“Yeah, but Apollo got to him in time before there was any lasting damage.”
“He did? I thought he didn’t like him.”
“Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t go out of his way to heal him when he can. Even if he hates that he keeps enlisting.”
She pursed her lips. “He’s very quiet, isn’t he?”
I nodded. “Very. You’ll have to learn about the man from the source. Just because Apollo showed you what he knows of us, doesn’t mean you should take that as the absolute truth. But also, take comfort in the fact that you know us as well as anyone does. Apollo knows things about us that only a God could know.”
She hummed her understanding then blurted out, “Castor said I could walk away.”
Inwardly, I cursed my twin even if I could understand why he’d said that. He had intended to make her feel better about the situation, I was sure, but Jesus Christ. Wanting to head to the stables to punch him in the face, instead, I admitted, “You could.”
Her frown told me that my answer hadn’t been what she wanted to hear. What the hell?
Clearing my throat, I stated, “Well, you could. I’m not saying you should.”
“Do you want me to?”
“To leave? Fuck, no. And even if Castor told you that shit, then he doesn’t either. He's just the good man that he is. I’ve told him so many times that being good doesn’t mean being sensible.” I rolled my eyes again, and grinned at her when she laughed. “Seriously, the boy needs to get a grip.”
“He’s nice,” she chided.
“Since when do nice guys not finish last? I swear, that boy would still be a virgin if it wasn’t for me.”
“That’s twice you’ve called him a boy. I think we can, without any shadow of a doubt, consider him a man.”
I shrugged. “Castor’s always been younger than me. Doesn’t matter that we were born within minutes of each other. Some people are just naive from birth and that’s him.”
“So you set yourself up as his protector, hmm?” When she cocked a brow at me, I had to smirk.
“I wouldn’t exactly call it that. I’m not his protector. My bro can protect himself from anything that comes his way, but nah, sometimes he’s such a goody-two-shoes that it’s detrimental to him.”
“I don’t know. In this instance, his honesty probably set you all up pretty well. I was freaking out. I won’t lie.”
I grimaced. “Let’s not tell him that though, yeah?” When she grinned at me and tapped her nose, I shot her a satisfied smile, which promptly died when I thought about what she was saying and what she wasn’t. “Do you want to leave us?”
“You know how crazy it is that you sound that way when you’ve known of my existence for a few days?”
That didn’t lessen the tension in me any.
My shoulders jostled as I tried to alleviate the stress I suddenly felt. “How would you feel if we disappeared?”
That was the only thing I could say, the only thing I could think to say that might keep her close by. We couldn’t be the only ones feeling this intensity whenever she was with us.
I was half certain that the only reason we weren’t acting like total pricks was because she was under this roof. Sharing the same house.
If we’d been back in the city, if we’d had to watch her go home every day, and had to date her in the way of human tradition, I was under no illusion that we’d have either been beating the shit out of each other, or fucking one another like rabbits.
As it was, I didn’t feel too overwhelmed by this link that crackled to being whenever we were in the same room. I just enjoyed it. It felt like a lifetime since I’d felt anything this intense. As though all my life I’d been waiting for her to come to me.
Which sucked for my other wives now that I came to think about it.
“I’d probably be going crazy,” she admitted to what I knew to be the truth without her having to say a word. A frown flittered over her brow. “No, I wouldn’t like it. Not at all.”
“At least you’re honest with yourself. And me.”
“There’s no point in lying,” she told me somewhat earnestly. “I just… I don’t know what I’m feeling.”
“There’s no rush here, no pressure,” I assured her gently. Tapping her cheek with my thumb before sliding my hand from her cheek. “You can do what you want, be what you want, Ella. We’re not here to force you to do anything you don’t want to do; we’re here to catch you when you fall. There’s a difference.”
The last thing I wanted was to walk away. I wanted to stay here, by her side, be with her and amuse her when that frown turned her smile upside down. I wanted to shoot the shit and learn what we had in common and what we didn’t.
Instead of doing that, I got to my feet after I shot her a careful smile and made my way back to the door.
On the brink of opening it, she called out, “Lux?”
I turned back to look at her. “Yeah?”
“Do you want to hang out?”
Relief poured through me at that. Relief and joy and a myriad of other feelings that I couldn’t put into words. All I knew was that contentment flooded me as I grinned at her and declared, “I’d love to.”
❖
Apollo
Two days after bath time with my wife, I found myself on the front steps of the Tudor house with Ella and Achilles hovering close by. Holding my hand out to her, I waited, with more patience than I thought I possessed, for her to take it.
She looked at me suspiciously, but then, I was coming to realize that that was how she did most things. She studied me and the others as though we’d just arrived from Mars, and maybe to her, we had.
I couldn’t begin to understand what she was going through, didn’t even try if I was honest. I was just trying to present myself as the best man I could be.
Though I had to admit that whenever that thought crossed my mind, it did make me feel bad. But my intention wasn’t to con her, or to hide my true self from her. If anything, I was trying to figure out what that true self was.
Crazy though it may be, I was coming to realize that I didn’t know myself at all. All these years of existing, and I couldn’t say, categorically, what would be appealing about me to a woman. My gifts, my wealth, and my power aside, the man? I wasn’t particularly impressed with him.
I’d driven one woman I loved to death, and I knew, point blank, that Ella was my last chance at any semblance of happiness.
Not only would the Fates have not brought her to my side if she weren’t destined to live forever, but she was their gift to me. To my guardians. A chance at finding a peace that I truly believed had evaded all the Gods and Goddesses of Mount Olympus.
We were bitter men and women. Sour-faced and hardened to reality. We knew the worst of mankind, and though we were aware of the best, it didn’t touch us anymore. We’d seen so much, been through so much that our barriers were ridiculously high, meaning that no one and nothing could get through them.
We’d married. All of us at some point had tried to fend off the loneliness, the solitude, and had failed. Miserably. Even with some of the wives I’d had, when I’d tried to save them, to heal them and lengthen their lives, it hadn’t worked. The Fates had taken them from me, and I’d truly known then how little control I had.
Ella represented a chance for more, and I was terrified of fucking things up.
As was her way, she broke me from my gloomy thoughts when she slipped her fingers around mine. The second she did, the connection hit me, hit her most importantly, and it was then I realized why she always hesitated when we made any move to touch.
She wasn’t trying to avoid me, just knew this would come.
This link.
It would stir to life, would become an entity in and of itself.
If I’d never known anything like it in my long years, how could this young woman even begin to comprehend the gift we’d been bestowed?
She released a shuddery breath and shot me a weak smile. “Wow, it never stops
packing that punch.” Sweat beaded on her upper lip, and I knew that was her visceral response to what we shared.
Even as I wondered if the link between us was as strong as the one she had with my guardians—not from a desire to trigger a pissing contest between us but out of genuine curiosity—I murmured, “It’s our blessing.”
She snickered and pointed to my cock which, yes, made a rather prominent bulge in my jeans. “That can’t be considered a blessing.”
“When you’ve decided to accept us, then it will be,” I told her simply.
My intention hadn’t been to freak her out, but those beautiful blue eyes of hers turned a little glassy at my statement.
I was beginning to wonder what raced through her mind when that happened. Where she went or what she saw. One day, I’d ask, but for now? I needed to keep things light.
As light as things could be when a God and his three guardians were courting a woman.
“Where are we going?”
Chill answered for me, “To the temple on the grounds.”
She shot him a look. “You have a temple here?”
“Three guesses as to who it’s dedicated to.”
That wasn’t… No. It couldn’t be. Was Achilles fucking teasing?
Hell, would wonders never cease?
The dour warrior had no sense of humor at the best of times, and certainly not around me. In fact, this was the first time in at least three centuries where he’d chosen to be around me without it being his turn on duty as my guardian.
I’d have been suspicious, but what was there to be suspicious about? He wanted to get to know Ella, and I was just relieved that he wasn’t fighting the pull. Achilles was that kind of guy. He’d fight what he didn’t agree with, and if he thought Ella was being overwhelmed? He’d pull back. Though I could laud the man for his principles, I wouldn’t deny feeling relieved that he was as in deep with this situation as the rest of us.
That, more than anything, told me how alone he’d been feeling.
It was something that cropped up over the years. Loving and losing was an endless cycle, a constant heartbreak. Even the bitterest of men would be touched by it, and Achilles, though as I’d said, dour, was not a bitter man with anyone except me.
I watched as she braced herself to take Achilles’ hand—a motion that surprised him if the quick dip of his chin to hide his expression was anything to go by—and tugged us both into movement.
“There a reason you’re taking me to a temple?” she inquired, shooting me a look that was tinged with both amusement and concern.
“My temple isn’t the kind you get married in,” I jibed, amused when her shoulders dropped in relief.
“Thank God. As much as I’m enjoying this thing you’re doing, I’m not ready for that.”
“‘This thing’ we’re doing? What would that be?” Achilles asked, tone dry as he shot her a glance.
“The whole courtship thing. You guys are so old school you don’t even know it. Not even Pollux has tried to get into my panties.” Was that a note of disappointment I heard in her voice? “You’re all on your best behavior. If I wasn’t impressed, I’d be pissed.”
“Impressed?” I tested cautiously.
“Yeah. Impressed. Usually, it’s time that shows someone’s true colors, but with four of you to trip each other up? You’re doing a remarkable job.”
I had to smile at her. “Your praise is appreciated, ó chrýsion, but we’re not on our best behavior. We’re trying to show you the best side of us.”
She cocked a brow at me. “Same difference. And if you don’t think you’d have been banging me in the bath while I sucked Pollux off the other morning if you could have, then you’re nuts.”
Achilles cleared his throat. “I like your perception of bath time.”
She snickered, squeezed his hand. “It’s not always about getting clean,” she told him with a wink that had us all laughing.
Turning to look ahead, my smile died as I sighed at the beauty of this land we called home.
Achill lay in a cove just off Shinnecock Bay, where there was an inlet that fed what we called our lake.
The land around us was rolling and verdant as well as expansive. We’d purchased here far before the Hamptons had become an exclusive enclave for the rich and wealthy of New York, and that was why our plot was three times the size of most.
There was the retreat as well as the stud farm that sometimes worked as a dude ranch when clients from the retreat found it beneficial to work with, if not to ride, the horses—our stable of horses was worth a cool thirty million alone. We didn’t leave their exercise to the hands of untrained personnel. But there was also plenty of wide, open space that would never be constructed upon.
“It’s beautiful out here,” Ella murmured as she stared out at the lake. “Crisp and cool but warm too.” She hummed as she tilted her head back to be graced with the sun’s rays, and it highlighted her every flaw and made them perfection.
Castor had made a valid point on the ride over here. I hated blondes with blue eyes, and though on the surface that was Ella, I forgot the ‘original blonde’ when I was with her. Daphne’s memory was starting to fade, to be replaced with this fascinating creature that, with every moment in her company, was starting to stir me in ways no other woman ever had.
I’d have kissed her then. I admitted it. Perhaps I was on my best behavior because I didn’t want to pressure her. I didn’t want her to feel overwhelmed by what we were to her.
She’d had to accept so much in such a short space of time, and I knew I was fretting like an old maid, but Ella was the physical manifestation of our future.
If we fucked this up?
There was no going back.
The situation required caution and by nature, I wasn’t necessarily a cautious man.
When the white marble peeped through the trees that surrounded it, she gasped. A “My God,” escaped her lips too, and I had to smile as she pulled her hands free from ours and went running toward the temple.
At least, that was how it started.
I shot Achilles a startled glance, he returned it with a gaping mouth as we watched our mate run toward my temple and then she went flying. Not literally, although considering the current state of play, even the impossible might be possible. But she pulled some kind of mid-air pirouette and landed on her side.
“What the fuck?”
For a second, I was just in awe of what I’d witnessed.
That mid-air twist would have been poetry in motion if she’d been a ballerina, until she landed, that is.
Then, I heard her groan and I rushed over toward her, Achilles at my side.
“Apparently Cindy didn’t run, and considering how tight her ass is, that comes as a surprise,” Ella wheezed as I skidded to a halt and dropped down to the ground next to her.
“Where are you hurt?” I rasped, sensing her pain as well as seeing it in her pinched eyes and taut mouth.
“Ankles and I have a stitch.”
“You have a stitch? You barely ran ten yards. In fact, I think you tripped farther than you ran,” Achilles replied, squatting down at her other side.
“Apparently she’s out of shape,” came the next wheeze, and we both watched in amusement as she flopped back and wafted her hand. “Work your magic, oh, God of the Sun you.”
Snickering faintly, warmed by her acceptance of what I could do and her lack of fear over my gifts, I rested my hand on the ankle that was already turning purple from where she’d twisted it. A low hum escaped her as I sent healing warmth through the twisted joint. “That was relatively nasty considering you’d only run about six steps.”
She squinted up at me. “Are you teasing me?”
I cleared my throat. “Perhaps. You have to admit that was rather spectacular.”
A groan escaped her and she plopped her arm down on her face. “Spectacular? You can’t be serious. I pretty much face-planted.”
Coughing rather than laughing, I stated, �
�You twisted in mid-air.”
Achilles hummed, then he tilted his head to the side as he studied her. “Did you train in martial arts?”
She stilled at his question, and to help the memory along, I rubbed my fingers over her ankle and let any lingering soreness dissipate alongside the stitch that pained her abdomen.
“I-I think I did,” she whispered, her eyes still covered by her forearm, her hair in wild disarray around her face from the fall. She wore a pair of jean shorts and a white blouse that cupped her upper arms with a lacy insert which, I’d assume, was now grass-stained, and as much power as I had at my fingertips, I wasn’t OxiClean.
She stiffened as her memory tugged at her, and slowly, she lowered her arm and rested it flat on the ground at her side. The gesture put her limbs in a loose akimbo fashion and it interested me that she made no bones about moving, had no compunction about staying here, with the warmth of the sun on her body, as we looked down at her.
There was an energy about Ella that wasn’t exactly restful. I had the feeling that, in her previous life, she’d required an abundant source of energy that had her bustling around. Here, that energy wasn’t being tapped and I knew she got bored easily. I half-believed that was why she wasn’t running and screaming for the hills from this situation with us.
We were anything but boring, after all. Any curious mind would want to know more about not only herself, but about the true world which ran alongside the one the humans perceived. And Ella was more than simply curious. She almost vibrated sometimes with the questions she wished to ask us, but refrained.
I knew that the day she let those questions reign, would be the day she trusted us.
It was something I both longed for and dreaded. Acceptance and trust were just two of the things I wanted from her. But the answers to the questions she asked?
I hadn’t been a good man, and she wouldn’t always like what I, or the rest of the guardians, had to tell her. That was why my fear of the future lay heavy on my heart.
❖
Achilles
The Sun Revolves Around Apollo (The Gods Are Back In Town Book 2) Page 13
