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Chapter 14
Apollo
It killed me how I couldn’t be there for Elyse. I watched every single thing happening, and I remained fucking useless.
And right now, she needed me more than ever. Even though Poseidon and Ares were both with her, I yearned to be there to hold her against me and tell her everything would be okay. I wanted to chase the boogeyman away.
Fuck Hades for what he’d done to her. When I told him to step up and be a man, to accept what he felt for her, I hadn’t meant that he had to screw her over like that and leave her to fend for herself. It was like he’d taken everything I said, twisted it into something evil, and left her to deal with the consequences.
The next time he went to the Underworld, he’d better watch his fucking back. Because I was going to wait there for him and show him exactly what I thought about his way of dealing with things.
Zeus also pissed me off for tying my hands like this, for making it impossible for me to keep Elyse safe.
Could Zeus not see I was needed down there? They needed me to help take care of Elyse, to keep her safe. Zeus would want her alive, too, right? We had a common interest, didn’t we?
When I couldn’t take the frustration anymore, I left my palace and stormed across the courtyard that led to the temple. Heracles was in here all the time, conversing with Zeus, who made himself accessible only through prayer. The son of a bitch had a serious superiority complex, if you asked me. It was one of the reasons I’d left in the first place—Zeus and Poseidon were always up there on their high horses while the rest of the gods had to grovel below.
Instead of going down on my knees in prayer, I shouted at Zeus from my feet.
“You can’t possibly think any of this is okay!” I yelled at the ceiling like a child in a temper tantrum, flexing my biceps, wishing Zeus was here now. “If she dies, her blood won’t be on anyone else’s hands except yours. Not even X.”
Zeus suddenly appeared before me in a flash, dressed in his white robes, his silvery hair as wild as his eyes. “You have a lot of nerve to come here and talk to me like that,” he boomed.
Thunder crackled all around the temple. Theatrics—him trying to scare me. My face burned, and my hands balled into fists as rage contorted through my veins.
“Don’t tell me you don’t see what’s happening,” I snarled.
Zeus nodded, his eyes never leaving mine. “This is all part of the journey. Surely, you understand what it takes to shape the character. Elyse needs to be molded.”
“Well, if you let X mold her to death, we’re going to have a problem.” That was aside from the issue we already had—Zeus keeping me away from her.
“You need to trust me, Apollo. Have you not learned across the centuries that there’s a reason for everything?” He spoke so calmly while my heart raged like a bull inside my chest at the injustice, the agony of seeing Elyse in distress. I’d fallen for her hard, and I’d fight to stand up against Zeus for her.
I shook my head and turned my back on Zeus. He could strike me down with lightning for that, but I didn’t give a shit. All I’d learned across the centuries was that Zeus didn’t care a lot for the humans he’d placed under his protection, and now the last fighting Lowe’s life was hanging in the balance, he didn’t seem to be doing anything about that, either.
I was reminded again and again why I’d decided to live on Earth. At least the humans knew when their stubbornness could backfire. Maybe that was something the gods ought to learn as well.
When I looked back, Zeus was gone, but I still trembled with fury.
Back at my palace, I stood in the room where Elyse and I had once spent time together. I needed to reach her, but there was no way I could do it physically. Zeus made sure of that in so many ways, and I’d tried all of them.
Maybe there was a way I could access her subconscious, especially because we’d been together here and on Earth. It was magic I’d never used before, but I’d heard of it, and I wanted to try this because I had nothing to lose.
I sat down on the floor, crossed my legs, and closed my eyes. After pushing out of my mind anything and everything that could distract me, anger still sat in the pit of my stomach like a ball of fire.
I focused on Elyse, searching for her energy signature, her emotions, her heart, her dreams.
And as if she were wearing a tracker or a homing beacon, my thoughts slipped to hers immediately.
She wasn’t alone at home. Heracles stayed at her place, but she was in bed sleeping, and I smiled. The rest of the gods had scared off X for now, but she didn’t need to be on her own now. For what I was going to do, it didn’t matter that Heracles was around. We were going to be alone in her dreams.
“Apollo?” Elyse asked, surprised to see me, but her mouth curled into a smile. In our vision, we stood in a room similar to the one I’d brought her to on Mount Olympus. But it wasn’t the same room, it had accents of a different life—flowers that bloomed in one of the corners as if they were still attached to the plant, water that ran across the floor like a river. We were inside and we were outside at the same time. The bed in the corner of the room was surrounded by trees, and birds sang overhead, although I couldn’t see them.
“How is this possible?” Elyse glanced around, and she was as beautiful as ever, her hair long and falling down her back, but shadows sat under her eyes. I missed her insanely.
I pulled her into my arms and held her tight against me, using my energy to give us the ability to touch in the vision. It’d been so long since I held her, and I wanted to keep her all to myself forever. For those few moments, I pressed every ounce of me into our embrace because even being that close wasn’t quite enough. She softened against me, her thin arms wrapped around my waist. I stroked her dark hair, her warmth flooding me.
“It’s magic,” I whispered. “But don’t focus on that right now. How are you? I’ve seen you struggling.”
