Rise of the Blood (34 page)

I grinned into the top of Tina’s head and disentangled myself to ask, “Where’s Serena?”

“Serena?” she said, shocked.

“Is she here?”

“She most certainly is,” Serena said from the hallway behind us. The twins and I turned to see her standing with a hand jauntily to her hip, looking none the worse for wear, but for a bruise on her cheek and a scrape along her neck. I was surprised she’d dared show her face again, but the emerald green gown she’d changed into showed a lot more than that, embracing her curves like Jesus embraced GQ or Cosmo. I supposed she had amends to make with Pan…Uncle Hector…if she wanted to stay with the film.

Castor and Pollux stepped forward even without my introduction, drawn by her striking green eyes that flashed as she spotted them.

“Well, well, well,” she said. “Who do we have here?”

I performed the introductions and quickly became extraneous, which was just how I wanted it. I left them behind and moved into the suite, spotting Jesus and Spiro. Beyond them Mom and Dad, Yiayia and Fergus, Uncle Christos…

Yiayia caught my eye and tugged on Fergus’s arm. I didn’t need my precognition to see the future. She’d corner me and make me tell her everything.
Everything
. In excruciating detail. I’d be stuck here all night.

But now that I knew everyone was safe, there was somewhere else I had to be—the hospital, checking on Christie and Nick and all the people I’d failed.

I quickly headed for the door, doing my best not to cause a ripple in the crowd that Yiayia could track.

Apollo was coming in the door as I was leaving. I tried to sidestep him with a muttered, “excuse me,” but that wasn’t going to work. He grabbed me by the shoulders. “You okay?”

I shrugged him off and looked up desperately. “Step aside or come with, but if we don’t get out of here now, we won’t be going anywhere.”

He looked over my shoulder, saw Yiayia coming our way and quickly put two and two together.

He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door. As soon as we were out and the door closed behind us, he jogged me toward a dogleg in the corridor.

“Come on,” he said. “My room’s closest.”

“But the hospital—”

“You can’t go in like that,” he said. “Hospital’s the first place the police will look for injuries that could have come from tonight’s trouble. You can’t even ask about Christie. They’ll want to question how you knew she was there.”

“But—”

“No buts.”

“But
Nick
.”

He blew out a breath, stopped in front of a door and used his key card to get us inside.

“Fine, Nick, but don’t get caught sniffing around the others.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” I said, saluting him. My cloak dropped and my wings unfurled, nearly knocking over the little decorative table in the room’s foyer.

We both froze.

“I thought I’d seen, but…I didn’t…are they permanent?”

My heart dropped. I didn’t realize how much I’d been wishing
he
could tell
me
.

“I don’t know.” I was surprised to hear a sob in my voice. After everything that had happened… The wings had been a godsend during the battle, but now…nothing would ever be the same again. “What did you do to me back in the fight?”

Apollo’s gaze slid away from mine, and I grabbed his face, pulling him back around to look at me. “Apollo?” I asked.

“It was the breath of life,” he said softly.

“The what?”

“I gave you some of my divinity. It was…it was just supposed to save you, but everything I do keeps having unexpected side effects with you. It’s like parts of you that have been dormant are starting to awake.”

“So today the wings, tomorrow the tusks?”

“I don’t know,” he said miserably. “This has never happened before. I’ve never—”

“Can it. Recriminations later. For now, I need to clean up and get to the hospital. Do you have a jacket I can use?” I didn’t have to say “oversized,” because with the width of his massive shoulders everything he had would hang on me.

Besides, whatever he gave me would do well enough. I had to get out of here and away from the look in his eyes that said there was nothing I could accuse him of that he didn’t already blame on himself. Another second and I might be trying to comfort him, let
him
off the hook. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.

Apollo grabbed my chin, gently, and now made me look at him. “Tori, this doesn’t change anything about you, you know. You’re still you. Still beautiful and amazing and vital. You saved the day. Not the Olympians or the heroes—you.”

“Great, pin a big ole medal on me. Maybe it will distract people
from my wings
. I have to get out of here.”

I backed out of his grip and closed myself in the bathroom. I was a wreck. Apollo was right, the police would have converged on me the second I set foot in the hospital.

I started with the tear tracks on my face, staining his white washcloth with dirt, makeup and blood. Then another for my clothes…and another. I rinsed grit from my mouth and brushed twigs, grass and dirt out of my hair, which still, miraculously, fell in waves rather than tangles, a testament to whatever industrial grade gunk they’d put in it.

In the end I looked halfway presentable. Pale and ragged, as one might expect from a woman whose fiancé…or had I called him husband?…was in serious condition. I hoped I’d pass.

I stepped out of the bathroom five minutes from when I’d gone in, wearing determination like a shield.

“Give me one minute,” Apollo said, stepping in as soon as I was out and closing the door behind him.

It was two, but I used the time to find a blazer of his and roll up the sleeves. I was slipping out the door when he emerged. He caught the door before I could close it and slid out behind me.

“We’ll go together,” he said, “in case of trouble.”

I turned and glared, crossing my arms over my chest, which made my wings want to flare, as if I had feathers to ruffle. “I don’t need your help for this.”

“You’re getting it regardless. Don’t worry, I’ll stay out in the waiting room.”

“Fine,” I said, though it wasn’t fine at all. I didn’t want him there, sensing my every emotion through our strange link. If I broke down…well, I didn’t need an audience. It gave me a tiny sense of the vulnerability people felt when I poked around in their lives. No wonder the Rialto Bros. had kicked me out and my family still had no idea what to do with me. I was a freak. Now I had the wings to prove it.

Apollo swooped in and kissed me hard, his hands going to my hips. The suddenness of it made me catch my breath and made a hot spike of desire start in my stomach and finish up somewhere significantly lower. The shock of it brought me back to myself and I heaved him away, ready to slap his face…before I saw the look on it—satisfaction.

“What?” I asked. “What did you do that for?”

“You were feeling sorry for yourself. I figured the kiss would either turn you on or piss you off. Either way, no more pity.”

“Screw you,” I said, giving him my back and starting for the stairs.

“Any time,” he said softly.

I pretended not to hear and continued on my way, only stopping when I got to the front desk to ask about a cab. I’d already put Viggo through enough. “Ms. Karacis?” the desk guy asked.

“Yes.”

“You have a message. I took it myself.”

He grabbed it from an old-fashioned lattice of message boxes behind the counter and handed it to me. It was on hotel stationary, folded in half.

I read it as the hotel clerk tapped away on his keyboard.

Apollo sensed it the second my heart stopped. “Tori?”

“He’s gone,” I said. No inflection, no emotion. Dead.

“Who’s gone?”

“Armani. Nick. He’s gone.”

I had to hold tightly to the counter, my knuckles white.

“Gone where?”

“Home. He wants to be treated and heal at home. Without me. I didn’t even get to say good-bye.”

Apollo opened his arms, and this time I stepped into them willingly.

“Do you still want the cab?” the desk clerk asked.

Apollo shook his head. I could feel it through our hug. Then he guided me back toward the elevators.

“What do you want?” he asked. “A drink? Bed? The comfort of your family?”

“You,” I said. It slipped out before I could think, but I realized I meant it. “I want to be with someone who understands.”

The elevator came and he was so stunned he didn’t move until I did.

“Just hold me?” I asked as the door closed behind us.

“I can’t make any promises,” he said, more truthful than he had to be.

“That’s okay too,” I said, not knowing if it was true. But I wanted him—had
always
wanted him, from that first second he’d walked into my office. But Armani’d had prior claim on my heart.

But now, without that, I realized I couldn’t make any promises either. If Apollo were to kiss me again, I couldn’t answer for where it would lead.

About the Author

Lucienne Diver does not actually come from circus folk, though you’d never know it to meet her family. She is, however, in no particular order, a wife, mother, book addict, sun-worshipper, mythology enthusiast, beader, travel-junkie, clothes horse and crazy person. In addition to the Latter-Day Olympians series for Samhain, she writes the Vamped series of young adult novels for Flux Books (
Vamped
,
Revamped
,
Fangtastic
and
Fangtabulous
). Her short stories have been included in the anthologies
Strip-Mauled
and
Fangs for the Mammaries
edited by Esther Friesner and in
Kicking It
edited by Faith Hunter and Kalayna Price (Dec. ’13). Her essay “Abuse” is included in the anthology
Dear Bully: Seventy Authors Tell Their Stories
. More information can be found on her website at
www.luciennediver.com
. You can also follow her on Twitter,
@luciennediver
.

Look for these titles by Lucienne Diver

Now Available:

Latter-Day Olympians

Bad Blood

Crazy in the Blood

Coming Soon:

Latter-Day Olympians

Battle for the Blood

Hell on Earth. It’s not just an expression anymore.

Crazy in the Blood

© 2012 Lucienne Diver

Latter-Day Olympians, Book 2

It’s an ill wind that carries bad news, and Tori’s just had a double load of it blow through her door. 

Just a few weeks after she prevented some rogue gods from blowing L.A. into the ocean, more dead bodies are turning up near the leftover crater. Bodies that have been shredded by something too big to be…shall we say, of this world? Worse, Uncle Christos has disappeared after stumbling onto a deadly cult masquerading as the Back to Earth movement.

The connection: Dionysus. Yes,
that
Dionysus. He’s resurrected his bloody fertility rite, complete with frenzied female groupies who tear men limb from limb. And he’s lured Demeter, goddess of the harvest, over to his side by finding a way to get her daughter away from Hades for good.

Predictably, Hades isn’t about to let her go without a fight. Unless Tori finds a way to bring her back, he’ll abandon the gates of Tartarus. At which time all hell will, literally, break loose.

Between saving the world, the woman, and cultists and her crazy uncle? So much for getting to the beach before all the good spots are taken… 

Warning: The wine country is going through a heat wave of epic proportions, and it's not all about the weather. Beware steamy gods with seduction on their minds or brimstone in their blood.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Crazy in the Blood:

I opened my eyes to the face of an angel—the fallen variety. The kind designed to lead others into temptation and have them thank him for it. Repeatedly. To make matters worse, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, his weight slanting the mattress so that my body seemed inclined to slide toward his.

Apollo’s golden hair was wild, like the corona of the sun, like it would look after someone had run their fingers through it, clutching his head to their breast or…elsewhere…urging him not to stop. My mind supplied an image of
me
in that position, Apollo above me, gazing down with those impossible turquoise eyes turbulent with emotion…

I shut it down, closed my eyes and focused on breathing. In and out. No, that was bad. Just…bad.

“Move away,” I said through gritted teeth.

Apollo shifted fractionally, but I could feel him staring at me still. My body cried out for contact, but I ruthlessly ignored it, even though every single cell seemed to strain toward Apollo. I felt
alive.
More than alive. Manically, enthusiastically, quite definitely, hyper-alive. Full of light and energy. My eyes snapped open at the realization of just what had to be heightening all my experiences.

As my gaze met Apollo’s, I struggled to find a well of anger to tamp down my libido and was surprised not to have to look too hard, though I must have known on some level that this was what would happen if Apollo rode to my rescue. Some part of me must have decided deep down that I could die another day but not while the family was counting on me to track Uncle Christos and not while there were new murders, massacres really, begging to be solved. I didn’t have the luxury of the moral high ground. No, as much as I wanted to blast Apollo with both barrels of my wrath, I was the one to blame here. I had to take responsibility.

Still, my “thank you” tasted like ashes on my tongue.

“Stop. Your effusion is just embarrassing,” Apollo said, brushing aside a sweat-soaked lock of hair obscuring my vision. The jolt it sent straight to my heart made me cranky.

I touched the back of my hand to my mouth and it came away wet. “Drool, eh? Sex-y.”