“You used me!”
He shook his head. “I protected you and I loved you.”
She bared her fangs at him. “You’re incapable of love.”
Those words lashed his heart and left it bleeding. “You’re wrong about that.”
She snatched her hand from his grasp. “Had you loved me, you would have told me the truth. You wouldn’t have allowed me to care about a monster who destroyed my family. What? Did you laugh at us? Did you think it funny that you kept me like a toy while your father killed us off, one by one?”
“Oh my God, Phoebe! I lived in hell the entire time I was with you. I loved my father and because of you, I was forced to lie to him.”
She shook her head. “No. Youchoseto lie to him.” She punctuated her words by poking him in his chest. “You chose, Urian. You could have left him at any time and stayed with me, but no. You must have enjoyed the lies or you wouldn’t have gone crawling back to him constantly.”
“It’s not that simple. He was my father!”
“And yet you live with your enemy now? How quickly you got over it, huh?”
This was insane! She wasn’t making any sense.
“And you could have told me at any time you were still alive. Why didn’t you?”
“Look around!” She threw her arms out to indicate the walls around her. “Your father locked me in this hellhole and threw away the key.” She shoved him again. “I screamed and screamed foryou.I kept thinking that surely you could hear me. That you would love me enough to come.You never did!”
Her shrieks tore through him. Not just the words, but the fear that he had heard her and had dismissed it as nightmare hauntings.
Because she was supposed to be dead. He’d heard so many voices in his head for so long. How was he to know that hers was real?
“What do want me to do, Phoebe? Apologize? I’m sorry! I never meant to hurt you.”
“But you did.” Tears welled in her eyes. “And I refuse your apology. There are some things that ‘sorry’ doesn’t fix!”
“Fine. I’ll take you to Cassandra, and—”
She cut his words off with a bitter laugh. “You don’t tell me what to do, and you don’t own me. Remember we’re Apollites. You carrymylast name, UrianPeters.”
That was their custom. Since paternity was never an absolute given, but everyone knew who the mother was who birthed a child, it was Apollite tradition to trace lineage through the mother’s family and to assume the wife’s name upon marriage. As the Apollite saying went, “Mama’s baby, Daddy’s maybe.” He wasn’t sure where she was going with that.
Not until the thorns around the room began to thicken.
“What are you doing?” Urian summoned his sword.
She laughed darkly. “Planning to use that on me?”
“No.” He hoped. “But what’s going on?”
A cold, sinister smile curled her lips. “You left me here to rot, Urian. I’m returning the favor.”
The floor below his feet buckled and released the souls he’d warned the others about. They rushed him with a screeching howl.
“Apollo!” she called out. “See our bargain met. Behold the son of your enemy! I deliver him to you in exchange for my freedom!”
Shadow? What doyou mean you can’t get through? That’s your schtick! You’re a cockroach. You get into places no one can.”
With an offended scowl, he turned to face Blaise. “Really, mandrake? Cockroach? Least I don’t lick my own balls. And for your information, whoever constructed that barrier did a bang-up job of it!”
“That would be me.”
They all turned to see Apollymi in the mist.
