Inbetween - Book 1 of the Guardian series

Chapter 14- Finding the sun

Apollo got two pieces of bad news at the same time.

First, she'd run away.

He knew it, he felt it the second Amelia had left his world, and felt her shut off again from him. Back to her world and out of his reach. It should have made him angry. Somehow it didn't. Somehow, instead, he just felt ...He didn't know. He hadn't felt this alive, this turmoil, for decades. Centuries. Apollo had this urge to know every last thing running through her head, every thought, every desire, and this urge to make it all happen just to get that warmth back. 

The second piece of bad news was that Sol was back and seemed to already know all about Amelia. Probably from Artemis or Aphrodite. Sol always knew everything long before Apollo could tell him, face to face, and he was sick of the man's big 'I know what's going on' grin that he'd generally always return with. 

It wasn't that he didn't like Sol. He loved the man. They were like twins, or triplets with Artemis there, three peas in a pod. To say they were twins, technically, wouldn't be accurate. They weren't blood related. But they had been mistaken for each other often enough, shared a similar name, and while Apollo had been with his wife, Sol had taken over the job.

Where Apollo was seen as a beautiful man, almost feminine in his face, Sol was handsome. Muscular, long haired, but never could be seen as feminine. He was confidant bordering on cocky and stupid. He accounted for much of the 'Apollo consort' myths that went around. He and Sol were as good as brothers since they'd met. Like Aphrodite and Venus they shared roles. When Sol had an apprentice, Apollo took up a little extra work, and when Apollo had one, Sol would. Apollo preferred music and healing. Sol was a little more hands on. He'd broken the rules numerous times to deliver 'prophecy' when he thought something wasn't right, going backwards in time to warn people, and had gotten more or less sentenced to the In-between for eternity. Sol never seemed to care about that.

"So. What's with this woman that you're abandoning all your work for?" Sol asked as he jogged over, waving to one girl who waved to him, winking to another. Superstar of the City of the Dead and loving it. That temple, the one to Apollo, was also to Sol. And he loved it. 

"Don't ask." Apollo muttered. He was already creating the gate to his world.  Sol just grinned and followed.

He hurried upstairs for the room he'd created for her. She hadn't touched it, she hadn't touched the clothing, and her weapons still sat there. The strings had snapped. She'd looked so calm and quiet when he'd left her. Apollo shouldn't have wandered off again. But every time he was near her, he felt claustrophobic, or emotional, or angry, or he just kept loosing his head over stupid things, while fighting this urge to do things that made him too far too much of his wife. Of what she'd say if she knew he was betraying her. Lovers were one thing. Amelia was another. She wasn't 'just a lover'. She was his apprentice.

"Arti told me. Venus told her. Aphrodite told Venus. The question is, did you apologise?” Sol asked, staring at the empty room, at the ruined weapons. The answer was pretty fucking obvious in his opinion but he wanted to see Apollo cringe when he answered. This was what brothers were for. Rubbing it in.

“No.”

“Arti's going to be pissed.” Sol grinned then. It amused him more than it worried him. Amused him because Apollo was starting to act like a man again, not like some god, starting to behave normally. Maybe he'd finally start to have some fun in the modern world again. Apollo kept claiming he was tired, and bored, and sick of it, but then he never participated in the world. The living world that just kept changing. Nothing about it was boring. Sometimes the In-between was boring. Right now though?