Page 65 of Apollo

Every cadence of his growl was a startling replica of the first time he’d used it on her, with his soles stained in her blood and his gaze sharper than the chandelier chips in her spleen.

Just. Like. That.

Except completely different.

Sometimes, spilled blood made a difference for good. One step could change cold chandeliers into brilliant rainbows.

And the angel who’d grudgingly saved her body into the male who peered into her soul.

Who made sure she got that message without any crossed signals, tilting up her face with one of his elegant hands. He wrapped the other one against the back of her head, tangling his fingertips deep into her curls. That dual touch, as warm and strong as the fire star he ruled, would have been enough to hold her in place for hours—but when he suffused her with the intensity of his twin greens, it was like he’d ordered the pines to hurl all their needles at once.

Oh God, that penetration hurt.

Worse than the glass in her hair and the crystals up her spine.

She never wanted it to end.

What the hell are you doing to me, Glow Worm? And why-why-why do you keep doing it so much better every time? What do you think you’ll accomplish from it? What you’ll get from this stupid human who has so little to give you? Who doesn’t know who she is anymore?

But he heard none of that. Of course not. This god was in her mind and her heart and fuck, every molecule of oxygen she breathed, but her rant didn’t even make him blink.

The rising wind lifted his hair. Several raindrops pelted his back. But he kept channeling the pines themselves, keeping her close with evergreen patience.

“What?” After all that, she could only manage that much. She locked her teeth, damning him and herself for the words that still roiled inside but refused to come out. “What is it, Apollo?”

Just say it, damn it. Makes better sense to toss away the umbrella in the rain, anyhow. Impossible to discern if the dumb human is really crying, right? How tedious that all must be for you. Let’s spare you from sopping up the rest of the mess, okay? Get it out, let me go, and—

“I’m having trouble with your crisis.”

Well, she had asked him for it. Just not quite like this, in his full OG Phoebus mode. Not in the tone that was half confrontation and half are-you-really-done-because-that’s-as-clear-as-a-hieroglyphic-poem mode.

“Huh?” Not that she helped with the clarification at all. But could she be blamed? “Buddy, you’ll have to get a little more specific than—”

“Stop.” He braced her jaw with the same gritty force, stretching fingers across her cheeks until the tips pushed at the edges of her ears. “Just stop, okay? I’m not your buddy, and we’re not just talking about Genny anymore, or Ito, or your stupid squad guys.”

“Hey.” She squirmed, only to glower when he locked her harder in place. “They’re good men. None of them asked to get beaten to a pulp by your half-lion of a stepbrother.”

“You’re changing the subject again.”

“About the facts you got wrong?”

“About the soldiers you’ll defend more than standing up for yourself?”

She opened her mouth, ready with another retort, but then the hieroglyphics fell away. His point sank in. Beneath his palms, her skin burned with fresh mortification. Why was he fixating on something she’d spilled at her weakest moment? Guys weren’t supposed to pay attention when things were blubbered between snotting and sobbing. It was like watching a woman gyrate to take off a sports bra. Some things were seriously meant to be ignored.

“Okay, look.” And there was the line that deserved its own laugh track, since the maddening male seemed intent on adding High God of Staring to his credentials. “That’s my own mud to slog through.” She slid her hands up to cover his. “Honestly, you need to forget I babbled a lot of that. I mean, not that I don’t appreciate your—uh—concern, but I’ll sort through it. I mean it. I handle things better alone, you know? So can you just—”

But no, he wasn’t going to just.

Not if his intensifying gaze was a decent indicator. The scrutiny that jolted just before he cut her off—with a plunge of his lips over hers that was nothing less than raw command. Unswerving purpose. Unalloyed passion.

Oh, her helpless, tingling toes, the passion.

Thanks to the city she grew up in, the word was an overused commodity. A hock tool on everything from billboards to busses to freeway graffiti. Even so, Grandma raised Genny and her to understand the real world past those shiny freeway signs and the backdrops in the studio backlots. She was more than aware it should be spelled with a small p, not in neon caps.

She’d been a clueless, careless fool.

It wasn’t a lowercase word. Yet nor was it a garish marquee.