Chapter 103 Curiosity
(Apollo)
A low, vibrating growl built in his chest.
His other hand rose almost absently to hover over the fading bruises along her ribs. He didn’t touch. Just watched the slight rise and fall, the faint sheen of sweat on her skin. Watched the way her ember flickered beneath the surface, gold ringed with something darker now, as if Hell had tried to stain it and failed.
Healing. Too fast.
Fire stirred under his own.
Had her power done this? Did Emberflame mend itself at unnatural speed once awakened? Or had some other fire slipped between his wards while he’d been downstairs, his control cracked, and his exhaustion bone-deep?
He could believe the first. He would rage at the second.
He traced the magic in the cloth with his senses, forcing his breathing slow.
There.
Thin filaments of golden heat, subtle and deliberate, woven into the weave to keep the fabric cool against too-hot skin. Not his black-edged flame, not Adelaide’s newborn gold—not yet honed.
Emberborn.
His tail lashed once, striking the floor with enough force to spiderweb a new crack across the stone. The fracture ran like a vein toward the rune-circle, then stopped, as if the chamber itself refused to let his temper touch the cross.
Of course.
Of course, one of the ash-hearted rats had wriggled their way into his walls. Of course, they’d seen his Emberborn Human strung up on his cross and tried to play saviour.
His claws punctured the cloth. He yanked his hand back before he tore it clean in half. The fabric shuddered, then steadied, holding its shape with stubborn enchantment, as if the one who placed it had expected his anger.
Who?
The ward-weaver would never dare. The steward didn’t have this kind of magic. The head of the torture wing wouldn’t waste time on mercy.
That left one.
Cael Asher.
Silent, efficient, forgettable Cael—who slipped through the palace like smoke, who heard everything and left nothing. Who’d stood so calmly in the lower hall when Apollo had sent everyone else away. Who had looked at Apollo’s orders as if they were weather: dangerous, yes, but navigable.
The more Apollo thought about it, the colder his rage burned. Not the bright roar of destruction. The slow kind that made decisions.
He reached for one of the wrist-bonds, pressing his claw to the point where smoke met skin. His magic moved along the rope like a knife through water, probing the structure.
He felt it immediately. A disturbance.
The bindings were intact. Still anchored to his mark, still joined to the runes on the floor, still keyed to his word alone.
But someone had eased them.
Just a fraction. Just enough to let blood flow more easily to her fingers, to lower the worst of the strain without loosening the hold. It was deft work—cautious, subtle, wrapped around his own magic like ivy clinging to an older tree. A careful theft: not of freedom, but of suffering.
Whoever had done it knew exactly how far they could go without snapping the tether and alerting him.
They’d judged correctly.
He found no broken anchor, no tripped alarm.
Rage scraped along his bones like shards of glass.
He stood over her for a long moment, staring, the claws of one hand digging into his own palm hard enough to drip molten gold. The droplets hit the floor and cooled into tiny, imperfect coins. One rolled, stopped at the edge of the rune-circle, and trembled there, as if waiting for judgment.
Someone had been here. Someone had put a cloth on her. Someone had touched his bindings. Someone had tasted his fire in the air and decided to meddle anyway.
His.
His creature. His bond. His experiment. His threat.
They had tended what he’d deliberately left undone. They had tried, in their small way, to stand where he stands.
The bond twitched faintly, sensing the storm pounding through him.
She still slept.
He changed that.
Apollo didn’t move a muscle. He didn’t have to. He sank his awareness into the mark, into the molten brand that tied her life to his realm like a hook through the heart.
He tugged. Not on desire this time. Not on pain. Just… wakefulness. A cold pry at the edge of her darkness.
Rise, he thought, wordless and cold. The bond flared like a struck chord. Adelaide jerked.
A sharp inhale tore through her lungs. Her head snapped back against the wood, then fell forward again, groggy. Her fingers spasmed against the ropes, joints cracking. She coughed once, breath rough, throat raw. The cloth shifted with her movement, stubbornly staying in place like an accusation.
Her eyelids fluttered, sluggish. Then, slowly, she forced them open.
The first thing she saw was him.
He watched the moment awareness clicked into place—the unfocused haze sharpening, the dull confusion brightening into fear, then anger. Her ember flared in miniature, a spark in wet ash.
“Apollo,” she rasped, voice scraped thin.
Some small, traitorous part of him relaxed at the sound of his name from her lips. It only made him angrier.
“You heal quickly,” he said. His tone made it neither a compliment nor a comfort. It was a blade laid flat on the table.
No greeting. No pretence. His voice was low, scraped clean by too many roars.
Her brow knitted faintly. She tried to wet her lips, winced when the cracked skin pulled. “I… what?”
He slid a claw under the edge of the cloth around her shoulders and lifted it a fraction. “This,” he said softly. “Explain it.”
Her gaze dropped, blinking blearily as if she’d only just realised the fabric was there. Her shoulders twitched under it.
“I…” She swallowed, throat clicking. “I don’t…”
She frowned harder, brows knotting. You could practically see her sorting through fogged memories—pain, fire, darkness, a shadow at her periphery, cool water on a burning tongue. Fingers against her jaw. A voice that wasn’t his. A presence that didn’t press like stone.
“I was…” She shut her eyes briefly, trying to catch it. “I was hanging. And then—I don’t know. I thought I dreamed…”
Her lashes flickered. “Water,” she said slowly. “Something on my shoulders. I didn’t see…”
Her head tipped back against the cross, a tiny, exhausted shake. “I don’t know.”
Lie? Half-truth?
The bond shivered. He tasted confusion. Relief. An echo of cool wetness sliding down a parched throat. A brief, hazy flare of not-Apollo heat that had felt… safe. That last taste sharpened his fury into something meaner.
His frown deepened.
“You don’t know,” he repeated, voice flat. “Yet I do not recall giving you this.” He tugged the cloth. “Or easing the bonds. Or pouring healing elixir down your throat.”
Her eyes flashed, just for a second. “Maybe you did it in your sleep,” she said hoarsely.
He almost laughed. Almost. “I do not give mercy unconsciously,” he murmured. “I am not that careless.”
He let the cloth go. It settled back around her collarbones, hiding most of his bite mark. That offended him too. It turned his mark into something private. That was not allowed.
He brushed the back of his knuckles along her ribs, tracing the outline of a bruise already fading. “This should still be purple,” he said. “Black in places. Humans are slow to mend.” His hand rose, stopping just before the bite he’d sunk into her breast. “This should be swollen. Weeping. Not already closing.”
Colour crept up her neck, a filthy mix of heat and humiliation and stubbornness. “Sorry to disappoint,” she croaked.
“I am not disappointed,” he said. “I am curious.” The lie was thin. Curiosity was only the mask he wore when rage needed a leash.