Stone scrambled to his feet before she caught her breath and slung her to the floor, pinning her down with one booted foot.It crushed the air out of her lungs.She felt a rib crack and cried out.Air was gone, light going too.Her nails broke clawing against Stone’s boot.
“A-Apollo,” she managed to choke out.
But he lay lifeless.
“Ap—”
Stone crushed his boot into her chest harder, twisted.
She reached for Apollo.He was near.And if they were going to die it might as well be together.Her fingers brushed his, and instead of the chill of death, they were so very warm, so very full of life as he always was.
“Show me how you do it?”Stone demanded.“Show me.”More weight, more pressure, less air.
Her fingers brushed Apollo’s fingers again.
And he glowed.
As he did in the conservatory, his skin made of pure light.His eyelids fluttered opened.He saw her first—eyes soft and adoring.Then he saw the boot on her chest.The glow swept across his skin like a sunrise, and he struggled to his feet.
“Get your damned foot off her,” Apollo growled.
The fire in his voice fueled her, and she clutched at Stone’s boot again, dragging in small breath after breath, taking what air she could get.
Apollo crept closer to Stone, his glow growing hotter.She could feel the full force of it now, anything that touched it would turn to ash.Not her, though.It crept soothing tendrils of warmth to her.Be brave, they said.
Brave?
She was fucking irritated.
She did not want a boot-shaped bruise on her body or a Stone-shaped wound in her life.She did not want to run.She could turn lead into gold.She could turn steel into gold.She could turnanythinginto gold.She felt the power of it tingling in her fingertips.
Apollo’s gaze dipped to her, and she felt rather than heard their message:Steel yourself against the heat, love, as I know you can, and we’ll take this madman down together.
She steeled her skin, her bones, her hair.She called up her own inner heat as Apollo glowed brighter than the sun.
“One last chance, Stone.”Apollo flexed his hands and rolled his shoulders, as if preparing for a boxing match.“Release her.”
Stone laughed.
And put the heel of his boot on Sybil’s mouth.Pressed.
And a sun exploded from Apollo’s chest, raged toward Stone like a fireball.
Sybil welcomed it, embraced it, played with it.
Stone didn’t have time to scream.
Though Sybil would never know what silenced him.
Apollo’s fire?
Or Sybil’s gold.
One had stolen the air from his lungs.
The other had stolen the voice from his tongue.
The fire flared higher for one breath—a glittering white orb—and then it flickered out.
