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He dropped his forehead to mine. “I will love you, Harlow Vanguard, with my dying breath. But until then… Until then, I have to hate you.”
“What?” I breathed, my heart beating out an erratic panic in my chest. Like it was trying to skip for joy and sink in sorrow all at once.
He pulled away to look at me again. “I had to do what I did to protect you. So, I could keep protecting you. Because if Apollo ever finds out–”
“If Apollo ever finds out what?” the man – or God – in question asked, appearing in the bathroom with us.
Valen and I turned to find him standing with a quizzical raise of an eyebrow and his arms crossed. By the look on his face, Apollo knew or at least guessed the very thing he was to never know.
“Don’t read anything into it,” Valen said, feigning nonchalance scarily well. “She’s had a few threats from a few places before now and we weren’t going to worry you.”
Apollo’s eyes narrowed further. “You went to him?”
I swallowed hard, but I could tell Apollo the truth. “I went to Marco,” I said, and I saw his eyes widen. He hadn’t known that I’d found out about Marco’s true alliance. Or maybe God didn’t know everything after all. “Marco decided not to worry you, but…couldn’t deal with every threat alone.”
Apollo raised an eyebrow at his closest friend. “And you’ve been going behind my back for how long?”
“Ever since you started parading her around the school like a fucking target,” Valen snarled, taking a step towards him. “Look where it’s got her.”
“It’s barely bleeding, Valk,” I snapped. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
Apollo took a step towards Valen, and the two men glared at each other.
“And how long have you been fucking my fiancée?” Apollo asked Valen, his voice so low even I almost missed it.
“You watch yourself,God,” Valen said, equally quietly. “We’ve got through a lot of bullshit, but there are some things even we won’t come back from.”
“And now you’re lying to me,” Apollo accused him.
“Not since you put that ring on her finger,” he said, as though that was meant to mean something.
Apollo roared. Actually roared at him. All red-hot anger. He whirled on his heel and screamed at the others in the room, “GET THE FUCK OUT. NOW! OUT!”
I shivered. I’d never heard Apollo with that much absolute fury before. He’d been angry, but that had been calculated and calm. He’d been a man in control. The Apollo who was waiting in his room for his best friend wasn’t calculated and he wasn’t calm. He certainly didn’t have a single shred of control.
“KINCAID,” he yelled.
“Fuck,” Valen muttered, resigned like he’d known this day was coming.
He spared me one, almost apologetic, glance before he went and faced the music.
“I will kill you,” I heard Apollo say to Valen.
“Fine,” was Valen’s response.
I swayed forward and back, trying to get up the courage to go and watch two men I loved beat each other up. Fuck this for a joke. I steeled myself, reminding myself that this world would have me see far worse as Apollo’s bride. I left the bathroom and was greeted with a torrent of emotion facing an immovable mountain.
Apollo’s fist crashed into Valen’s cheek, and Valen just took it. Hit after hit.
“Hit me back, motherfucker!” Apollo roared at him.
Valen’s lip curled, and he spat blood. “I hit you and you’re going down. Then you won’t get to hit me anymore.”
I didn’t doubt it. Valen had taught Apollo how to hold his own in a fight, but that was a last resort tactic. If it ever came to that, the assumption was that Valen was dead, and Apollo would probably follow soon after. There was no way Apollo could hold his own, let alone beat, Valen in a fair fight. Thus, Valen would make sure Apollo had any advantage Valen could give him.
“This is all your fucking fault!” Apollo yelled at Valen.
“Really?” Valen scoffed back. “How the fuck is it my fault,my liege?” His voice was heavy on the sarcasm.
