She kissed him, then she ran, out of his arms, through the crowd and into the grasping hands of the three giants Stone had hired to capture her.
He ran haltingly, then he stopped entirely.
Sybil wanted this.Perhaps… needed this.And if he had any other purpose in the world, it was to get Sybil everything she wanted.
Like a nightmare watching her climb into the hack, watching it roll away, like the flames he’d consumed were burning him up from the inside.
He pushed trembling hands through his hair.
He couldn’t help himself.He trotted after the carriage as it trundled around the corner and into Finsbury Square.It slipped through the crowd like a knife through butter, and Apollo watched it disappear.
“Bran!”Another anguished cry from another weary soul rising up.“Where’s Bran!”
Apollo pushed through the crowd toward the front of the shop.The ivy that usually twisted and writhed in the spotless windows was gone, the windows smeared with heavy black streaks.The usually cheerful yellow door was open, blackened.
And Lady Guinevere strained at the dozens of arms that held her to get through it.
“Bran!”she cried.“Bran!Let me go!He’s still inside!”
But the guards refused.They held her tight, their faces stone masks, their eyes deep pools of pain.
A crash from inside.Beams must have fallen.
Lady Guinevere hit her knees.Her body heaved as if crying, but her face was dry, her gaze blank.
“Me,” she said, so coldly, “why couldn’t it have been me?”
She had lost her knight in shining armor.
And Apollo… he might have just lost his princess.
Why couldn’t it have been me?
It should have been him.In the dungeon, in danger, in…
Fuck.Itcouldbe him.
Apollo ran all the way to Bloomsbury Square, and he slammed his fist on the door until it was prickling with needles, then numb, but finally the door swung open.
“What the hell is happening?”Temple demanded, dressed in only a banyan.
His feet were huge.Never mind.Didn’t matter.“It’s Sybil.Stone has her.”
Temple’s jaw hardened, his fists becoming hammers.“I’m going out, Diana!”he bellowed as he stormed up the stairs.“Let me dress.”
“No!”Apollo stepped into the foyer.“We’re not storming the castle.Sybil has a plan.I have a plan, too, but I need your help.Yourinfluence, not your muscle.”
Diana appeared at the stop of the staircase in a loosely tied dressing gown, hair a disaster around her shoulders.“What’s going on.”
“It’s Sybil,” Apollo said.“Tell your dragon of a husband to calm down.”
Temple paused halfway up the stairs.“If my sister’s in a dungeon, I’m not taking days or weeks to charm someone into freeing her!I know you care nothing for her, but I?—”
“I love her!”Apollo slammed the front door, and it shook the walls.“Sybil is your sister, but she is my soul.”
Apollo climbed the stairs slowly until he stood eye to eye with the other man.
For a moment, they simply stared at one another.Temple’s eyes flickered between rage and confusion.His mouth had become a harsh line.
