Chapter Twenty-Five #3
Tem closed her eyes. “That’s what you choose to say to me right now?”
“It is simply a fact.”
“Basilisks are insane. All of you—insane.”
“I understand why my brother is obsessed with it. And with you.”
“Are you trying to compliment me? Because it’s not working.”
“I am not. I am merely telling you my observations.”
“Great. Can you keep your observations to yourself, please?”
“If that is what you wish.”
“That is deeply what I wish, Apollo.”
When she opened her eyes, he was smiling.
There would be no hiding from him after this.
What had just transpired between them was only the beginning of something—of that, Tem was quite sure.
She would have to deal with the consequences of tonight sooner or later.
It was too soon to tell whether they had crossed a line.
But there was solace in knowing they had crossed it together.
Apollo was still grinning.
“What are you smiling at?” Tem asked.
“I have never met a human like you before.”
“I’m not a human. I’m a Hybreed.”
“That is true. But you are not a basilisk, that much is clear.”
“What do you mean?”
Apollo rolled his shoulders. He was still standing between her legs, his cock still wet with her cum.
“Basilisks give in to their instincts. We are unable to resist the draw of sex. You, on the other hand, do nothing but resist it.”
Tem frowned. She’d never thought of that as a distinctly human trait. She didn’t usually resist sex. It was specifically sex with Apollo that she was trying to avoid. Then again, she was avoiding it with Leo too. But that was out of necessity.
“I admire your restraint,” he continued. “I only wonder how long you can maintain it.”
Tem shrugged, the motion far more casual than the conversation. Her answer was not at all what she believed: “Forever, probably.”
His smile widened. “I very much doubt that.”
Tem very much doubted it too.
There was a day, not so far in the future, when she would break—when she would no longer be able to resist the draw of sex.
But she couldn’t afford for that day to come.
Not when Leo was the one she wanted to have sex with.
Not when her own life was on the line. Basilisks were ruled by their bodies; humans, by their minds.
Tem was constantly at war with herself, trying to maintain a balance.
Caspen had said that her two sides were limitlessly powerful.
But Tem hadn’t been feeling particularly powerful lately.
It had taken tonight—this experience with Apollo, specifically—to feel capable again.
Tem wondered if Apollo could sense this, if he knew the effect he had on her.
I do know.
Tem jumped at his voice in her mind. You can’t just eavesdrop on me like that.
I have already told you, Temperance. Your thoughts are rather loud.
Well, tune them out.
That is impossible.
Tem rolled her eyes.
In response, Apollo took her hand in his, lifted it to his mouth, and pressed his lips to her wrist. Tem didn’t know what to make of the gesture—it was the same one he did when they first met.
It was oddly respectful, as if he were paying tribute to someone of much higher rank.
Then again, Tem was technically his queen.
Perhaps that’s exactly what he was doing.
“Should you ever tire of resisting,” he murmured against her skin, “I am at your disposal.”
That, if nothing else, was certainly true.
Apollo was always right there, on the edge of Tem’s vision, waiting.
In some ways, she liked that he wanted her so badly.
But often his desire felt like a cage. He was no different than all the other basilisks under the mountain: virile and eager and willing to sleep with her at a moment’s notice.
There was something to be said for wanting what she couldn’t have.
Her thoughts turned to Leo.
He was the only thing she couldn’t have. Everyone else was available to her; everyone else was hers for the taking. But even now, after sharing this moment with Apollo, Tem could only think of the human king.
Apollo was watching her carefully, as if curious to see she would do next. He had every right to be curious, Tem supposed, after what had just happened between them. But she would not be going any further with Apollo tonight. So she said, “Can you help me down?”
His face resumed its usual smooth expression. “Of course, Temperance.” Apollo’s arm curled around her, lifting her from the low brick wall and setting her on the ground. He lingered for just a moment, their bodies pressed together.
Tem closed her eyes, savoring it. Then they pulled apart.
“We should return,” Apollo said.
Dawn had run its course; it was nearly full daylight.
“What about the body?”
“I shall take care of it later.”
Tem frowned. She looked over her shoulder at the statue of the man, his granite hand still holding the feed scoop.
“Won’t someone find it?”
“It will not be here for long. I will return as soon as I escort you back.”
“I don’t need escorting, Apollo.”
“I never said you did.”
Tem rolled her eyes. She no longer had the desire to argue.
The night had been a long one, and Tem was still reeling from the fact that she’d petrified a human being.
They walked back slowly, and she knew Apollo was again letting her set the pace.
Tem used the time to practice warming herself, finding she was able to direct warmth from her heart to the tips of her toes with hardly any effort at all.
With each pulse of her blood, she felt indescribable power, and she knew it was a result of what they’d just done.
It was a miracle that basilisks didn’t petrify someone every single day just to chase such a rush.
We would leave a trail of bodies if we did that.
Tem was so used to Apollo chiming in by now that she didn’t even jump at his voice.
Instead, she shared her mind with him, allowing her thoughts to run their course, knowing he was listening.
She wondered how the basilisks were able to resist petrifying the villagers when it felt so natural to do so.
Even the truce couldn’t suppress basic instinct, and Tem couldn’t imagine that all basilisks were as careful as they had been tonight, choosing someone who was practically dead already—someone who wouldn’t be missed.
We are always careful. The consequences are significant if we are not.
But how can you get away with it? You can’t just leave a bunch of statues out for anyone to find.
No. We cannot.
So what do you do with them?
Apollo’s gaze slid to hers. Would you like me to show you?
By now they had passed the wall and were entering the caves. Yes.
In response, Apollo led her down a passageway she’d never seen before.
It went deep below the mountain, surely deeper than the lake.
Tem was just about to ask where they were going when they stopped before a tall, wooden door.
Apollo opened it to reveal a long, dark room.
It reminded Tem of the room Caspen had shown her containing the monument dedicated to those who had gone missing after the war.
But unlike the room with the monument, which had tall ceilings and intricately carved stone details, this room was bare of any decoration.
There were no torches on the walls, nothing to light the way.
The ceiling was low and rough, the floor similarly unfinished.
It was certainly not a memorial, more like a storage room.
As soon as Tem’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw what exactly was stored here.
Row after row of petrified statues stretched out before her, fading away into the distance.
People in varying positions, frozen into stone.
Some were lying down, as if in sleep. Some were standing, their arms over their heads in clear self-defense.
It was cold in here, but for some reason, Tem could no longer warm herself.
The sight of so many dead humans made her sick.
“This is…” she whispered.
Apollo finished for her: “Justice.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“We do not kill at random. It is retribution: a life for a life.”
Finally, Tem understood. If each of these statues represented a basilisk who had been taken for bloodletting, the names on the memorial Caspen had shown her corresponded to the bodies in this room. Tem shook her head in disbelief. There were so many.
“How did it go unnoticed?”
“This is the result of centuries, Temperance.” He waved his hand, encapsulating the room. “We did not do this overnight.”
Tem tried to respond, but she couldn’t. She might be queen of the basilisks, but she was also a villager. Today she had petrified one of her own. And if the circumstances had been even slightly different, she could just as easily have ended up in this room herself.
Every action has a consequence, Temperance. You cannot blame us for retaliating.
I don’t blame you. It’s just…sad.
Apollo didn’t answer. Surely, this wasn’t sad to him. His sadness was confined to the other room—the memorial, where the names of his people were scratched in stone. But Tem’s people were right here.
She turned to Apollo.
“When you said you’d take care of the body, you meant…”
“I will bring it back here.”
Tem looked up into his eyes. “Alone?”
He pursed his lips. “Yes.”
“Why wouldn’t you ask me to help?”
“I do not want you to experience that. Carrying them is…heavy.” From the way he said it, Tem could tell he meant the word in more ways than one.
She turned back to the statues, and her next words were a whisper. “You shouldn’t have to carry him alone.”
A pause. His whisper mirrored hers. “You should not have to carry him at all.” When she didn’t reply, he said, “It is my choice, Temperance.”
A choice he’d made without her. But Tem was used to that by now. Both Apollo and Caspen seemed to think they knew what was best for her. At a certain point, she wondered if perhaps they did.
“Can we please go now?”
Apollo nodded. “Of course.”
The walk back through the passageway was silent.
Tem was miserable. Her human side was horrified at what she’d just seen and mourned the man they’d killed.
Caspen’s words ran once more through her mind: It is a terrible thing to take a life.
He was right; it was terrible. But there was a fine line between terror and pleasure, and Tem was experiencing both in equal measure.
She couldn’t help it; the two sides of her were equally involved, as they always had been.
Her human side wanted to cry. But her basilisk side felt what Apollo surely felt when he looked at those statues: absolute triumph.
Holding both emotions at once was exhausting, nearly impossible, and all Tem wanted was bed.
When they reached the door to her chambers, Apollo turned to face her. “I did not mean to upset you, Temperance. Perhaps it was a mistake to show you that.”
“I’m not upset.”
“Your thoughts say otherwise.”
“Well, I’m not. I’m just tired.”
“I see.”
There was a pause, and before she could talk herself out of it, Tem said, “Thank you.”
A tiny smile twisted his mouth, and a fraction of the heaviness of the evening lifted. “For…?”
“You know exactly what for.”
“I should like to hear you say it anyway.”
Tem stared up at him, deciding whether she wanted to die on this hill.
Apollo had given her his time tonight, among other things.
He’d taught her something that Caspen refused to teach her, and he had done it well.
Tem wondered if he’d known, somehow, that this was his way in with her.
He’d found the one thing that Caspen wasn’t willing to do, and he’d stepped in to do it.
It was a trait she could appreciate and one she was rapidly beginning to depend on.
She relied on Apollo in ways she couldn’t rely on Caspen.
He was there to fill in the gaps in her knowledge—for better or for worse.
“For teaching me how to petrify.”
“And?”
Tem rolled her eyes, finishing begrudgingly, “And for making me come.”
“There it is.”
“I hate you.”
“So you have said.”
“Can’t you just accept my thank-you and let me go to sleep?”
He smiled, baring his teeth. “I accept your gratitude, Temperance. And you are very welcome. It was, as I am sure you could tell, my pleasure.”
Then Apollo was gone.
Tem stood there, staring after him, trying to control her heartbeat. As his presence faded from her mind, she found she missed it. They’d been so connected for the last few hours that it hurt desperately to be alone once more.
Tem opened the door to her chambers, wanting nothing more than to collapse onto her bed and fall asleep. But to her shock, the room was occupied.
“What are you doing here?” Tem gasped.
Caspen was by the fire, as he often was.
But something in the way he held himself made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
How long had he been waiting for her? Had he been listening in on her conversation with Apollo in the hallway?
She’d just thanked his brother for making her come.
Out of context, it was a horrifying thing to overhear.
Then again, the context was that he’d taught her to petrify—which Caspen had explicitly refused to do. Perhaps that was even worse.
Caspen didn’t reply. Instead, his eyes traced down her naked body and a chill slipped down Tem’s spine as his gaze landed between her legs. His nostrils flared. An eternity passed.
Then he said, “Tell me, Tem. Why is my brother’s cum in your pussy?”