They all deserved that. Every single girl who every smiled and answered when I called her Del, who bound her life to mine.
She wouldn’t want it.
I know that. Even if I don’t know her, and even if I refuse to truly consider it—I won’t put another girl through what Del lived through. I left that behind when I left Olympus. But even if I were willing—she wouldn’t be.
And Del had to come to her curse willing.
Artie laughs, this high, beautiful sound that cuts across the music, and I look at her. She’s hanging on a guy, laughing, all bright and happy. He’s already sunk into her trap.
I wonder if he even realizes it.
She dances with him, twice, before I step in, and pull her to me, letting her grind against me and give herself over to the screaming music that thrums harder as I dance.
On my hip, a music note is etched in scarlet ink, a simple thing that seems to shudder and writhe under the beat and the change of the music, the way the humans dance to it, the way Artie sways into me.
She twists away, and I let her. I know what she’s doing.
It’s a well-choreographed routine, with us.
I watch her, twisting her way to the bar.
Artemis is a hunter, the best the world has ever seen.
The club kind of fades away as I watch my sister laugh and flirt with the bartender. She's ignoring her earlier playmate and I flick a look at him.
Caught. So neatly snared in the pretty trap my sister weaves, he doesn't even realize he's a dead man walking.
It takes her another hour to reel him in. She likes playing with her food, likes the thrill of being hunted by her prey even as she positions them perfectly for me to kill.
I, however, am a hot thrum of angry want, almost shaking as I watch her tease and flirt and ignore him except for the smirking looks she pointedly does not give.
My raven flexes and stirs in my shoulder and I rub it, absently. Soon. Soon.
When Artemis finally lets him kiss her, her power flares, so bright through the club I wonder that the mortals can't see it. I've never understood how mortal souls could be so blind to what hangs bright in front of them. My sister is furious.
She always plays the game this way. Lures them in with the promise of sex in her smiles and touches and teasing. And when they take, even a little, she completely loses her shit. It turns her feral and deadly in a way that maybe she wasn’t, before they touch her.
I swallow the rest of my drink; a dark, bitter beer that makes me wish for absinthe, and follow them.
He has my sister pressed against the wall of the club, her hair smashed flat and her pale skin dirty. Her eyes are opened as he sucks a bruise into her skin and fury is there, calling my own, calling my power and I touch him. The arrow on my wrist seems to quiver, a sharp stab of white hot pain-blurred pleasure. The man grunts and doubles over. His lips are fat and bruised and a where Artie is pressed against him, bruises form, so fast that one second he’s standing there, sucking kisses into her skin, and the next he’s gasping and reeling on the ground, doubled over in agony.
I smile at him as Artie steps over the body that will soon be a corpse. Power sings through me and I lean into her as she giggles and we leave him there.
We go for hours. She hunts, toying with her boys and bringing them to her side, and I let my arrow sting and sing, and power thrums through me, so strong that it beats back my madness, even for a few hours.
It’s while I’m hunting, Artie’s voice a silver song in my ears and the dead at our feet.
I hear a tiny mew. Something so soft that it’s almost lost as Artie skips away from the latest corpse, already looking for the next victim.
The noise comes again, and I glance at my sister before I crouch down and stare at the tiny ball of fluff.
It’s as black as night, with bright blue eyes. Its mouth opens in a silent mew, and my heart trips over and squeezes.
Del’s eyes.
I move without thinking, scooping it up and cuddling the kitten against my chest. It’s so tiny that my hands swallow it, and its sharp little teeth sink down into the meat of my thumb. I laugh, and it blinks at me, hissing weakly.
Under my skin, my raven shifts. I can feel it scowling, glaring at the black bundle of fur in my hand. I hum softly, a soothing kind of noise that rumbles through me, more felt than heard.
My raven shifts, and the kitten snarls, all weak and harmless fury and I smile. The power that’s been thundering through my veins slows to a steady patter, and the kitten blinks up at me, eyes shining and familiar.
“Hello, Del,” I murmur and it mews, curious.
Under my skin, my raven huffs in displeasure and resignation. I cluck softly at it and the newly named kitten and turn away from where my sister is flirting and hunting, and let my feet wander, the kitten clutched close to my chest.
Within minutes, it’s purring softly. And that shouldn’t make me as happy as it does.
Too few things make me happy, these days. I pet Del’s little head, and I roam.
“You need to love things,” she whispered against my skin.
I glance down at her, and twisted her hair—black this time—around my finger, tugging tight until she swats my chest, a sharp tap to remind me that I am Apollo, but she is Del.
She is mine, but I am hers.
“Don’t need anything,” I argue. “I’ve got you and Artemis. Don’t have time to love more than that.”
She raises an eyebrow, not bothering to argue with words. I know who she’s thinking about. The same person I am. But she’s gone, gone and gone and her city is so much rubble, and she never loved me, anyway.
I wonder sometimes, if what I did to Cass was a horrible thing.
It was, but it’s too late to change.
“You can’t always love me, Father,” she whispers and I frown.
Because yes. I can. I am Apollo, god of the sun and prophecy and music and if I wanted to worship at the altar of my Del until the world stopped spinning and the sun fell from the sky, I damn well would. I scowl at her, and she rolls, a lithe movement as she straddles me, rocking against my body. My hands tighten on her hips, But I don’t lift her. Don’t shift her. Not yet.
“You won’t always have me, Father,” she murmurs, and her eyes open, blank and unseeing as she writhes against me. Her hands are on my chest, digging into my skin, tiny crescent half-moons, as her breathing goes soft and fluffy. Her eyes close and she smiles, a kind of twisted thing that stings because I only see that when she isn’t here. When she’s caught up in the grip of her power, and drifting.
I shift her and her eyes fly open as I fill her, and the words fall like a whispered prayer, and I don’t understand.
My eyes. Midnight black. Tame panther. Fierce baby.
I thrust into her as she gasps the words, and I store them away and push them aside, pull her to me and kiss her, until the power lays dormant and she is mine, gasping my name and weeping into my neck as I let her ride me.
After, she sleeps in my arms, and I pet her hair and let the words play over me.
Del doesn’t speak, not the future, unless it’s important.
The curse of it is that she doesn’t see enough to speak sense. It’s all snatches and possibilities and shifting futures. A helpless black panther with Del’s eyes.
I wonder, briefly, what that means.
But then I yawn against her skin, and she sighs, snuggling closer, and her voice is sleepy sweet and muffled as she whispers. “Love the tiny tiger.”
I stare at the girl who gave her sanity for mine, and whisper into her hair. “Okay, sweetheart. Okay.”
She smiles and twists herself around me even closer, and I let the scent of her, sandalwood and smoke and opiates and sex, sooth me and lure me to sleep.
Chapter 6.
I find myself at a vet’s office.
I’m not sure where I’ve been, or where the hours since I left the club have gone. I can feel the swell of my power, rising w
ith every second as the sun rises, and the fading echo of my sister.
Two sides of the same coin. Always. I smile and in my hand, Del shifts. Blinks sleepily at me.
She’s wary, watching me with tired eyes, her entire body tight and worried in my hand. I keep hoping she’ll relax, but she hasn’t.
She did scramble up my arm, her little claws digging into my raven tattoo, and he seethed, furious under my skin, as she settled on my shoulder, tail wrapped around my neck.
I wonder how strange an image we made. A blond god, and a black kitten and an angry raven.
They couldn’t see the raven.
They thought it was only a mortal adornment.
Mortals are such strange and silly creatures. Even Del knows that there is life and power in that ink.
“Let’s see if you need any shots,” I murmur, stepping into the office. I don’t expect her to. She’s mine, and I can already feel her little body, bright and full of life and a conduit.
“Stay with me, Del,” I order, and she stiffens on my shoulder, her claws sinking deeper, enough that I wince as she turns her head away. But she doesn’t jump down, doesn’t even flinch as we step into the noisy office crowded with dogs and cats in carriers and a host of humans speaking loudly and softly and one who is rocking in a corner. For a heartbeat, watching them, all of the world spins out, all the choices they’ve made and could make and a single glittering thread of future sings for each, and I shudder.
Del’s claws dig into my shoulder and she hisses, softly.
Pulls me from the vision that is beginning, to the moment that is now. I breathe and she shifts, her tail a comforting tight collar around my throat. I stroke her ears and she doesn’t hiss at me, which I feel like is progress.
“All pets should be on a leash or in a cage,” the receptionist says, giving me and Del a very flat look.
I smile, even as I feel my raven cackle and Del gives the girl an unimpressed look.
“She’s better where she is,” I say, mildly, and the girl’s eyes narrow just a touch. Del makes a low rumbling noise, deep in her body, and I smile. “Maybe just give us a room and we’ll wait until the doctor can see us.”
The girl glares a little harder, but she does what I suggest. The alternative is letting me and Del sit here in a crowded waiting room and causing havoc.
Once, this girl would have been falling all over herself to make me happy. Now she gives me attitude and glares, and I’m left alone with the stale smell of piss and disinfectant to keep me company as my kitten leaps on the counter and my raven ignores us entirely. Or as much as a raven that lives under my skin can ignore me.
I sigh, and lean my head back.
I knew leaving my family and power behind came with a steep price, but fuck. Days like today makes me wonder why the fuck I ever thought it was a good idea.
It ends up being a waste of time.
Del is fine, the fucking picture of health and she purrs softly for the vet as he coos over her.
When I scoop her up and return her to my shoulder, she goes still and silent, a glowering presence.
So I leave the vet behind and retreat to my apartment. Artemis is there, sleeping, curled in my bed like she belongs there. Del hisses softly when she sees her, and I run a finger down the length of her tiny body before she shakes my touch and jumps to the ground. She sniffs haughtily before stalking through the apartment and finding the one sun-soaked spot. It’s a leather chair, butter soft and overstuffed. It sits in a sunbeam most of the day—and it’s my favorite place to sit. Sometimes, I sit here for weeks. Basking in the sun and listening to music that only I can hear.
Artie doesn’t know that when I listen to the music mortals make, it’s easy for me to see their futures, all spun out and glittering. Easy to lose myself in the dizzying spin of power that even I can’t control.
I once sat here for a month, before I blinked back to myself, my raven screaming against my skin. I went to stay with Artie for three years, after that. I scared myself and my raven, and anything that can do that is worth being very careful around.
Artie knew I had done something to scare myself, but she didn’t press. Just let me hide from the world in her virgin forests, tucked in the cozy cabin in the middle of nowhere.
Del circles the cushion twice, and then curls up in a tiny ball, the tip of her tail curled over her nose. She blinks narrowed eyes at me, as if warning me to let her sleep, before she closes them and dismisses me completely.
I grin.
Del, it seems, lives up well to her namesake.
I’m strumming a guitar, when Artemis wakes. She yawns and I hear the soft scratch of bone and skin, her stag stretching and waking with her.
She stops short when she sees me, sitting on the couch instead of my leather chair, here instead of wandering the city.
“Where the hell did you go last night?” she asks, coming to curl against my side, her head dropping against my shoulder. Despite our hours in the bars and bloody alleys, she still smells sweet and clean.
She doesn’t sound angry, which is a pleasant surprise. She doesn’t always take it well when I wander off and leave her in the middle of a hunt. But she’s pensive and quiet next to me, more worried than angry and I heave a sigh.
“You worry too much,” I murmur, setting the guitar aside and tugging her closer.
“I worry with reason. You vanished, last night. I couldn’t feel you,” she says, frowning.
And okay, that is a little concerning. We’re too close, too twisted around each other to not feel each other, especially when we’re hunting together.
“What do you mean?”
She shrugs, moving against my shoulder restlessly. “I mean I couldn’t feel you. I still can’t.”
I glance at Del, still sleeping on my chair and her gaze tracks mine.
And she goes very still.
“Apollo, what the hell is that?” she asks, softly.
“A cat,” I say, being deliberately obtuse. She twists to look at me, and my raven ruffles its feathers, shifting nervously under her steely gaze.
She used to stare like that when she found men in her forest, back in Greece, before the Trojan war and Father left the Earth.
Most of those men died screaming.
I grin, and lean forward to kiss her nose.
“Del mentioned a cat, didn’t she?”
I knew the question was coming. If I hadn’t, I might have stumbled, standing up and walking to where the kitten is sleeping. As it is, I managed to keep her from seeing a reaction merely because my back is to her, and I school my face as I scoop Del up and turn to my sister.
“She did.”
Artemis frowns at me, at the kitten who still isn’t curled against me. She didn’t hiss when I picked her up, so I suppose that’s something.
“Following that witch’s prophecy will kill us all.”
I bristle. “My witch, sister. Remember your place.”
Her eyebrow raises, and she uncurls. The smell of dead things and moss floods the apartment, a sure taste of her fury. “My place? I am a goddess and that little whore stripped you of your power. She broke you, Pollo. You want me to forget that?”
“I want you to remember that Del was my handmaiden, my chosen. She did nothing I didn’t demand from her.”
Artemis snarls, and she takes a step forward, but both my raven and Del are stiffening, and power crackles, a live wire between them.
My power.
Arrayed against my twin.
She goes still, and her eyes are wide and hurt when she looks at me.
“You would strike me?” she whispers.
I don’t respond. Because no. I would never hurt my sister. It’s like stabbing myself.
Two sides of the same coin.
She laughs, and the noise is shaky and hurt. Uncertain.
Things that my sister has never been. That hurts, too.
“I should go,” she whispers.
“Artie,” I say, pleading.
> “No, Pollo. It’s fine. It’s—.” She shakes her head, and the stag on her back shifts under skin, swelling in her. It steadies her a little. Enough.
“You worry me, Apollo. But I can’t save you if you don’t want to be saved.”
I smile at her. Somewhere, music is swelling, and it almost drowns out her sorrow. Almost drowns out my own. A golden thread is fraying, and I wonder if it’s time.
Finally.
“Artemis, you can’t save me even if I want you to,” I tell her, my voice a whisper.
Leaving home is surprisingly easy. It’s something I had considered and not done for so long that to finally be doing it—it was almost anticlimactic. For a time I’m alone, both sister and cousin held to Olympus by our father and Hades. But they come to me, after a few decades, find me, mad and alone, and happy.
I wasn’t always alone. I found Del’s daughters, her granddaughters, and lived near them for a time.
When the last of them dies, I chase the sun.
Artemis and Hermes drifted by my side, held there by loyalty or curiosity. I couldn’t tell which, and was tired of attempting to figure it out.
I spent the first century lost in madness, the future spilling from me like an unending torrent, and I hated it almost as much as I needed it.
Del didn’t tell me this, and I had spent so many years free of this particular power, that having it again was startling and painful.
Artemis tried, for years, to draw me out of the maze of golden threads. Sometimes, I was lucid enough to see her staring at me.
I was lucid enough to see the hate in her eyes, and the way it fought with the love.
She was easier, though.
Hermes tried to solve my madness by seducing me with an almost endless parade of nubile village girls.
We would fall in bed, him and I and the girl pressed between us and he’d tug at me, at my power, until it hovered there, just beyond reach, just waiting for the girl to take.
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