AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That was a kind thing you did.” He stepped out from behind the tree before further panic could set in, or for me to have foolishly raced down the bank in search of him. He was a remarkable mortal to have eavesdropped on two gods.
But that meant he’d heard.
He knew.
“Zephyrus saved you,” I tried to explain.
Dax nodded, leaning against the tree now. “Saved me from a tumble into a shallow brook? Maybe a stubbed toe? Much as I appreciate it, truly, I think I would have survived.”
The danger had been minimal, yes, and I felt foolish for not having a response. I’d still feared, and Zephyrus had still intervened.
“The scars he had…” Dax continued. “You did that to him? Because of what he did to Hyacinth?”
I had hoped this conversation would never come, but I couldn’t avoid it now. “Isn’t it often said by mortals that the gods are cruel? And loving them or being loved by them is a curse more than any blessing.”
Dax pushed from the tree. “Apollo, I do not think what you did was cruel. I think it very… human to feel rage with loss. To want retribution when wronged.”
“Hyacinth felt otherwise.”
“You said Hyacinth might have been reborn to be with you but spurned you for your reaction to losing him.”
“Yes. He was afraid of me.” I felt the heat in my eyes starting to boil over and tried to turn my head.
Dax caught the side of my face and turned it to make me look at him. “Then he did not love you as you deserve to be loved. True love means accepting all of someone, at their best and worst.”
“True love also means wanting to be the best of oneself for one’s partner,” I countered, “and striving with everything in you to be better.”
“Yes,” Dax agreed, but then added, “while the other is forgiving when you fail.”
It was then that the dam of boiling water broke, spilling forth the tears from my eyes like lava fissures down my cheeks. Would that they could burn me—but no. No. Their heat filled not the endless chasm of my grief, but my heart. My heart and my yearning and all my wasted desires that I had scorned for so long felt… full. Scorn that had caused me to look away from Icarus and fail to save him when he fell. Scorn that had made me punishing and irrational with Aikos, when all I wanted was to have what Dax offered me now.
I swept him into my arms with all my godly strength and crashed my lips upon his. I delved my tongue between his teeth with abandon, pushing him back until the trunk of the tree was our bracing point. I was running too hot, enough that I heard Dax hiss despite the seal of our mouths. The boiling within me was not only my tears spilling but all I had been denying myself needing some means of escape, and I… wanted Dax desperately.
I kissed him harder, too hot, too fierce, too filled with unbridled passion to hold back. Though Dax held me, reciprocated, moaned even, and pressed into the firm crowding of my body against his, he made no attempt to lead. He followed. He let me set the pace, and my pace was a meteor shooting across the sky, blinking in and out of existence in its haste.
I could feel Dax’s cock through his tunic and reached up beneath it. His thighs were warm, powerful, and eager to part for me, urging me to continue my trek between them.
I wanted to. I did. I tried. But as my hand began to shake, and my mouth’s urgency stilled on his, I found myself unable to reach farther.
“I-I… I’m sorry,” I said, feeling the cool stickiness of my tears, slowly turning to steam, and rising from my skin. I needed to collect myself, to either push for more or to remove my hands from him and cease this awful inadequacy. I could feel Dax’s panted breaths on my lips, but as much as I wanted him, I could not cross the breach. Surely, he would be even more disappointed than before, and knowing that, I dared not look up but needed to pull away first—
“Shall we return then?” he said, steady, breathless though he was. He tilted my chin up, and his cheeks were flushed and lips kiss-bitten, but his eyes held only bliss. He leaned forward to kiss my lips, lighter than I had kissed his, and then took my hand from beneath his tunic, from the taut surface of his thigh, and brought my fingers to his lips to kiss them next. “To Olympus,” he affirmed, “to part ways until you seek me again tomorrow?”
Oh, how I loved him already.
I kissed Dax with the same tenderness he had shown me.
My heart said thank you, while my lips simply answered, “Yes.”
Chapter Six
DAX
"Yet mortal heart, in humble plight,
Is drawn to him in day or night,
For love's sweet flame cannot be bound,
