“You look like shit, cousin,” he says, without looking at me. The girls have always been far more entertaining.
I shrug. “I am as any of us are, am I not?” I say, simply.
All three look at me, and I feel curiosity and judgement in their gazes, and it makes my stomach drop, twist unpleasantly.
So I retreat. There’s an unoccupied room on the far side of the house that overlooks the forest. Artie will like it, so I slip inside and let the door close behind me.
This is not the life that I have chosen.
It’s the one I’ve run from, for so long I’ve almost forgotten why I ran to begin with.
Except. That’s not true. I remember too well. I drop on the bed that will be Artie’s and my raven huffs on my shoulder, shifting nervously.
I wonder if my family has found the same strange way of channeling their power. I wonder if they would listen, if I told them our way.
I rub the eye on my chest, a self-conscious thing that I’m only aware I’m doing when my fingers come away a little warm. Then I curse, and let my arm flop down and hum, until everything fades away and I dream.
When I do, I dream of Del and the whole world burning.
Chapter 10.
It takes exactly three days for me to lose all patience with my family and bolt.
Three. Long. Fucking. Days.
Artie gets to the house that night, crawling into the bed where I’m sleeping, curling around me. I hear the low snuffle of her hound, and something else.
“Brought Del,” she murmurs, her words brushing into my hair and I smile. With Del near my head, my sister at my back, and her Hound sprawled across our feet, it’s almost like all of the endless years have fallen aside, and we’re on our island, sleeping wrapped around each other in our childhood bedroom, and somewhere, not far, but far enough that she is separate, mother is singing, a noise that I pull power from.
I smile to myself and drift back to sleep, wrapped in memories and comfort.
When I wake, it’s with the rising sun. I can hear movement in the house, and my sister’s steady breathing against my neck and Del’s claws digging into my shoulder.
Carefully, so I don’t disturb Artemis, I crawl from the bed and rub her Hound’s ears while I pad away, Del at my heels. She mews once, an imperious demand, and I grin, scooping her up and letting her settle on my shoulder.
“Let’s find coffee,” I murmur.
Here’s the fun thing about my family.
They don’t believe in coffee.
My uncle Hades and Hermes are in the kitchen, and Demeter is there, with Persephone leaning over Hade’s shoulder.
And every last one of them is drinking mead. Like that’s an acceptable drink at sunrise.
Unless you are Dionysius, mead is not a breakfast beverage.
“Where is the coffee?” I mutter.
They eye me with something like concern and contempt, and then Persephone is swaying over to me, all bright-eyed warmth and ‘have some mead, nephew’ and I snort. Del’s little claws dig in and she hisses once, in warning, as I turn away.
“You…you have a cat.”
That comes from Hades. I shrug. “You were the first to use an animal to channel your power, uncle.”
There’s a beat of silence, and then, “My power has not been so strong as to need a channel for centuries.”
I hesitate, and Del’s tail, wrapped around my throat, tightens just a little, a growl rumbling up and through her small body.
I force a smile. Shrug my shoulders. And then I retreat because I really can’t deal with all of my family without coffee.
Three days later, after four fights between the goddesses, a lecture from Zeus, and one very awkward funeral of sorts, I bolt. I leave Artemis and Hermes and all of them behind, and hightail it for the city, with Del clinging to my neck, hunkered down in the curve between my jacket and my neck as the wind buffets us.
The fact that she isn’t clawing me up, tells me all I already knew about my foundling kitten.
She’s not a normal cat by any stretch of the imagination.
That she hasn’t left my side in days, sleeping curled around me and spending her days twisted around my neck, sleeping in my lap or tripping over my feet—that tells me that she really doesn’t like my family.
“Neither do I, baby girl,” I mutter, and gun the motorcycle, roaring my way down the coast, until I hit the city.
I told Artie all I wanted was to get some coffee. A little fresh air and distance from the titans, but coffee because how the actual fuck do they expect me to even pretend to be sane if they won’t provide my drug of choice.
I could have stopped in any gas station, though. Or even a store, for a bag of beans and a little machine before I retreated back to that cloud-covered house in the suburbs.
I didn’t though. I drove the hour it took to take me into the heart of the city and when I found myself slowing the motorcycle, I knew this was the place I was coming all along.
I park the bike and Del noses at my neck, a silent question that I ignore as I watch the shop.
She’s there. Dancing as she cleans a counter, and I want to hear the song in her head.
I want to be the song she hears. Every moment of every day, I want her dancing to my song.
I haven’t wanted this since I released Del, centuries ago.
I haven’t wanted to break a girl the way I broke her.
But standing here, watching her dancing, and the way her gaze darts to the clock, and back to the counter, I want it.
I stretch my Sight, and let myself stare at her. At all of the threads of possibilities, a thousand lifetimes and choices and one that gleams, golden bright and shining, the one that matters.
The one that will be.
It ties her to me.
I let out a breath, and I push off the bike, and enter the coffee shop.
Iris looks up, a little bit of frustration bleeding into her eyes, when I push open the door, and then a smile, sweet and artless twists her lips.
“You,” she murmurs, softly. Her red hair is pulled up today, and she’s wearing a summer dress, dark green, that sets off her pale skin and freckles, and she’s smiling, her eyes warm. Inviting.
Mine.
“Me,” I agree. “Did you miss me, sweetheart?”
“Should I have?” she asks, turning away to pour my coffee—cold-brewed, black, topped up with a straw. I take it from her and add a splash of milk, watching the coffee instead of her as it turns creamy and I take the first sip.
“Yes,” I say simply.
She blinks, and a smile curves her lips up, wide and amused.
Gods, this girl. She has no fucking filter, no masks that she hides behind and flirts with. She’s just raw emotion, honest and there for the taking and it may well damn us all, but I want to take.
I want it so fucking badly my hands shake as I lift my coffee.
“Where did you go?” she asks.
“Why were you crying, the other day?” I counter.
Her eyes go dark for a heartbeat and she looks down. Away. Then she smiles and shrugs. “My brother is dying,” she says, her voice light, and it’s the first time she’s lied to me. I hate it, immediately.
The words are true but the way she speaks them, like they are small and trite and meaningless. That is wrong, and I growl, low in my throat.
“Tell me.”
“Why?” she asks, and her voice is bitter. It feels like glass shards and the strands around her twist and warp, darkening.
“Iris,” I whisper.
She stares at me and her eyes gleam with tears. “Who are you?” she whispers.
“Someone who can help,” I say softly. “But only if you tell me.”
And so she does.
The boy is named Heath. Iris’ twin. (I like that she has a twin, but I hold that thought to myself, to examine and delight over another time.)
He was an athlete. A good one. Got a scholarship to Mizzou and everything. T
hey—her sister and Iris and their grandmother—were thrilled for him. So damn proud she couldn’t’ even be upset that he was moving away and leaving her behind.
We are told to say that. That we don’t mind. But we do. It always hurts to be the one left behind.
I think that is why, even now, Artemis is so close to me. Neither of us can bear to be left by the other.
It was in the middle of his first race when he fell. His leg was splintered in two and he was screaming, and they thought, panicked, that his career was over.
When the doctors came, they realized it was worse.
Bone cancer had eaten through his body. The leg shattering wasn’t the problem—it was the symptom. His career was suddenly the very last thing any of them were concerned with.
“They gave him six months,” Iris says, sniffling. “It’s been eight, and he was doing so good. Like. I thought he might actually make but then he took a turn and it’s just…I keep waiting for them to call. To tell me that he’s gone.” She stares at me, her eyes wide and searching. “What am I going to do when he’s gone?”
I lean forward. Take her hands in mine and rub them. “You’d go on. Because that’s what he’d want.”
She stares at me, and tears stand in her eyes, these big, begging things.
I should leave. I know I should. I should leave her here and go back to my family, to the fighting that is happening there that I can't ignore or escape--I can only pretend to do both.
Instead, I take her hands in mine and smile at her. "Come with me."
And she tilts her head. Studies me through her tears. It feels like the world holds its breath as I sit there, patient and waiting under this mortal girl's eyes.
Finally, she nods. "Okay."
I take her out of the city. We climb into her little car and she stares at Del who creeps off my neck and settles in my lap with a single, grumpy mew.
"Got a thing for cats?" she asks, cranking the engine and pulling into traffic.
I shrug. "Think I've always known I'd be a cat person, in the end. But Del is a good, little buddy."
I rub a finger between her ears and they pin back, and she hisses at me.
Iris laughs and it's good to hear. To hear something other than tears and angst in her sweet voice.
"Tell me about you," she says, and I shrug.
"There is very little to tell."
"Where have you been the past few days?" she asks, tilting her head to side eye me and that I can answer.
"There was a death, in my family. A cousin. I have a pretty.... intense family and we've been holed up in my father's house, while we waited for the funeral."
"Were you close?"
I shake my head. "No. She was a sweetheart, but no. We weren't close. I hadn't seen her in years."
"You aren't close to your family, are you?"
I shrug. "Not most of them. I'm very close to my twin sister. She's my best friend." I say it fondly, but it's such a trite way to describe the other half of my soul.
That's what twins are. Or, what they were, when the world was very young. They were two halves of one soul, torn into two bodies. It's why Artie and I are still close, despite everything that says I should stay away from my family.
Why what Hades did to the twins was so infuriating. It’s one of the only times I sided with Zeus over my uncle.
It's why today, I can't forget this gorgeous girl that I want in my bed and wrapped up in my power, that smiles at me, distracted but lovely from the driver's seat--I want to fix it. I want to give her back her twin brother.
I want to wipe away the fear that lingers in her eyes.
She touches my knee, and I let my fingers wrap around hers. "Stay with me, Apollo," she says, softly.
I want to tell her that I am. That I am here.
That right this moment, I don't want to be anywhere else. That I want to lose myself in her, because I can't face the truth that is glaring at me when I look away from her.
Instead, I squeeze her hand and she drives us into the sun.
When we are sitting on a rock looking at the setting sun, she's wrapped in my jacket, shivering in the cool wind, and licking an ice cream cone with dogged determination.
"What would you say if I said I could fix your brother? What would you give me if I could do that for you?"
She doesn't hesitate.
"Everything. But you can't. No one can, Apollo. I've accepted that."
She licks the cone again, a smear of chocolate on her pink tongue and then turns pensive.
"There's nothing I wouldn't give or do, if you could. But it's just...the shit hand we were given. Tomorrow, I’ll go back to my awful little cafe, and I'll go back to Heath's bedside, and I’ll go back to my shit life."
"And today?" I ask, my voice shaking.
She licks the cone again, pondering.
But it's already done.
This. Whatever this damn thing growing between us is. It's already done.
So it is no surprise when her expression settles.
No surprise, but it still sings through me like a fucking song, one I know without ever having heard it.
It still makes my heart kick in my chest, like the first time I saw Del.
"Tonight, I want you to make me forget," she whispers.
I lean across the rock and the sunlight flares across the sky, painting the world golden and red and the deepest purple I've seen in a hundred thousand sunsets.
When I kiss her, it's under that color-bright sky, with my power flaring like a supernova and I feel the arrow on my wrist tingle.
I close my eyes and press my lips to her and lick into her mouth as my power runs wild and rampant, and she shudders under it.
Her fingers are braced against my shoulder, and her fingernails dig into my shoulders. It feels like Del, yet utterly different.
She tastes like chocolate and the wild, wind-tossed mountains I used to love, and she tastes like home.
We're wrapped around each other when we fall into her car. She hasn't quit touching me since we lost that damn ice cream cone and I licked the taste of chocolate from her lips and all that remained was the sweet warm taste of Iris.
The ride back to my apartment was long as fuck, and I had to bat her hand away from my cock four times before Del snarled, softly, and planted herself in my lap, glaring golden-eyed at Iris.
Which would probably have annoyed any other girl.
I held my breath, waiting for it to annoy Iris. Instead she laughed, this wild, free thing that banished the last shadows that had been clinging to her all day.
She brushed a finger over Del's little head and she grinned. "Okay, kitten. I'll leave him alone. Until we get home."
I shudder because that word in her mouth, about my place. It's every fucking thing.
"Iris," I murmur when her fingers feather over my thigh, and she laughs, low and dirty. Pulls away.
“Take me home, Apollo.”
When we step into my apartment, I’m almost shaking with the urge to reach for her, to drag her into my arms and kiss her senseless. She’d pulled away in the car, sitting almost demurely against the door, her eyes glittering with amusement as she watched me and we drove.
But I pause, watching her take in the little apartment.
I watch her as she watches the space as it’s revealed to her.
It looks too lived in, shabby and cluttered, and comfortable. My guitar and a lute are on the table, cluttered with scraps of paper scribbled with lyrics and music.
The sink is overflowing with dirty dishes and I have a heartbeat of ‘oh shit’ before she grins, toothy and amused, and turns her gaze to my sitting area. The sun is streaming and as I follow her into the room, it blossoms strong.
She’s in my space, the scent of her filling my senses. And basking in my light.
I couldn’t resist her if I tried.
As it is, I don’t.
I tug her to me, and she laughs, low and sexy when I take her by the hips, pulling her into t
he sunlight. Del darts away, snarling under her breath, and I dismiss her entirely, because I’m in my chair, and the sunlight is everywhere, soaking into me and turning her into a gilded statue, all love and light. I pull her into my lap and she settles there like she belongs, her hands in my hair and her knees on either side of my hips.
“What are you doing to me?” I murmur and she smiles.
She kisses like a revelation, slow and easy, all of the earlier rush and fury soothed now, as she learns the shape of my mouth and licks at the seam of my lips.
And I let her, keeping still and passive as she licks into my mouth and nips at my lips, tasting until it feels like she’s devouring me, and still wants more. Until she’s rocking against me, her sweet little body anxious and needy, tiny noises spilling out and I swallow them down like ambrosia.
When she finally pulls, we’re both gasping and my patience is at an end.
“What do you want?” I murmur and she rocks against me.
“I want to forget my life, for a few hours. I want you.”
She looks at me, and I wonder what she sees.
The lost, blue eyes and golden hair, the strange beautiful boy?
Or the man that I am, under the mantle of godhood?
Del saw that. I didn’t realize until now just how much I want the same thing from Iris.
“Apollo?” she whispers, fingers curling in my hair. “You with me?”
I grin, and my hands tighten on her hips. Fingers digging in bruising hard and I drag her down, kissing her curving neck and she shivers, writhing against me.
I slip her closer, until when her hips roll, she grinds against me and I groan into her skin, nipping at the pale flesh until she gasps and I grin against her. “Bastard,” she huffs and I laugh outright at that.
She wiggles out of my grasp and hits her knees yanking on my belt.
“Iris,” I gasp, and she smiles up at me, and it’s all Del and mine.
“Shut up, Apollo,” she murmurs and I do. I tilt my hips up and she grins as she tugs my jeans down. When I’m naked, she sits back on her heels and watches me with hungry, wide eyes.
“Fuck, Apollo,” she whispers. I want to preen under that admiring stare, and the way she licks her lips, hungry, but I don’t get a chance, because she’s leaning forward, and sinking down, taking me deep in her mouth. I gasp as the wet heat engulfs me, I sink and swirl.
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