lashed as they were to the sides of my body by some sort of restraint.
“Tori?” a voice came from beside me, the same direction as the grunt. It was muffled, but still identifiable.
“Apollo?”
He let out a breath. “Thank gods it’s you and you’re okay,” he said softly.
With every breath I took, I felt more lightheaded rather than less, and I knew the hood over my head must have been treated with something like chloroform. I didn’t think I was meant to wake, at least not so soon. Ambrosia gave me almost godlike powers of healing, but with so much time passed since my last fix, I didn’t know how long that would last.
I had to focus on keeping awake.
An engine coughed and then roared to life, and I could feel the rumble of the machine all around us. Wherever we were, we’d soon be on the move with no one knowing where to find us or even that we were missing yet. And the only person who could sense my alarm, through our unwanted mind link, forged when he granted my precognition, was right here with me.
“Can you move?” I asked in a whisper.
“No, you?”
“No.”
“See?” he asked.
“Not a thing.”
We were both silent then. What was there to say? Apollo was the god of many things—the sun, music, poetry, prophecy…none of them action hero oriented. Oh, he was wicked with a bow and arrow, but partial petrification and the lack of an actual weapon didn’t bode well for fighting our way out. Ditto for me. I could stop men in their tracks, but only if I could look them in the eyes. Whoever these men in black were, they’d come prepared. But for what? Who were they? Why were they after us? Where were they going?
All good questions. I wanted to demand the answers, but I didn’t see a reason for anyone to respond to me, even if I could make myself heard over the engine.
I squirmed as best I could, trying to determine, at least, whether we were in the trunk of a car or somewhere a bit more spacious. I hadn’t gotten the sense of a cramped space when I’d been struggling to bring my hands to my face, and sure enough, I could wiggle around freely, except backward, where I pressed up against Apollo’s hard body.
“I don’t suppose that’s something useful you’re sporting, is it? Like the handle of some kind of sword?” I asked him.
He snorted. “It’s called a haft, and no, that’s not what you’re feeling. Although, as far as usefulness, that would depend on the situation.”
I supposed that was true. If rescue depended on writing an SOS in the snow, he’d certainly be packing the right equipment. The mental picture somehow made breathing a little easier. My panic started to recede.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Don’t mention it.”
I wondered with that strange empathy between us whether he was breathing a little easier as well. I was glad he only sensed my emotions and not my mental pictures.
“So, how are we getting out of here?” I asked.
A sudden hard turn rocked me away and then back into him. Damned switchbacks. Were we climbing
“Wait and see?” Apollo suggested. I could barely remember what we were talking about, gripped in the steel bands of fear.
Apollo squirmed closer to me, putting a chin over my shoulder to hold me in place as the vehicle rocked and twisted us farther away from help. “Hey, hey,” he murmured near my ear, “it’s going to be all right. I’m a god, remember. I didn’t get to be this insufferably arrogant without cause.”
He was trying to make me laugh, and I appreciated the attempt, but this time… I blacked out for a second as the scent of the sack over my head overwhelmed me and came back to him urgently whispering my name. “Tori! Stay with me, Tori. We’re going to need our wits about us.”
I couldn’t feel engine vibration anymore.
“Have we stopped?” I asked, still groggy.
“Yes,” he whispered.
“Where?”
“Delphi,” he said.
Well, duh… But wait, did he mean the sanctuary and not the town? Given his connection to the place, maybe he could sense it like he could me…things bound to him. I pushed the thought down into a deep dark place along with my fear of the heights. Or I tried to.
“Your place of power?” I asked to be sure. “Can you—?”
“Trying,” he said. “There’ve been a few reenactments here over the years, some things that have kept the faith, but mostly lots and lots of tourists. I have to dig deep.”
The vehicle rocked on its wheels and a door slammed, then a second. Another one opened and in rushed cold air. Suddenly, Apollo’s comforting form was ripped away from me, and I heard him ooph as he hit the ground. I felt the impact myself as a sharp pain shooting up my back, a disturbing new feature of our connection. Was it the power of the place or the strengthening of my sixth sense with the elimination of my sight?
Someone grabbed me by the ankle, and before I could react, I was sliding backward myself, bumping over indeterminate things that clanked and bruised. Metal tools, maybe. I braced for the impact with the ground, but as I started to drop, I was grabbed around the waist and hoisted up onto someone’s back, a shoulder creasing my gut. I hung there like a sack of potatoes, my nose smashed up against knobby vertebrae.
I let out an “ouch” and started to squirm. My captor stumbled with the ferocity of my fight, and a second later pain burst through my skull as I was knocked over the head.
My awareness fled like shadows from Zeus’s lightning.
Fear woke me again. Pounding fear, and someone nudging my shoulder. “Tori. Tori, wake up, please.”
“Huh?” I asked brilliantly.
The pounding fear receded, and I realized it hadn’t been my own. I realized something else as well—I could see. Not much. Just enough to know that my view was unobstructed, but wherever we were wasn’t bright enough for much detail.
“I pulled it off with my teeth,” Apollo said, “as soon as I managed to get rid of mine.”
I squirmed around until I was facing him, ignoring the protests of my bruised body…and froze when I saw that the slight glow which allowed me to see anything at all was coming from him.
“Sun god,” he explained without me asking. “They don’t realize it, but the guys who captured us are fueling my power with their belief. Whoever they are, they know
“They?”
“Your men in black. Skinny, unshaven, look like they haven’t bathed in a while. Smell like earth, patchouli and incense.”
Right, I remembered.
“What do they want with us?”
“They’re waiting for dark,” he said, looking away.
“Apollo—”
Reluctantly, he met my gaze again. “What do they want?” I repeated.
Apollo threw himself forward, and a wave of feeling swept me, crashing over me, submerging me just as his lips hit mine. I was so stunned, so overwhelmed, I just lay there. Lust and love and want and fear and regret and resentment, right and wrong and even more right…they were all jumbled, all powerful, and all poured into the kiss.
My arms strained against my bonds, desperate to get around Apollo even while I tried to find enough of
