by P. C. Cast
"I mean, look at that," she pointed towards the opposite side of the street. "Over there it's nothing but one big cheesy 'come spend your money here!' trap after another. But over here it's different." She stopped and leaned against the white marble railing that had been fashioned to look like an old Italian balustrade. It ran the length of the water, separating the sidewalk from the pool. "On this side the street was built to make us believe that we are strolling down a European walkway. The lights aren't neon advertisements, they're lovely old-fashioned streetlamps separated by sweet little trees. And this"—she looked out across the water at the shops and restaurants of the Bellagio—"reminds me of a chic Tuscan village. I know it's all subterfuge, but the imagery works. As a designer I have to applaud a successful masquerade."
Something in her tone called his gaze back to her face. He was surprised to find that she looked sad, and it was that unexpected melancholy that had been mirrored in her voice. Until then she had seemed happy, even giddy, enjoying the evening and their shared conversation. What had happened?
"Is a masquerade such a bad thing?"
"It's not really bad," she said, still looking out across the water. "It's just that I sometimes wonder if anything is really as it seems."
He knew she was speaking of much more than architecture and streetlights. He wanted to comfort her, to tell her that she needn't be so sad. But how could he? He wasn't what he seemed. Or was he? At that moment he felt very much like a man who wanted nothing more than to make a beautiful woman smile.
"Sometimes things are more than they seem, better than they at first appear."
She turned to look at him and was caught in the impossible blue of his eyes.
"I wish that were true, but in my experience things aren't usually better than they pretend to be—it's usually the other way around."
"Perhaps," he said, trailing his fingers lightly across her cheek and down the smooth side of her long neck, "that is because you have not yet had the right kind of experiences."
Pamela's stomach tensed. Apollo bent to brush his lips against hers in a brief, soft suggestion of a kiss. And as their mouths touched, the fountains came alive.
Chapter 9
Violins filled the air around them, and music enticed the water skyward, calling hidden lights to spotlight the liquid dance. Then the tenor began to sing. Pamela shivered as her body responded to the magnificence of his voice. It was so unexpected—so amazing. The arcs of water moved in perfect time to the rise and fall of the orchestra as if they had been choreographed by the hand of a master magician.
It was unbelievable and wonderful, like their kiss had been the cue that started it all.
At the sound of the first note, they had turned to face the fountains, and now Pamela stood very still, sheltered within Phoebus' arms while her emotions soared with the song.
"It's Italian, isn't it?" She leaned back against him, tilting her head up so that he could hear her question, without taking her eyes from the water.
"Yes," Apollo said. His eyes, too, were riveted on the incredible show before them. "He is singing of la rondine, the swallow," he murmured, using his voice as a backdrop to the beautiful music rather than a distraction. "He tells the story of the life of a little swallow who migrates far, far away to find love in a distant land. But of course he does not truly sing of a bird—he sings of his lover, who he is afraid has flown from him and is lost forever."
"I wish I could understand Italian," Pamela whispered.
Apollo tightened his arms around her. "Do you really need to? Listen to the music with your heart, and you will understand the soul of the song."
Pamela listened with her heart. At the crescendo she felt her eyes fill with tears. She did understand—she understood the pain of lost love, of regrets, and the fear of forever being alone. When the song ended and the water went still and black, she stayed with her back pressed against Phoebus. She could feel the beat of his heart. The warmth of his body enveloped her.
"I did not expect to find such beauty here," he said softy, not wanting to break the spell the magical waters had cast.
"Neither did I." She drew a deep breath. "There's a lot about tonight that I didn't expect."
Apollo turned Pamela so that she was facing him. He kept her within a loose circle of his arms. He was reluctant to let her go, but he didn't want to frighten her or entrap her. The night had been filled with firsts for him. And now, for the first time in all the eons he had been in existence, he wanted a woman to come to him willingly, not as a bedazzled maiden overcome by the presence of Apollo, God of Light, and not as a seductive goddess, looking for a temporary partner with whom to dally. He wanted her to choose him, as a mortal woman would choose a man.
"I was not speaking only of the dancing waters," he said.
"Neither was I."
When he bent to kiss her, he couldn't stop himself from cupping the back of her head with his hand and letting his fingers splay through the short, tousled hair that he had so longed to touch since he had first glimpsed her. She didn't pull away from him, but she also didn't sink into the kiss. Her lips were warm and yielding under his, but they didn't open immediately in invitation. Instead it was as if they were posing a question for him to answer before he would be allowed to continue. Think! he ordered himself. What is it women want?
He realized shamefully that in spite of all of his experience, he wasn't sure how to answer that question. He concentrated, reading her body and through it trying to understand what she desired of him. Moving slowly, he forced himself to ignore the heady lust that touching her evoked. Instead of behaving like a boorish, arrogant god, Apollo held himself tightly in control. He tenderly kissed her full bottom lip, and then he took it gently between his teeth and pulled at it teasingly, but only for a moment. He moved from her lips to plant a quick kiss on the tip of her nose, and was rewarded with her smile, which he promptly kissed at the corners. His fingers played in her short locks as he nuzzled her ear, and then whispered into it.
"I like your hair very much. It reminds me of the proud, free race of Amazons." His lips traveled down. "And it leaves your neck so enticingly bare."
He felt her shiver, and he raised his head so that he could look into her eyes, which were still filled with the emotions the music had made both of them feel.
"I want you to be what you seem," she said slowly. "I don't want another man who pretends to be one thing, but is really another."
He felt his heart go still.
"Earlier tonight I admitted something to myself that I had been hiding from for a very long time. I admitted that even though I am content, I am not actually happy. I have locked myself away from even trying for happiness." A small smile lightened her serious expression. "Then I made a silly wish. Out loud. And what I think I was really wishing for was to be able to trust my instincts again."
"And what do your instincts tell you about me?" Apollo asked.
She cocked her head and looked at him. "They tell me that you really are different. I've never met a man like you."
"I can assure you that your instincts are correct."
He bent to kiss her again, this time with all the passion he was feeling, but just before his lips touched hers, the sky opened, and a steady rain began to fall.
Pamela made a little shrieking noise and held her ridiculously small purse over her head in a futile attempt the shield herself from the rain.
Apollo scowled and looked fiercely around them. Rain in the middle of a desert night? No matter how odd the modern world had become, it could not change the weather patterns. But Gods could. This rain was definitely suspicious. It had the mark of immortal interference. Probably that toad Bacchus at work causing mischief again.
People all around them were running towards the nearest buildings. Deftly, Apollo guided Pamela between the scampering mortals to the closest tree. With an almost imperceptible movement of his hand, he solidified the leaves above them into one frondlike mass so that they were sheltered
from the rain. He encircled her with his arm, and they stood together, peering out through the downpour.
"This seems like weird weather," Pamela said, wiping water from her face. "I thought it hardly ever rained here. Ugh," she frowned down at her shoes. "I think I just ruined my fabulous Jimmy Choos."
Apollo smiled crookedly at her. "How do you walk on those daggers?"
Pamela swung her foot out. She admired her soggy shoe. He admired her shapely calf. "Walking on three-and-a-half-inch slides is the mark of a true woman." She ran her hand through her hair, causing it to stick up in adorably messy spikes. "You wouldn't think such a little tree would give so much protection." She glanced up. "It's like a green umbrella."
"Oh, there's some rain getting through," he said, pointing upwards in a small motion that instantly let a drop or two leak through his divine protection. "At least the rain has cleared away the crowd."
Not giving the tree another glance, she grinned and nodded. "It's like we're in our own little world."
He touched one short strand of her hair. "I think that we are."
And then through the veil of rain and intimacy the fountain came alive again, and Faith Hill's sexy voice swirled around them through the water:
"I don't want another heartbreak,
I don't need another turn to cry.
I don't want to learn the hard way,
baby, hello, oh no, good-bye."
This time they didn't watch the show.
"Are you doing this?" Pamela whispered. "Did you pay them to play these songs?"
He shook his head and framed her face in his hands. "They're about you, though, aren't they? The swallow is you, and so is the woman who doesn't need another turn to cry."
Pamela could only nod.
"This kiss, this kiss!"
As if the song played only for them, Apollo pulled her into his arms and kissed her. He kissed her as a man wanting to keep his lover safe from pain and heartache and sadness.
Her lips parted and she accepted him, and as she did Apollo felt something open within him, like a latch had been unlocked and a trapdoor lifted, allowing what had been missing to fill his soul. Her arms crept up to return his embrace, and he forgot Mount Olympus; he forgot the modern world of mortals. His reality tunneled down to the taste and touch and scent of Pamela. Then she moaned and shivered, and the world rushed back. The fountain was dark again, and the wind and rain had intensified.
"You're cold!" He rubbed her arms, thinking himself an insensitive clod. While he'd been lost in her, she'd become waterlogged. "We need to get back. You could become ill out here."
"Phoebus." She pulled on his arm, keeping him under the little tree. "It's true that we should probably go back to the hotel, but I wasn't shivering because of the rain. And you should know that even though I might look a little"—she wiped at a drop of rain that crept down her forehead and grinned—"waterlogged, I'm not some delicate hothouse flower. I won't melt, and I've loved every second of kissing you in the rain."
He felt the tightness in his chest dissolve as his heart acknowledged the warmth of her gaze. He wasn't the only one who felt their connection—she was in it with him. And somewhere in the depths of his mind his instinct whispered to him that this is what men and women do… this was the mortal dance of love.
"But I am totally soaked, and it doesn't look like it's letting up," Pamela said, glancing out at the downpour that surrounded them.
Apollo followed her gaze. He could, of course, keep the rain from touching them all the way back to Caesars Palace—but there was no possible way he could explain such a feat to Pamela.
"I'll tell you what—I'll race you back to the Palace." Pamela grinned at him.
"You can not run in those shoes," he said, pointing to her feet.
"Well… we are in Las Vegas. What would you like to bet on that?"
Without waiting for his answer, she dashed, shrieking, out into the rain. Laughing, Apollo followed her, staying just far enough behind her so that he could watch the roundness of her buttocks jiggle as she ran with cute, feminine little steps.
Apollo couldn't recall the last time he had felt so young or so happy.
Neither of them were paying attention to the street. He was watching her. She kept glancing back over her shoulder at him.
"I'm winning the bet!" she shouted at him.
A sound made her look in front of her, and she gasped. The street! She'd completely misjudged how close it was. Trying to pull herself to a stop, her stiletto heel caught in a crack on the edge of the curb. Helplessly off-balanced, her arms windmilled as she tried to right herself. Twisting, Pamela felt a horrible, sickening pain in her ankle, and then she toppled forward.
Always before when terrible things had happened, like the death of Hector or when Artemis lost her temper with Actaeon, Apollo had noticed that time slowed, drawing out the event and letting it unfold before him like pine resin beading and then traveling in a tedious trail down the rough bark of a tree. Not so with Pamela's accident. Everything sped up with superhuman force. One instant she was smiling coquettishly over her shoulder at him, the next she was teetering at the edge of the street. She twisted forward towards the street surging with metal monsters. Apollo read her death in the air around them. There was no time for rational thought. His body acted on impulse guided by his immoral heart that had suddenly felt shattered at the thought of losing her.
"No!" Apollo leapt towards her with speed that was blinding to the moral eye. He flung out his hand, palm open. His shout caused an instant sonic blast, which created an audio tidal wave, buffeting the cars away from the path of Pamela's falling body.
She didn't touch the hard, wet concrete. He couldn't allow that. With superhuman speed, Apollo caught her in his arms and pulled her back onto the sidewalk.
Tires screeched to a halt. There was a vague crashing sound of one car hitting another. Honking horns blasted the night. But through the rain and wind, no one seemed to notice the god who had caused it all. The god who now knelt on the flooded pavement cradling a mortal woman close to his chest.
"My ankle," Pamela's voice shook with pain and shock. "I think it's broken."
Apollo gently pulled her slender foot from the ridiculous shoe. As he did so, he felt through her soft skin to the bone that had been twisted until it snapped, and he cringed, imagining her pain. Quickly, his hand brushed over her ankle, and he silently willed the nerve endings to cease their shooting agony. Almost instantly he felt her breathing deepen as she relaxed. In one smooth motion, Apollo lifted her into his arms, and the God of Light strode like a shaft of blazing sun through the rain and wrecked cars.
Later, witnesses of the bizarre pileup on the corner of Las Vegas and Flamingo would talk of a tall man they had glimpsed through the rain that night. They would say that they thought he carried a woman, but they couldn't be sure, because all that they could remember was the odd way his eyes had flashed. They would also all swear that they couldn't tell exactly what he looked like because his body was surrounded by a light that made him look like he was glowing with the fire of the sun.
Chapter 10
" She must be taken to her room!" Apollo barked at a bellboy who was staring with wide eyes at the golden apparition who had seemed to appear suddenly out of the rain-shrouded night. He was carrying the damp body of a petite woman who was wearing only one shoe.
"The elevators are just inside and around the corner, sir."
Apollo's confusion at his odd words (What exactly was an elevator?) changed to anger.
"Show me to her room, or I will flay the flesh from your living body!" he growled.
"Room number?" the bellboy squeaked.
"Eleven twenty-one," Pamela said into Apollo's shoulder.
Apollo glared at the bellboy. The youth nodded and scampered ahead of them through the swinging doors. The God of Light ground his teeth together as the metal box they stepped into closed. The boy punched a round button that read 11. It lit up as the box began to mov
e. The god's stomach dropped, and he held Pamela more tightly against him. Bacchus had explained nothing about this particular mechanical form of transportation to them. Apollo definitely didn't like it. Not at all. Thankfully, the ride was short, and the doors parted smoothly. He followed the boy out into a plushly carpeted hallway. Statuettes decorated niches, and chandeliers hung from the ornately painted ceiling. They stopped in front of a door boasting the golden numbers 1121.
The bellboy looked at Apollo. Apollo looked at the bellboy. The god narrowed his eyes dangerously. The bellboy cleared his throat nervously.
Pamela stirred and handed the boy the purse she still clutched to her chest. "It's in there."
Swallowing audibly, the boy unclasped the little purse and extracted the card key, ran it through the lock, and opened the door. Apollo strode in and slammed the door behind him with one thought.
"You should have tipped him," Pamela said faintly.
"I should have skinned him," Apollo muttered. He hesitated at the entrance to the room, assessing his surroundings. There was one large room with a divan and two silk-covered side chairs, plus an overlarge armoire. Doors painted to look like marble were half open to reveal a glimpse of a large bed. Apollo headed in its direction.
Pamela moaned and as he lay her on top of the thick silk comforter. Her body spasmed, and her teeth chattered.
"I d-don't know why I'm's-suddenly's-so cold," she said.
Apollo knew why. She was in shock. He hadn't healed her ankle—he'd just temporarily blocked some of the pain. He sat gently on the edge of the bed and touched her face, willing her to relax.
"You must rest. Trust me to see to your pain."
He watched as his hypnotic suggestion caused her thick-lashed lids to begin to flutter over those wide amber eyes.
"I don't…" she began sleepily, and then lost the thread of her thought. Struggling against a drugged sense of lethargy, she blinked her eyes. "I'm wet… towels through there…" She made a weak gesture in the direction of the bathroom.
