Page 123 of A Veil of Gods and Kings

I could scream. I wiped my hand over my cheek and startled when my palm came away wet. “When he finds out I’m as fucking in love with you as you are with me, obviously,” I hissed through my teeth.

Cyn stumbled forward, grasping my arm, tangling his fingers in my hair. He crushed his lips against mine. And, the weak creature that I am, I kissed him back, my arms slipping around his waist.

Our tears mingled together, and I pressed my face into his shoulder. He smelled earthy like grass and tangy like sweat, and I couldn’t care less. I kissed his neck, and his heartbeat drummed against my lips.

He drew back where I could see the outline of his features. The light of the moon and the fire blended, sweeping over his cheekbones and down the length of his nose in competing warms and cools. “I ask again,” he whispered. “Return with me.”

I choked on a sob and drifted into the cocoon of his embrace. “Cyn… I’ll turn the wrath of my father against you. He’ll use you to hurt me. I need to leave”—I trembled over the words and breathed them against his skin—“because I love you. I haven’t told you everything about myself. You don’t understand.”

“Then tell me now.”

I swallowed but nodded. He needed to know. But still, the words seemed to stall out on my tongue. I drew in a long breath. “Temi and I lived in our mother’s village even after her death until we were young teenagers. Then Zeus began his campaign to force my ascension. I was stubborn, filled with pride and anger. I told him I was in love with a girl there.” Hyacinth studied me, and I took a deep breath and forced the words to form. “I said I’d stay with her and raise a family and never ascend.”

The dark look in Zeus’ eyes bore into my memory. The way he’d flared his nose and laughed. That horrific night swelled into my memories. Temi had shaken me awake, her face still curved with youthfulness. “Apollo, something is wrong.”

I jumped up with her and stepped out of our house.

The moon hovered bright in the sky, wreathed in gray smoke.

From the flames consuming the houses of the village.

Screams so sharp and guttural they rose hair on the back of my neck tore through the air. I pulled my nightshirt off and covered my nose with it, trying to gag in breaths. “Temi, I have to help.” I pointed to our unscathed house. “Stay over there.”

“Apollo, you could get hurt,” she cried, her voice breaking alongside her innocence.

“I can’t. I’m half deity; fire won’t kill me. Just wait over there.”

She bobbed her head, her limbs trembling. I ran towards a home where a family with young children lived. A piece of the roof broke, and more screams shattered through the sizzling of the flames. I reached for the door, but a lightning bolt struck the dirt, electricity tingling along the ground, and I jumped back.

Zeus stood before me, eyes shadowed. “Do you see what happens, Apollo, when you cross me?”

My lip trembled. “You did this?”

“No,” he growled. “You did. Be grateful I spared your bastard sister’s life and learn to do my bidding or else.”

And then he disappeared. The house collapsed in front of me. Hot flames jumped into the night sky, the smell of cooked flesh came with a breeze, and I fell to my knees, throwing up into the dirt as the world burned.

Hyacinth’s thumb feathering my arm brought me back to the present day. “It was over before I could do anything at all. Everyone died. Because of me.” I lifted my face. “And do you know what the worst part of it is?”

“What?” he whispered.

“I had no connection with that girl. I just used her to anger my father, and I caused her and many others horrific deaths.”

“How old were you?”

“It was the winter when I turned fifteen.”

He gasped. “That happened right before the decade dedication?”

“Yes.” I sighed. “Perhaps you can understand why I was such a terror at it.” He nodded and kissed me, but I pulled back. “How do you still want to touch me after hearing what I’ve done?”

“Apollo,” he whispered, tangling in tighter to me, letting his fingers curl around my neck and brush into my hair. “You did nothing. You were a child.”

“I goaded my father’s anger, knowing what he is capable of.”

“You were a child,” Hyacinth said again, more firmly, his voice raising. “It is Zeus that did wrong. It is he that murdered all those people. And”—Hyacinth released me—“rumors of this type of behavior of his are well known. It’s not the first time he’s destroyed an entire town.” He hesitated. “There’s something I must tell you as well.”

“What is it?”