The green mist had encompassed the room and he and the witch were both fading by the time he moved to her.
Although he didn’t fall, he felt the ground give way beneath his feet and all faded to black.
When he felt solid beneath him again and their environs came into sharp focus, at what Apollo saw, his blood coursed scalding through his veins, he opened his mouth, and he roared.
Chapter One
Tenderness and Pain
Five minutes earlier…
I ran up the steps as fast as I could, one of my hands carrying my keys (always ready, always), the other hand in my purse, digging into the side pocket where I kept my phone.
The ass**le had found me.
Three years on the run and he’d found me.
Damn it!
Oh well. Fuck it. I’d planned for this.
It was go time.
I made it to the shabby landing where my apartment was located and sprinted down the hall, my breath coming fast, my heart beating hard, my skin cold. But my head was clear.
I’d been preparing for this.
He wasn’t going to get me again.
Not again.
Quickly, I shoved my key into the lock and turned. Repeat with the deadbolt. I opened the door, dashed inside and slammed it shut.
It was a crap door. But not crap locks since I’d sweet-talked my creepy, ogling landlord with a lot of batting of lashes and broken promises to give me a significant upgrade.
Now I was counting on those good locks to give me time.
My apartment was not in a great area of town, as most of them weren’t these last three years. Cheap and not my style.
I liked nice things. I was a label whore. I wanted a good life.
It was a flaw in my nature that cost me a lot.
Too much.
In other words, everything.
Also, my apartments were chosen so the landlords wouldn’t blink when I jumped the lease seeing as they probably lost tenants regularly for a variety of shitty life reasons that the people who were forced to live in these shitty places always had.
Then again, this apartment was rented like all my apartments were, on a fake ID. So even if a landlord wanted to find me after I jumped the lease three, six, nine months early, he wouldn’t know who to look for.
I turned the lock, threw the deadbolt home and engaged the chain.
Then I ran to my bedroom. Having pulled out my phone, my thumb moved over the screen to hit a contact I had programmed in as A-ICE so it was top of the heap.
I made it to my bedroom as I hit go on the phone.
Three years ago, I’d never phone the police. Pol had taught me not to do that.