly, he had a choice, but how could he say no when you had both the talent, the availability and a stubborn refusal to take anything else but the position?”

  Dante hadn’t quite thought of it like that at the time. All he’d known was that there were books, old books, that Matalina had wanted, though they were held behind the territory lines of an enemy pack. Dante, who had spent so much of his life wanting to be left alone, unnoticed, had found it easy to slip into the village in the mountains, locate the books Matalina had spoken of in private, and bring them back.

  Once Dante had realized just how valuable the act had been upon bringing them back to Samuel, he had seen his opportunity. Dante would never be a bold warrior like Kat, or a noble man like Apollo, or even selfless like Mikael, the heir apparent, but he could do something. If he could use his skills, the same ones built up over years of troublemaking, sneaking, and skulking, then he would use them to his full advantage, and the advantage of The Grove.

  “I needed to do something,” Dante said, shrugging.

  “And so you have. For so many years, you have been doing thing after thing for us. No one can ever know what you do, but you do all these things, risking yourself in ways no one else will ever understand. Nor will they understand the toll it takes on your heart, of how the things you do can eat away at you when you look unchanged to the world. They will never see the blood staining your hands and the nightmares which have seared themselves into your mind. And they will never understand how lonely it truly is.”

  Dante’s mouth fell open in surprise. “You?”

  Matalina glanced over her shoulder, the corner of her mouth curled up humorlessly. “In a different life, in a different place, and for a different alpha.”

  Dante rocked backward, stunned by the realization. It went a long way toward explaining how she seemed to always know so much about everyone in The Grove, and how she had snuck up on Dante without so much as the slightest sound.

  Dante let out a wild laugh. “Mother, a third hand. Well, fuck me.”

  “Was.”

  Dante’s laughter died, his smile fading. “Yeah, I guess you got out, didn’t you?”

  “Only the cruelest or most demanding of alphas will keep their third hands bound forever to their role. When the hand is tired, then it must be laid to rest, and another will take its place in time. I found my reason to be laid aside, and another, in time, did take my place.”

  Dante looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers. “And what was your reason?”

  When he looked up, Matalina’s smile was soft, her eyes distant. “I met an impossibly stubborn, passionate, and dangerous man, and fell deeply in love with him.”

  “Wait, you quit because of Father?” Dante asked dumbfounded.

  Matalina winked. “He never asked me to stop if that is what you mean. I quit because I chose to and because I knew it was my time. I continued for the first several months of the time Samuel and I were together, but in time, I closed the chapter of my life that was being a third hand.”

  “Just like that?” Dante asked.

  Matalina stepped forward, taking his hand gently in her own. “No, not just like that. It was a difficult road. I had born a great weight on my own for so long, and the road to acceptance and peace was a long and hard one. But in the end, I realized that no matter how stained or sullied I thought I was, I deserved a chance at something warmer…safer.”

  Dante stared down at their joined hands and then up into Matalina’s soft, understanding gaze.

  His heart thundered, mind locked to Apollo’s face. “Just how much do you know?”

  Matalina laughed, drawing him to her side as she walked. “Enough. I know you, and I know Apollo. That is all I need to know.”

  Dante’s smile felt as though it were splitting his face, but he forced it all the same. “You wouldn’t by chance happen to know what I need to do, would you?”

  Matalina gazed up at him, shaking her head. “Don’t let the best thing in your life get away simply because you are scared, or because you believe you should be punished.”

  Taking a deep breath, she cupped his face in her hands.

  “Let yourself accept love, whether you think you deserve it or not.”

  “Just like that?” Dante whispered.

  “Just like that.”

  Chapter 12 – Apollo

  ~~*~~

  Moonlight streamed in through his bedroom window, casting its pale light in a beam over the hardwood floors. The rest of The Grove was asleep, and all Apollo could hear was the soft sound of the night insects chirping away as he lay sleeplessly in his bed. His talk with Samuel the day before rung in his head, among the still present tumult of his thoughts about Dante, who had yet to show his face again.

  Apollo turned away from the rest of his room, facing the wall and closing his eyes. He was doing himself no favors by letting himself think too hard, worrying about Dante. The man would show up when he showed up, as was Dante’s way.

  A sound, so quiet Apollo almost missed it, came from deeper in the house. Sitting up, Apollo cocked his head, listening intently as he stared at the open door leading into the hallway. There was no further sound, but Apollo threw his legs over the edge of his bed and padded softly to the door. He glanced down the dimly lit hallway, first to his left, toward the two doors at the end. The doors to his parents’ and Artemis’ former bedrooms were still thankfully closed, and Apollo turned to the right as he exited the room.

  The hallway opened up into the rest of the house, with the living room coming first. Apollo’s eyes darted around the room, gaze skimming over the handwoven blanket tossed over the back of the couch, the table in front of it still covered with a few of his art supplies. Looking up, he squinted, seeing nothing in the open-air kitchen beyond the small dining room. Apollo walked forward carefully, heading toward the small alcove to the right of the dining room.

  He froze when he
heard another soft noise, the rustle of paper. Apollo turned back toward the table in the living room and realized he hadn’t noticed the missing box. All the drawing supplies were there, with pencils and sticks of graphite scattered about, but the box of his used sketch pads and notebooks was missing.

  Jaw tightening, Apollo rounded the corner and lurched to a stop. The small space just off from the rest of the house had always been his favorite spot, and he frequented it whenever he needed to think, relax, or simply take a nap. One wall held a huge window, a considerable investment for anyone in The Grove when resources had to be used carefully. It allowed a vast amount of light into the space, however, where Apollo loved sitting or sprawling out on the comfortable, handmade chaise pushed against the wall below the window.

  Dante stood in front of the window, facing it as he flipped through the notebook in his hand. Enough moonlight streamed through the window for Apollo to see which of the old notebooks Dante was looking at. Apollo’s gut tightened as he looked at the pages full of his drawings of Dante. Other notebooks were laid out on the chaise, open to even more drawings of the man.

  Dante sparring with Kat. Dante napping peacefully beneath the shade of an elm tree. Dante laughing and smiling. Dante frowning as he looked down at an object in his hand that Apollo hadn’t seen fit to sketch. Every one of the pages contained Dante’s face, every detail carefully and lovingly drawn and labored over. From Dante’s crooked smile to the tiny scar which formed the smallest of breaks in his left eyebrow.

  Turning, Dante looked at him, his hand still gently clasped over the latest of the notebooks. Apollo couldn’t see Dante’s face in the shadows from the moonlight behind him, but he could feel his eyes on him.

  Apollo blurted out the first thing that came to his mind. “You’re back.”

  Dante nodded. “I am. I’m sorry.”

  His shock and relief at seeing Dante standing before him, whole and safe, was washed away in a sharp jolt of pain, frustration, and anger. Dante, no matter how good his intentions, had cracked Apollo’s heart, and then abandoned him for days to hide away. Apollo had been thrown through the wringer, his heart sick, mourning all he had lost, and all because his friend had been too scared of what might be between them to embrace it.