Page 20 of Charmed By Apollo

“Well? Can you?”

Apollo paused, wanting to approach this delicately. “Geri, I know you’re grieving?—”

“Just answer me.” She gritted her teeth. “Can. You. Bring. Her. Back.”

“Geri, you don’t?—”

“Please.”

He didn’t know why, but there was something about the way she said the one word—how his ears picked up the slight crack in her usual confidence—that made his heart clench. “Why do you think I have the ability to do this?”

“I heard…things. Back in the Underworld.”

“What things?”

“That you could do it. Bring the dead back.”

He blew out the breath he’d been holding since she asked her question. “You’re talking about Hyacinthus.”

“Hyacinthus?”

“He was…a friend of mine. One of my dearest friends.” Hyacinthus had died centuries ago, yet the memory of what happened—and the pain—remained fresh.

Good.

Because he swore he would never forget his faithful friend. They had been as close as brothers; in fact, some people thought them to be lovers, but that was pure gossip, of course. Hyacinthus had been a prince and a general in one of the armies that fought the Titans and saved Apollo’s life, at great risk to his own.

“And? How did he die?”

“I killed him.” Tension grew taut in the air, like a rubber band about to snap. “I was teaching him how to play this stupid game with a discus. I threw it far up into the heavens, and the damned idiot chased after it and…” He cleared his throat. “It struck him in the head.” It was such a senseless death, considering how many battles the prince had survived.

She cocked her head to the side. “So, you didn’t kill him. It was an accident.”

“Which I caused.” A fact which he never forgot. He’d killed many people in his immortal life—vanquished enemies, meted out justice to terrible people, and indirectly through mortals who thought he wanted a sacrifice—but he’d never caused the death of a friend. The gut-wrenching pain he felt in his chest that day still haunted him like a phantom limb. “I tried to revive him, tried a lot of things, even gave him ambrosia, which didn’t work. I did everything I could and looked into every possibility. But The Fates decided that he would remain dead.”

The she-wolf pursed her lips. “Then why did I hear those souls in the Underworld say you did?”

He shrugged. “It’s all gossip, I’m afraid. In the end, the only way I could ensure he never ‘died’ was to grow a flower from the blood he spilled on that field. You’ve probably heard of it—the hyacinth.”

Geri’s pretty face turned pale. “Y-you said you tried other things. H-how about Hades? Could he?—”

“No.” He shook his head. “Hades was very clear that he couldn’t do that, not even for me.”

“Th-there has to be a way.” To his surprise, Geri stepped forward and grabbed him by his shirt. “You said you looked at other possibilities? Did you get to try them?”

“I did, but…” He shook his head. “There were too many options, lots of leads, but eventually, I had to accept that he was gone.” Gently, he pried her hands away from his shirt. “Geri, I know it’s hard now, but once the initial grief has passed, you’ll also accept?—”

“No!” Her tone was fierce and her eyes dry as she wrenched away from him. “I can still bring her back. There has to be a way. Tell me about the other possibilities.”

“Possibilities?”

“You said you looked into them. Other ways to revive the dead. Tell me what they are.”

Apollo stared at her—at that beautiful face and those deep gray eyes. A strange pang hit him in the chest because that look on her face looked so familiar—he’d seen it on himself long ago when he’d grieved for his friend. He also remembered what it had been like the first few days after Hyacinthus’s death—the grief that consumed him, as well as the desperation that had driven him mad.

Perhaps Geri, too, would need to channel her energy into something to help her find her way through this dark time.

An idea struck him.

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