From Darkness (Hearts & Arrows Book 3)(33)

Apollo owed Aphrodite so much, and he was determined to pay that debt in full, with interest.

He pictured Dita’s face as Ares had pinned her to the wall with his hands around her neck, her eyes closed and face dark, the shade of her skin gray and blue and wrong as she lost consciousness. Ares, bulging and red, the look on his face speaking clearly—he would tear her apart before he would lose her.

And the whole circumstance had been Apollo’s own doing. If only he hadn’t entered into an oath with Ares so many years before. If only Adonis had lived. If only—

He jumped when Artemis laid a hand on his forearm.

“Brother.” Tears filled her dark eyes. “Are you all right? That song…”

Apollo took a breath, letting it go with the past as he sat, laying his lyre beside him before turning to her with a smile, his heart still heavy in his chest. “I’m fine. Just thinking, that’s all.”

Artemis sat next to him and leaned back to look at the moon. “Have you been waiting for me long?”

“No, just a little while.”

“I have not seen you as of late. Is all well?”

“Quite,” Apollo answered. “I just wanted to check on you. How goes the competition?”

“Well enough. Josie wants nothing to do with Jon, and each time they see one another, her agitation grows and festers. He set himself back today by pressing her. I do not believe that Aphrodite will have enough time to convince Josie to overcome her feelings.”

Her certainty irritated him, and a flicker of defensiveness for Dita flared. “You’d be surprised.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

“What’s your plan for Josie?” he asked, not wanting to argue but sensing the inevitability.

Some plan. Bridge the gap, ha.

“My plan is to watch. To do my best to keep her away from Jon. I can get her out of New York if he should happen to gain any ground with her. But I care little for the humans or their relationship. My only motivation is to beat Aphrodite.”

“You never have liked her.”

“No, and until recently, I was not the only one.” Artemis didn’t look at him but shot the words at him still. “I cannot understand how you can forgive her. She kept Daphne from you for eons.”

“Because I killed Adonis.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I did by proxy,” he volleyed.

“He was a thorn in my side.”

“Ares would say the same. Still, he didn’t deserve to die. Aphrodite gave Daphne to me and paid a great cost to do it. She did right by me, knowing she would lose so much.” He wanted her to look him in the eye, to see the truth. To convince her, though he knew better.

Artemis said nothing, only scowled up at the stars.

“What else do you blame her for?” Apollo asked, knowing the answer.

Her lips pressed together, and he wished she could be honest with herself. With him.

“Orion?”

“Please.” She finally glanced over at him, though her words were full of contempt. “It has been thousands of years.”

“That wasn’t really an answer.”

“Love is a ridiculous sentiment, fueled by hormones. It compromises you, creates a weakness that wasn’t there before. No,” she scoffed, “I have no need for love.”

“Some would say that love is instinctive, which is something you value quite highly.”

Her lips bent in a frown. “I do not wish to discuss this, Apollo.”

“I know you don’t, Artemis. But I think you should.”

She sat and hooked her arms around her knees, turning her eyes back to the stars. For a long time, she said nothing, but when she did, she was far away, long ago, the admission quiet and still and honest. “He was taken from me with no warning, taken from me too soon. And, when I lost him, I lost a part of myself—the part that loved him. Had I never loved him, I would not still feel the sting.” Her eyes were empty when they met his again. “So, forgive me for not feeling as you do about Aphrodite. Her games do not interest me, but I will beat her and be justified.”

He shook his head, trying to understand. “What good does it do to blame Aphrodite?”

“It gives me comfort.” She stood and looked down at him with an outward calm that he knew to be a facade. “I can see where your loyalties lie, and they are not with me.”

“Artemis, you are my sister. Nothing will come between us.”

“That is not a promise you can make.”

She turned and climbed down the rock, and he watched as she nocked an arrow and disappeared into the woods.

Apollo stood and tilted his face to the moon. He knew each ring and shadow that marked its surface by heart, just as he knew his sister, the bullheaded creature who lived in a self-imposed prison under the illusion of happiness in solitude. But he remembered another Artemis, the goddess before Orion who had been joyful and compassionate, full of youth and life, and he wondered how he hadn’t noticed until far too late that she was gone.



Artemis pushed through the brush, not caring how much noise she made.

She had been betrayed by her brother.

As glad as she was that Apollo had Daphne again, she mourned the loss of her partner against Aphrodite. Artemis couldn’t fathom how thousands of years of anger could be wiped away with a single act, no matter how noble. It should have been set to rights long before, though that infraction was forgotten by all but Artemis, it seemed.