The Sun Revolves Around Apollo (The Gods Are Back In Town Book 2) Read online

  The Sun Revolves Around Apollo

  The Gods Are Back In Town II

  Serena Akeroyd

  Copyright © 2019 by Serena Akeroyd

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Book Cover by Adina Milica 2019

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Also by Serena Akeroyd

  Introduction

  Last year, I was fortunate enough to go on a short research trip to Athens, and there, that was where this story came to be. Seeing the ancient world and the modern one intertwine was incredibly special, and visiting places like the Parthenon and seeing temples of the Gods was so beyond epic, I had to write my own take on things.

  So, here’s my dedication.

  The Greek Gods who sustained my interest all these years, I really hope you’re real, and, psst, Poseidon, if you are, I’m here and I’m yours. :P

  Come and get me, tiger. ;) Haha.

  Serena

  x

  Chapter One

  Ella

  The smell of hay and horse wasn’t exactly something to write home about, but there was an earthiness about it that I quite liked.

  Yeah, I know.

  Strange.

  But that was me now. Weird. I don’t think I used to be this much of a freak, but I might have been. I don’t remember much of the Ella from before.

  I’m not talking about turning over a new leaf here. This is so much more than that. I classify my life in two ways. Death and post-death. Yup. You read that right. I died, and something happened—not sure what—but I came back as Cindy. The one memory I have is that my name was Ella. Not fucking Cindy.

  Jesus, who went by that name anyway?

  Ugh.

  It’s enough to make me want to puke, and there’s no way I want to puke, because it would interrupt what’s going down in the stables right this second.

  Auralist. I googled it. Why? Because I am one apparently. Yeah, there are voyeurs—peeps who get off on watching. Then there are people like me—seems I get off on listening.

  And what am I listening to, you ask?

  Two guys.

  Yeah. They’re totally doing it.

  It started three days ago. Well, not the sex—they’re not Sting—but me realizing that two dudes were glazing each other’s donuts in the third stall of this very stable.

  Of course, I’d had to listen in. If you’d seen their asses—that was all I’d managed to see when I peered around the stable door—of the guys doing the nasty, you would understand. Shit, you’d be here listening in with me.

  I can’t say that this ‘auralist’ crap is a new development. I’m not sure what’s new or old to be fair. I might have been a pervert before, or it might just be something that Cindy got off on. I couldn’t remember my surname, couldn’t remember what I did or who my family was, so why the fuck would I remember if I’d been a peeping Tom?

  These post-death changes are why I’m at this stupid retreat in the first place, so this added development is just a pain in the ass.

  Cindy’s mom has been freaking out ever since I woke up from a coma four months ago. The minute I was out of PT and the doctor said he only needed to see me once a month, she’d dragged me to this place. With promises of beaches and hot guys, I’d come with no complaint. Until we’d driven through the fucking gates of hell, that is. Then the complaints had started.

  Okay, so you might think I’m exaggerating—the whole ‘hell’ shit. But you’d be wrong. If anything, it’s an understatement because hell itself can’t be this bad.

  We had to sit cross-legged in a circle with a soundtrack of irritating tinkling, jangling bells in the background. Not only did we have to talk about our feelings, but we had to listen to other people sob and snort through their emotions too. Vomit inducing, or what?

  I had to do yoga too. I was anti-yoga. Anything that put my face near my crotch was just wrong. I also had to be mindful, meditate, and talk to lots of counselors about a truth I couldn’t share.

  If I told them the truth?

  I’d either be here forever or find myself locked up in an asylum.

  A sojourn with the Devil couldn’t be much worse, could it?

  I mean, I’d know. I’d died, and I had to have gone up or down, and considering I was perving on two guys having sex, I figured I wasn’t, and never had been, a good girl. It would also explain why Dolly, Cindy’s mom, was so worried about me.

  I’ll let you process that.

  Dolly. Yep, like Dolly Parton.

  Cindy and Dolly. We were on our way to making a Country Western duet.

  Anyway, I figured that her daughter must have been a real goody two shoes, and now, with the post-coma child being an evil bitch, I was starting to consider myself fortunate that she hadn’t brought in an exorcist.

  That was all I damn well needed.

  A humming sound caught my attention, one that was followed by a slick slurp that had my core clenching down like a cock was sliding into it.

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

  Hot guy one was giving hot guy two a blowjob.

  What I would pay to see that.

  As well as listen to the show, of course.

  Mouth watering, I pressed my head back against the stall I was hiding in and closed my eyes to try and visualize the exact details of what was going down just a few feet away.

  The dude ranch was part of the rehab center. Riding the horses and caring for their tack was the only decent thing about this place, and it was only because Maisie and I had a thing going on that I’d heard the two guys going at it.

  Yup, Maisie was my bud. She let me hide in her stall, saved me from having to join another hug circle in exchange for an apple and two carrots—the carrots were genuinely harder to get my hands on than crack.

  Seriously.

  The dude two rooms down from me had offered me crack twice, but the carrots? I had to sneak into the kitchen for those.

  No fun, but it was worth it to hide out here. And that had been before I’d heard the dudes doing the dirty. Now? I was a damn convert.

  Saddle me up and ride me if it meant putting me in the same sphere as seriously sexy cowboys who didn’t mind getting it on like Heath and Jake in Brokeback Mountain.

  Drool.

  “Oh fuck, Pollux!”

  The name had me frowning because I’d have remembered a weird one like that, and it sucked not being able to put a face to the groan. But more importantly, the man’s grunts changed tenor after he made that declaration. The pace changed as well, and somewhere amid my musings, they’d gone from polishing poles to outright doing the deed. There was a slapping sound, like someone’s butt hitting another’s thighs, and I realized a hot beef injection was occurring just yards away from me.

  I shuddered, able to see it in my mind’s eye—the visualization crap was coming in useful for one thing it seemed.

  I could easily imagine that Pollux’s—or whoever the other guy was—balls hitting, swinging, and slapping into the other’s like that desk toy with the kinetic globes that knocked into one another when you pushed them into motion.

  My p
ussy grew wet as the grunts picked up pace again. The motion seemed to as well.

  Thwack.

  Thwack.

  Thwack.

  Oh God, I loved that noise.

  It meant they were getting down to business. I’d noticed over the past few days that the quieter they were, the sooner they’d climax.

  They didn’t disappoint.

  Even as I wondered if I was enough of a perv to start jilling off to these illicit noises, their long, gritted out, hoarse and husky moans filled the stables.

  In response, a few of the horses whinnied, and I had to clap a hand to my mouth to stop myself from laughing out loud.

  Even as I stemmed the tide, I heard material bustling, zips creaking, belt buckles clicking, and as was the way every day, thus far, nothing else.

  Not a peep of a whisper or a hushed caress.

  At first, I’d figured it was something to do with them wanting to stay quiet. But I’d soon realized that wasn’t the case. Not that I could explain how I knew. Just that I did. This internal belief had me wondering if my peeping Tom act had me snooping in on an angry fuck.

  Which, God help me, made this shit even hotter.

  The very thought had me shivering against the stable wall like a good old-fashioned heroine in a Regency novel. Just stick me in a corset, and I’d have a legit reason to swoon.

  Of course, that was when everything started to go wrong. Just when I thought I’d managed to sneak in and out ninja-style without being caught again, I was proved wrong.

  You know that shit about eavesdroppers never hearing good about themselves? Well, I didn’t believe it until now.

  For whatever reason, Maisie, my bud, decided that was the right moment to start getting antsy about my presence in the stall with her.

  I had no idea why, but she began shuffling her feet, and whinnies morphed into outright neighs. At least, I thought that was what they were because I’d never ridden a horse until I’d come to this damn place weeks ago.

  I wanted to hush her. No, screw that, I wanted to drop to my knees and beg her to shut the fuck up, but no amount of silent pleading made my ex-bud calm the hell down. Even her eyes had started rolling. When I saw that, I realized something.

  She was going to rear up.

  Fuck!

  And this stable wasn’t big enough for both of us on the regular, never mind if she started jumping around like she was on LSD.

  “What’s that?” The deep, husky voice could have had me creaming my panties if I wasn’t close to shitting said panties.

  Clipped footsteps echoed down the stable outside my stall, but there was no making myself smaller, no hiding from the fact I needed to get the fuck out of there, even if that meant my perving came to the guys’ attention.

  Just as the traitor’s hooves started shuffling and Maisie began putting all her weight on her back end, I heard a, “What the hell?”

  Before I knew what was happening, the half-door to the stall was dragged open, and I was hauled out to safety.

  By this point, naturally, I was starting to freak out. It wasn’t until I was away from Maisie that I realized who I was looking at. Before, my mouth had dried out from fear. Now? It dried out further from embarrassment, sure, but lust was my saving grace because it had my mouth watering.

  Okay, I’d admit, it was more like drooling.

  I was drooling, because sweet, baby Jesus, these men were so beyond fine, it was impossible to describe them.

  For a handful of seconds, time seemed to freeze.

  It was like the clocks stopped ticking, and the Earth ceased revolving around the sun as my gaze flicked between the two men standing here in the smelly stable with me, a rearing horse at my back.

  For however long I gaped at them, for however long their eyes bored into mine, I just stood there, absorbing them.

  One was tall, slender in that he had no bulk, but I could see his forearms, could see how they were corded with muscle. Where his shirt kissed his belly and chest, I could see even more delineation. There was something about him that gave off the notion that he was vibrating. Almost as though he was such a force of coiled strength, his body hummed with it.

  His hair was a dark, dirty blond. Like bronzes and golds couldn’t decide which shade was the most dominant. His skin was olive-toned, but it gleamed in the dappled light from outside. His nose was Roman, his eyes wide-set and they were blue like the Atlantic Ocean. So fucking blue I felt like I could freeze to death in them, even though he was looking at me hotly.

  He made Chris Hemsworth look ugly.

  Yeah.

  Process that for a second.

  Thor looked fugly in comparison to this dude, which shouldn’t have been humanly possible.

  Then, there was the other guy, and sweet Lord, I wouldn’t kick him out of bed either. He was shorter, but still taller than my five-seven height. Maybe five-eleven? Just on the cusp of six feet. He had hair as black as night, his skin was a creamy porcelain, except he had a sunburn, so it just looked like creamy gold that made me want to lap at it like a cat would. His eyes were warmer than the other’s, a crisp hazel that invited my curiosity when I saw specks of light blue around the pupil because it made them look like they were glittering.

  He was bulkier, stockier than the lean lines of the other man. He was built like a linebacker. So big and strong and huge. Whereas the other dude was like a swimmer. All lean ranginess.

  Of course, my gaping had to come to an end.

  Time never stood still for long, no matter how much you wished it would. I just had no idea how I was going to get myself out of this, no idea whatsoever.

  God, I wailed, help me.

  It wasn’t too late to start believing in God, was it?

  ❖

  Apollo

  “I can’t understand it, Sol. I just… she’s so strange. It’s like she doesn’t remember me!”

  Pinching the bridge of my nose as I tried and failed to seek patience, I stared at my fiancée’s mother as she garbled on and on about how her daughter was behaving oddly.

  You’d think I’d be aware of just how oddly said daughter was behaving considering we were to be wed next year, but I wasn’t. Aware, that is.

  Until last year, I’d forgotten my deal with James Di Stefano, had forgotten my deathbed promise to the man I respected despite his jail sentence. But Dolly DiStefano had remembered where I hadn’t, and she’d dragged Cindy DiStefano into my office, stating it was time we lovebirds met.

  Dolly was like that. Cindy and I hadn’t even shared the same oxygen in a room before, but to her, we were lovebirds.

  In fact, Dolly was remarkably like her namesake. I wasn’t sure if that was something she cultivated on purpose with her long, big hair and stick thin figure with breasts the size of watermelons, but with her soft Southern drawl, I always half-expected her to burst out into ‘Jolene,’ and was even more surprised when she didn’t.

  “What do you want me to do about it, Dolly?” I inquired tiredly. That was me all around at the moment. Just plain tired. It was coming up on Daphne’s anniversary and… I blew out a breath, thinking of her death was enough to turn me from grim to mean, and Dolly didn’t deserve that. “You keep asking me to put off seeing her, and I’ve obliged, but the wedding day isn’t getting farther away, for God’s sake. I need to see her soon. Does she even remember the fact we’re engaged?”

  At my side, Castor cleared his throat, and I turned to look at him. Dolly did too, and she looked pissed at his intrusion.

  “What is it, Brends?” I asked him, using his human name. All my guardians went by mortal titles, but in private, we referred to one another with the names our parents had granted us.

  That meant they called me Apollo when to humans, my name was Sol, short for Solomon, and I called Achilles Owen, Castor went by Brends, and Pollux was Steven.

  “Your next appointment is here.”

  I wanted to kiss his feet in gratitude, but Dolly didn’t. “For God’s sake, Sol, this is im
portant! This is my daughter!”

  “A daughter I barely know, Dolly, because of you. Had you allowed me to get to know her, I’d be aware of these distinct changes in her personality and character.” When she looked like I’d kicked her puppy, and trust me, there were worse fates I was capable of doling out than that most heinous of crimes, I blew out a breath and attempted to soften my tone when I told her, “Look, she’s healing after the accident. Just give her time.”

  Her mouth tightened, and actually, her lips gave way under the pressure. It was so bizarre to see someone her age without Botox that for a moment, I had to stare at her in surprise. For all she looked like the dolly bird she hadn’t been named for, she was growing old with grace.

  How unusual.

  Dolly scowled at me. “What?”

  I blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “What were you looking at?”

  Oh. Shit.

  Upon clearing my throat, I decided a change of subject was wise—I was doing that more and more often, dammit. Staring. Brends had assured me it was beginning to look creepy. Like I’d needed his input to figure that out.

  Scrubbing a hand over my face, I realized that though I didn’t want to, that while I wanted to stay here in my pit, I couldn’t.

  It was time to make a move.

  I didn’t want to wed Cindy, didn’t want to marry anyone if I was being honest, but James had been… Well, I was mourning him as badly as Dolly was, and she’d just had to endure months of her daughter being hospitalized thanks to some mental head with a grudge against James.

  It didn’t matter that the grudge was well deserved. Cindy was an innocent party, and though my security team had swiped up the bastard who’d put her in a coma and jailed his ass, it was time I did my duty as her fiancée.

  My future mother-in-law didn’t need platitudes. Dolly needed action.