Page 65 of Until the End of Ever (To the Cruel Gods #2)

SILVER

I didn’t cry. If my eyes got a little misty, it wasn’t my fault: the dome was still broken, and my divine father being an absolute shit, decided to make it rain.

Poseidon didn’t allow any drop of water to fall through the enormous hole Apollo had made when he’d flown us out of there yesterday, but I was quite certain a drop or two fell to my cheek.

Yes, that was absolutely not tears.

“Sweet, aren’t they?” someone at my side whispered.

“Mh,” I said, before twirling back.

It sounded like a guy, and I was standing with the bridesmaid. The only one with a penis allowed on this side, Gideon, was too busy bawling his eyes out like a pussy to say anything.

I snorted, recognizing the man behind me.

Except, no one else was paying attention to him, which was strange. Apollo definitely wasn’t the sort of man people might overlook.

“Are you even here?” I murmured, feeling foolish.

“About one percent of me is. Wouldn’t have missed it for the worlds. These idiots in love are just so cute .”

“You totally watch soap operas, don’t you?” I made a face, disgusted. “Are you sure you’re my brother?”

“Not every twins are identical. In fact, the two of us have always been stark opposites. The sun and his moon, and all that.”

Remembering flashes, rolling my eyes as he teased, made me deeply uncomfortable.

“You’re here for Artemis,” I hissed. “And she’ll take over. Erase me. It’s not like Freya, who was ready to fade like the rest of her pantheon, right? You want your sister, and that will kill me.”

Apollo didn’t answer at first. “When my energy latched onto this flesh, about thirty years ago now, I felt a stirring, a change in the worlds. Prophecies have been vague, as though the fates were waiting for a catalyst before threading again. I observed behind his eyes, curious. And all of a sudden, Moros started writing again, clear as day. Do you know when?”

I shrugged.

“One night, when a mortal woman pushed a full blown goddess out of her womb, though she was pure as snow, completely untouched at the time.”

I turned to him.

“I took over this body then, because I knew that within moments, hours, days perhaps, Father would sense the rebirth of an Olympian on Earth. I prevented it by sealing the little girl’s power.”

Now I turned, though I knew I probably looked foolish to anyone who wasn’t seeing him.

Apollo was no longer smiling, though his eyes remained sky blue, and not the fiery hue they usually adopted when he seemed serious.

“I don’t know what you are, but my sister’s spirit didn’t attach itself to you when it recognized a fitting soul. You were born with it. It’s not logical. None of it should have happen. This is the Fates, meddling.”

His gaze lifted up, past me, toward the darkening skies.

“And now the next piece on the board enters your playground. Brace yourself, sister.”

The god was gone in a moment, vanishing, leaving me to think whether any of that had been real.

That was when little Rhea gasped. “Look!” she said, pointing at the sky.

I blinked, my eyes not quite understanding what was going on.

It wasn’t possible. It made no fucking sense. There was a man in the sky. Falling.

The first to move was Ronan, a dark cloud surrounding him as he started to fly toward up and up, reaching the dome, an energy shield in one hand, while doing his best to slow the descent of the body in free fall.

He was going to crash hard, nonetheless, and he would be very, very dead.

“Move!” I screamed at the stands, not wanting the man to also kill whoever he was going to crash onto.

A dome of water covered the entire party, just as the man fell through the blue dome, creating a second humongous hole.

The sound as he crashed against Poseidon’s water made me wince. I closed my eyes, not eager to watch the utter destruction.

But the water, gently lowering the body to the ground, weren’t stained red, or black or gold with blood.

The man was completely unharmed.

No, not man .

There was only one explanation.

This was most definitely a god.

“Et puis merde alors!” Francois cried over the stunned silence. “Il a tout cassé!”2

Silver and Cas’s duet will be book three and four in the To the Cruel Gods series.

2 Francois says “And shit! He broke everything.”