How the hell did he know that?
Had I turned blue from the lack of air or something?
“It’s okay, Ella,” Pol murmured, his voice pitched in a way that made everything in me relax. “This is a lot for anyone to process.”
“I-It is,” I stammered the admission. These past few months in Cindy’s body, I’d taken hit after hit. Processed it all, accepted it. Come to terms with it even. I’d had to deal with the notion that I’d have to lie for the rest of my life about who I was if I wasn’t about to end up in some kind of insane asylum.
Throw all this stuff in?
It was like being repeatedly hit in the head with a hammer. Just too damn much. A person could only take so much.
“Why am I so at ease with you both?” I hadn’t meant to ask that question. Hadn’t meant to voice it because it hadn’t been uppermost in my mind. Still, now it was out there, I needed to know.
“The Fates made it so,” Pol stated, his eyes closed, and as I studied his classically handsome features—you couldn’t get more classical than the original, could you?—he in turn added to how soothed I felt.
“You say that like you mean it.”
Lux snorted. “Honey, we’re older than democracy. We’re used to things you aren’t.”
“Is that supposed to reassure me?” I huffed.
“No. But it’s just meant to tell you that sometimes, the Fates have their way of inveigling themselves into your day and all of a sudden, they’re your whole world.”
That was a strange way to phrase it. My brow puckered as I thought about it, contemplated what he meant, and realized that the Fates had messed with me.
I’d been living a life I couldn’t remember and had been snatched from it. Then, something had happened, something that had brought me to the King of the Gods’ attention, and he’d returned me to this life and put me in a sphere where I’d meet this man—this God, and his guardians.
I couldn’t have been more messed with if I tried.
“Is there a way to bitch slap them?”
That had Pol’s eyes popping open. He shot me a wicked grin. “No. Unfortunately. But I’d pay to see that happen.”
I scowled at him. “Why?”
“I may be a God, but I’m also a man.”
Lux snorted when I just peered at him in confusion. “Every dude from one side of the Styx to the other loves a cat fight, Ella.”
❖
Castor
“His name’s Thor.”
Ella’s statement came as a surprise. I hadn’t heard her enter the stables, hadn’t expected her to come here again. Not now that the others were entertaining her.
I’d already heard from Lux about their bath time with Apollo this morning, and I knew Achilles had eaten lunch with her in the dining hall—something he never did. Apollo deigned to grace the hall with his presence, but Achilles didn’t for fear he’d run into guests.
For someone who ran a place for people to retreat to, he did nothing but retreat from them in turn. It made me wonder why he turned his sanctuary over to other people.
Lux and I had established the place on his behalf, but he could have always reverted it to a private home once more. It wasn’t like he needed the money. The stables provided more money than any of us needed, and that didn’t include what Apollo gave us as a stipend. We could fund a third world country with that—and did. I managed the charitable foundation on all our behalf.
“I know,” I told her, smiling at her as she hesitantly stepped over to me. “I named him myself. Did you have a nice lunch?”
She sighed. “You heard about that, huh?”
My lips curved. “Well, Achilles never eats in the dining hall so Lux was crowing about it.”
“I’ll bet. Why doesn’t he eat there?”
“Because he prefers to eat in solitude.”
“I’d say he was weird, but he isn’t. He’s just quiet.”
“Didn’t say much at lunch?” I could only imagine how little conversation had gone down between them.
She snickered. “Two words, maybe?”
“Let me guess. ‘Thank’ and ‘you?’”
Nudging me in the side so I’d shift over, she murmured, “You know him well.”
“Had a couple of thousand years to learn him,” I agreed with a soft smile, but I kept my head lowered onto my arms as I leaned against the stable door.
“That’s so much time to be stuck with someone,” she whispered, and there was an amusing note of awe in her words.
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
“Didn’t it make you hate them?” When I shot her a look, she flushed. “I just… there’s only one person I could ever imagine spending so much time with, and—” A frown marred her brow.
“What is it?” I made sure to keep my tone gentle, but when she didn’t reply, just stood there, staring into the distance, I said a little sterner this time, “Ella? Are you okay?”
Her lashes fluttered and she turned to me, brow furrowed. “Yeah.”
“A memory hit?”
Lux had told me this morning that she was having issues connecting the past and the present. That was understandable. I felt sure that whenever Apollo healed her, it would affect the fine veil between the two, making these moments of confusion happen more often.
He’d also told me of the aneurysm Pol had only seen fit to mention this damn morning.
I had to hide how terrified I’d been that she could have been taken from us before we’d even had a chance to make her ours.
The Fates worked in mysterious ways, and no matter how long I lived, I’d never grown accustomed to their powers.
“A few memories have hit me today,” she confessed, her voice soft, confused.
“Want to talk about it?”
“I-I just… I heard this voice in my head.” That had her flushing. “Not like a schizophrenic,” she rushed out, flustered.
I laughed. “I didn’t think you were.”
“Yeah, well, the way Dolly talks about me, you’d think I was.”
“No, you just have two sets of memories, two lives to realign. We know that,” I told her calmly, gently. If I used the voice that soothed the horses, then only Thor and I were aware of that—and he wouldn’t say anything. But his ears did flicker in response.
Though she bit her bottom lip a second, she moved and mimicked my pose against the door. Thor snorted, huffing at having two people as an audience.
The stallion didn’t race anymore, but he commanded a million-dollar payday whenever he and a mare got jiggy with it. He hadn’t been our first Triple Crown stud, but he was my favorite. Something about his eyes always got to me.
“He has beautiful eyes, doesn’t he?” Ella whispered, our thoughts aligning in a way that had my heart catching in my chest.
“Yes. He does. Don’t tell the others,” I whispered back, “but he’s my favorite.”
Of course, Thor snorted at that moment, making it seem as though he’d understood every word I’d said. Ella laughed and I shot her an amused glance.
“The horse speaks English, I swear.”
She snickered again, and I found I liked the sound. It was snarky, just like her. “My favorite’s Maisie.” Thor neighed in disagreement, and I thanked him inwardly for making her laugh because she relaxed again, after talk about her memory had made her tense. “Well, it was until she turned traitor on me.”
“How did she do that?” I frowned at her. “Did you fall off her?”
She sniffed. “No. Cindy has a very good seat even if I don’t remember how she gained it.” More snark. “But she’s the reason Lux and Chill caught me in the stable the other day.”
“Ah. Eavesdropping. Yes. I’ve heard about that. Lux claims it’s one of the sexiest things that’s ever happened to him.”
“Huh?” She gaped at me. “How’s that possible? I was only listening. It wasn’t like I barged in there and got involved.”
“Well, if you had, I’m sure that would have become the sexiest thing,�
�� I teased, “but I think he’s smug about you choosing to listen in.”
“How can he be? It was an accident. Well, it started off that way—”
I cleared my throat. “Let me warn you about my brother...”
“Go on,” she said stiffly when my words trailed off.
“You’ve never met a more dogged, obstinate, and difficult man. But he’ll love you until the sun dies out and will worship the ground you walk on…”
“Okay, so?”
I twisted around and pointed at three different places on the ceiling.
“Cameras.” She groaned and covered her face. “You can’t be serious? How did I not see them before?”
My lips curved. “You weren’t supposed to see them, silly.” I couldn’t stop myself from reaching over and brushing my finger down her arm, loving when she shivered and didn’t pull away. “Now you understand why he’s charmed? He looked you up on the footage.”
“I only did it three times.”
“And apparently stole carrots each and every time? Mrs. Lourdes wondered where they all went.”
Ella laughed at that. “Stop teasing me.”
I grinned at her. “Well, I imagine she’s curious.”
“If you saw the bags of carrots she had in the fridge, you’d realize she’d never have missed them. They were damn hard to steal though; that’s for sure.” She blew out a breath that had her blonde bangs flying forward. “The first time was innocent.”
“The second and third not so much though, hmm?”
“I can’t believe he checked the footage,” she groused.
“He wanted to know how often you’d been sneaking in. To be fair, it’s his own fault for being so damn predictable.” I laughed. “He always did have his habits.”
“Like fucking every day at six-thirty? Yeah, that’s predictable.” Her cheeks flushed. “Oh.”
“Oh?” I cocked a brow at her. “What is it?”
“I just thought—he’ll still be doing that, won’t he?”
“Not in the stables,” I assured her, curious as to her reaction. Her cheeks grew hot, and I asked, “Does it bother you?”
“W-What?”
“That they sleep together?”
“Trust me, there isn’t much sleeping involved,” she rasped, making me grin into my forearm—I’d returned to my earlier position. Just spending time with Thor was the only way to get him to trust me again. Until he did, he’d refuse to let me saddle him. It was amusing, I thought, that Ella might need to be gentle to me similarly.
“You know what I mean,” I stated softly.
“How can it bother me when I find it sexy?” She shrugged. “I’m just more embarrassed about the fact they know I was listening in on purpose.”
“Well, don’t be. As I said, he’s flattered.”
“That doesn’t reassure me,” she retorted with a huff. Silence fell, then she asked, “Do you—?”
“I’ve dallied with Apollo and Achilles a time or two,” I said lightly. “We have no cultural issues with it; don’t forget.”
She hummed. “I have no cultural issue with it either. I think we’ve established that already.”
“True,” I said with a smile.
“You know this ‘wife’ business?”
“Well, to be honest, I know as much as you,” I admitted, rolling my head to the side so I could look at her. She was watching Thor chomp on one of the carrots I’d tossed in his stall.
The smell of horse and hay was pungent in the small, heated space—Thor felt the cold now, and I made a mental note to ask Apollo to ease up his arthritis some. Unlike with humans, Apollo eased animals with no anxiety. He was never here though, otherwise, we’d have had him on retainer instead of the vet.
“Well,” she eventually whispered, “would you be faithful to me?”
As far as I was aware, that was the first time she’d even mentioned anything remotely ‘wifely.’
“We’ve been married before, Ella. It might surprise you, but we were all faithful. There are only so many wild oats to sow. Why do you think Lux and Chill fuck? They have needs but sometimes, chasing skirts is just more than we can be bothered with.”
She heaved a sigh. “That’s not exactly reassuring, Tor.”
I grinned, loving the sound of my nickname on her lips. “They told you mine too?”
She turned a little pink, just not as red as before. “Yes. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not. Tor sounds delicious coming from you.”
Her grin was infectious, and we smiled at one another until Thor broke our silence by nuzzling me in the face. I almost jerked back in surprise, but then Ella crowed, “He was jealous.”
“I think he was,” I murmured, amused to think Thor might believe he had competition where my affections were concerned. “It’s the first time he’s properly acknowledged me since I got here.”
“Jeez, Thor holds a grudge. The name fits him, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” I agreed, stroking my hand over his nose and up to his ears. “He was sulking. It’s been a long time since I’ve been back here.”
“Why?”
I sighed. “When I come here, it’s both a curse and a delight. I don’t want to leave, and I have to.”
“Lux was trying to get me to make Apollo relocate his offices this morning.”
There was a note to her remark that had my hands stilling on Thor’s neck. “He was?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he agree?”
“They were just arguing.” She cleared her throat. “Lux seemed to think I could have helped sway Pol to his side.”
“You probably would,” I told her matter-of-factly.
“Yeah. I think I could have as well and that was what stunned the hell out of me,” she admitted in a low voice.
“What did Apollo show you yesterday, Ella?” I knew the bare bones—I’d lived it, after all—but I wanted to know from her perspective.
“It felt like he showed me everything and nothing.”
Her words stirred me. “If you’re confused, you can always just ask.”
“There’s too much to ask,” she rasped. “I-I saw things that I’ve only read about in books before. And even then, I didn’t pay that much attention outside of what I needed for a paper in college—”
When she stilled, I turned to her and said, “Cindy didn’t go to college. She went to finishing school. That was the old you.”
She licked her lips and reached up to rub her temple. Even as I wondered if she had another headache, she choked out, “I mean, Apollo showed me the Parthenon, Tor. Not like it is today. Like what you see on documentaries. But as it was. Living and breathing with people. It was insane.”
I couldn’t withhold my smile as memories soared through me, memories that felt so tangible I could almost reach out and touch them. “They were marvelous days,” I said with a faint hum to the words, one that spoke of how I missed them. And I did. Of course, nothing beat the internet, but they’d been simpler days, and for it, happier.
She pressed a hand to my shoulder. “I’m frightened, Tor.”
It surprised me that she made the admission at all. What stunned the shit out of me, but filled me with such pleasure it was a wonder I didn’t burst with the excess emotion, was that she came to me about it.
I straightened and turned to face her. “Why are you frightened?”
“I mean...” She sucked down a sharp breath. “Is this some kind of psychotic episode? Maybe I am insane. Maybe this shit with Cindy and Ella is me having some kind of split personality disorder.”
“Agapití,” I whispered, the endearment rolling off my tongue far too easily. “There is nothing wrong with you.”
She swallowed and reached up to cover her eyes. Her vulnerability was like a punch to the gut, and I wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or saddened that she felt she could come to me about this.
We’d barely spoken. Apollo and Lux had hogged her mostly, but as they were th
e most charming of us, I figured Achilles and I had done that on purpose. If, as Zeus believed, this woman was our one chance at a united future, a future with children—as none of us had managed to procreate since the Gods had been banished from Olympus—then we didn’t want to fuck this up.
Achilles could most definitely do that. It was why his taking lunch with her had me wondering where his head was at, but considering Ella’s remarks a few moments ago, he’d been quiet and uncommunicative—his usual MO. That he’d wanted to have lunch with her told me the link was affecting him too.
There was less fear with me. I wouldn’t mess things up. I was too accustomed to diplomacy, and even though Lux’s personality aligned itself to the donkey in Shrek, he was shrewd when it boiled down to it—knowing when to push and when to retreat.
“Maybe this conversation is a hallucination,” she said on a whimper, the words throbbing with fear.
Because she was covering her face, I could hide my smile from her. It wasn’t that I found the situation humorous, it was just that she was so melodramatic, and I wasn’t sure if she realized it.
Reaching out, I cupped her chin. Stroking my thumb over her jaw, I whispered, “Does this feel like a hallucination?”
Like a cat would to its owner’s petting, she tilted her head and fell into my caress. A slight sigh escaped her as she lowered her hands, and her eyes were heavy as they caught mine.
“What’s going on, Tor? Why is this happening?”
“You know why. Questioning things only wastes time, it doesn’t clarify it because sometimes there are no answers that make sense.”
“That doesn’t help,” she mumbled, pouting. She didn’t pull away though, and I took note of that with a faint smile.
“No. It doesn’t. But we are just as mystified as you. I was there when Apollo spoke with Zeus, and he is the only one with all the answers.”
“Can’t you ask him for more information?”
I shook my head. “He doesn’t work that way. He’s a control freak and a game player. He’s put the game in motion and it’s down to us to see it through. Win or lose.”
“You think you could lose?”
I hesitated at that. “Perhaps. We are four men; you are but one woman. Free will is something that every religion purports, but ours are the only Gods who truly act on it. You have a say whether we wish it or not,” I told her with a smile. “You can walk away from this, can walk away from us if it’s too much for you to handle.”
The Sun Revolves Around Apollo (The Gods Are Back In Town Book 2) Page 11
