Prophecy of the Most Beautiful (15 page)

Like hell
.
I was eight.
"It wasn' so bad. You, uh, like it?"

"Like it? It's awesome. Totally badass."

He bit his lip. "You have any ink, wan?"

"
Me?
Yeah right. My mom would lose her mind…" She frowned, like she'd just thought of something that bothered her. "Where's Ace at?"

He almost,
almost
, growled. It made his blood boil that she would even notice Ace was gone with him standing right there. But come on, Ace had spent every night in her room on
his
orders. He had wanted to keep guard himself, but he hadn't thought it would be wise for him to spend night after night in her room…without a chaperone. Or a concrete wall between them.

"My brother has other things he has to do. You'll be spendin' the mornin' with me." He paused, trying not to sound snarky and failing. "Tha' won't be a problem for you, now will it?"

Eyes wide, she shook her head like she couldn't imagine that
ever
being a problem. "No. I want to go with you." She blushed and quickly amended, "I mean, I have to see the book, right? The one that's in the library? That's why you're here." She looked kind of surprised at her own knowledge.

"It's your Oracle's Intuition," He answered her before she could start in with the questions, "You'll have a sense abou' things now. You'll be able to feel when things are right…or when they're wrong. You'll have a sense abou' different places and certain people. A lot of things you'll jus'…
know
now."

She nodded her understanding. "So there is a book?"

"Aye."

Still surprised at her own knowing, she asked, "A book about being the Oracle?"

"Aye."

She nodded after contemplating this. "Okay. I want to see it. Just let me get dressed first."

He agreed with a curt nod. "Sure." He dropped down on a lounge and leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. His eyes watched her with controlled amusement as she zipped across the room and shut herself in the closet.

She took a long time getting dressed for someone who wore jeans and t-shirts every day of her life. But from what Mystic had told him, she still had a pretty good eye for fashion. He smiled to himself. So she was picking out the perfect outfit for him to see her in.
Nice
. He wouldn't tell her that it was unnecessary to try and impress him, that she already had him, and that he couldn't even comprehend how he had let it happen.

Gods
, he was such a
pansy
.

She emerged after several more minutes. "I'm ready," and his eyes came up to meet her.

Bollocks
, he was in trouble. She looked sooooo
hot.

She loved boots, he had noticed, and she wore a pair of short, gray leather ones with a pirate's cuff at the ankle. Hm, a black frilly blouse. Now that was something he hadn't expected, but he liked it. Black was very becoming on her
and
it was his favorite color. But it was the jeans that drove him mad. Her long legs were meant to wear the slim, gray-wash denim pants, and when she moved over to straighten her bed, which he failed to tell her she didn’t have to do, he bit his tongue––
hard
.

How dare those pants have studded patches right on her rear end?
Bloody hell. Now he would never stop looking at her ass.

Cursing the pants and his aching tongue, he stood. "Two choices, Red," He said before he could let any of the curses slip. Or tell her how bloody delicious her hips looked in those jeans.

She cocked her head. "Two choices?"

"Aye. Breakfast or the library."

"Breakfast or the library?" She shifted her weight to one leg and jutted out her hip. He almost growled.

"Aye. We can eat first or we can go to the library first. The book is there." His words came out in a snarl. But it was either snarl or end up with his tongue in her mouth. "So wha's it gonna be? Your choice, Red."

"How about both?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Wha'?"

She shrugged. "How about we have breakfast in the library?"

He shook his head. "No. Apollo would go completely off his nut if we took food around his bloody precious books and artifacts. Gods forbid tha' we actually ruin somethin'. Besides, I'd really like to see Apollo less, not more. So let's not do anythin' tha' might give him a reason to make an appearance, aye?"

She looked surprised. "You call your dad
Apollo
?"

"Tha's his name."

"But he's your father…"

"Irrelevant." He was
not
going to explain why either. Not today and surely, not to her. "Choose, Red."

"I did. Breakfast in the library."

He gave her a hard look. "Are you being difficult on purpose? I jus' said we couldn' do tha'."

"But L.A. isn't here. How will he know?"

He tried not to roll his eyes at the fact that she had just referred to Apollo by his stupid alias. "In the matter of a normal, human parent, this might make sense, but Apollo is neither normal nor human. He's a god, Red. He'll know."

A mischievous grin inched onto her face. "Are you
scared
?"

His eyes narrowed. It was way too early in the day for him to feel so primal, but an outright challenge always brought out the coveted savage in him. A straight-up challenge from his red head? This demigod's dream come true.

"Never challenge me, Red. You'll lose." He winked.

He couldn't believe it when she rolled her eyes. "So I take it my eggs and bacon will be served in the library then?"

He gave into her like the sucker he was. "Wha' the hell, sure. But if Apollo shows, I will absolutely blame the whole idea on you."

A chuckle fell from her lips. "Deal. Lead the way then. I tried to find the library on my own the other day, but it was impossible. Ace and Swindle gave me a tour of the palace, but I will never learn how to navigate my way around this place. It's a labyrinth!"

Strafford felt his chest tighten. "
No
," he bit out, "it's
nothin
' like the Labyrinth. Nothin' like it at all."

Chloe looked almost startled. "Okay," she replied in a small voice. She downturned her eyes and studied her boots.

He wanted to kick himself. He hadn't meant to snap. But hearing that word––
labyrinth
––always got to him. He hated the word, hated everything it was, hated the ancient inventor Daedalus for building it, simply…
hated
...

"Follow me." He slipped out of the door before he offered any words of comfort or tried to kiss away the pout on her lips.

He felt her silent presence behind him the entire way and it was torture for him. He could not bring himself to turn and look at her, not even once. If he did, he might have stopped right there, forced her up against the wall and used his lips to apologize.

But he didn't. He stayed the course as he did in everything. Keeping his focus had saved his life many times over. With the way he was feeling, if he looked at her now, he'd fold like a deck of cards and his self-control would become a bloodied, beaten corpse. He just couldn't let that happen…even if it was killing him not to.

The Chateau might have seemed like a maze of a palace to Chloe, but to him, it was more like a jail. Reminders of things he had tried to forget were carved into the "prison" walls and he swore that as soon as he could, he was going to tunnel his way out of there even if he had to dig with a spoon. He had to get away from the things this place tried to remind him of.

He had grown up there. After he had been born twenty-two years before, Apollo had taken him from his mother to be raised as he thought the Sun Prince should be––in the service of his divinely immortal father. Strafford had to admit, growing up at the Chateau had been a blast. He had enjoyed exploring the palace as a child and had been enchanted by its ever-changing properties: How the rooms appeared and disappeared like magic, how almost every year the palace grew larger, creating new places to explore, and how twice a year, the Chateau transported itself to a new location in the heavens. He had reveled in finding private places within it where he could be himself, where he could wind down, where he could play and make believe he was sleighing pretend dragons before he was offered the chance to kill real ones, where he could be a normal kid and not a demigod, where he could forget he was the Sun Prince and therefore, one of the most lethal demigods alive. Aye, there had been a time in his life where he had loved the home of Apollo.

But now, the Chateau was nothing more than a prison.

His sentence?
Remembering
.

They reached the library within minutes and he moved the great stone door with the Grecian command for "open", and they entered Apollo's vast hall of literature. Mystic, who was wearing a loud purple tutu, was already inside finishing setting up a table with a gold-embroidered table cloth and matching napkins, golden-etched silverware and jeweled goblets of nectar juice, and gold plates of food covered with gold dome covers. A royal feast for two. Correction: A
romantic
royal feast for two. The sneaky wan had lit a couple of candles as well.

"Good morning, Strafford, Oracle," She said as he glared her down into a curtsy.

"Nice setup you got here," He huffed. Mystic didn't shy away. He'd known her all his life and their lifelong friendship had made her bold. He couldn't intimidate her if he tried.

"I thought you might want to have your breakfast in the library this morning. I know that you have work you must do here."
Oh, okay
. He knew her game. Mystic always knew everything that was going on at any particular time in the Chateau and most of the time, in his head. It was quite the annoying gift she possessed. Especially since it meant she knew he already had a thing for Chloe.

"Thanks, Mystic," Chloe said, "Nice tutu." Mystic curtsied her thanks. "Are you eating with us?"

Mystic smiled as she exchanged a look with him. He and Mystic both knew that servants and Princes didn't dine together. Even servants like Mystic. "Oh no, Oracle. There are many things that must be tended to in the palace and I must keep my sisters on task. They are so easily distracted, especially Haley." She giggled. "Besides, you left your closet in such a disarray this morning. No worries though. We will have it put back together in no time." She hugged and kissed Chloe on the cheek, did some fluffing thing to her hair, curtsied to him, and practically danced out of the library.

Chloe was blushing like mad. She no doubt wondered how Mystic had found the mess in her closet so fast. "There's just so much stuff in there," She said, "It's hard to keep it all together…"

Sure
, he thought, knowing the truth but sparing her the embarrassment of revealing it.

"Want to have a look around?" He asked, "I know you've been in here before, but there's a lot you probably haven' seen yet." She looked relieved.

"Show me all of it," She said with a smile.

Even though Apollo was a prophetic god that could see into the future, he had a devout fascination with the past. Strafford was positive it was
only
because Apollo had been there for all of it.

He had never considered it strange that Apollo was three thousand years old. In his world, everyone had a parent around that age. In Apollo's library, there were books and artifacts just as ancient, if not, more so. He knew history had been Chloe's favorite subject in school and was almost sure that she would be fascinated with the bits and pieces of Grecian history that Apollo had collected and stored there––like rubble from the ruin of the great
Colosseum
and relics from the
Parthenon
in Athens. She would love the authentic Egyptian mummy showcased in the back and the crown pieces of many legendary mortal kings and queens like William the Conquerer or Queen Isabella of Spain. She couldn't miss the ancient Mayan sundials or the American Civil War cannon. She would see the crumpled remains of a British WWI bomber, one of Abraham Lincoln's top hats, a piece of the Great Wall of China, and a rare hand-written manuscript by Jane Austen. He wasn't sure how she would react to the sword that had beheaded the doomed queen Anne Boleyn or to one of the infamous dresses of Marilyn Monroe, which Strafford was
sure
Apollo had taken right off of her himself.

To his satisfaction, everything seemed to fascinate Chloe and that made him happy. He wanted to see a smile on her pretty face as much as possible.

"Is that it?" She asked. He followed the path of her pointing finger and nodded.

"Aye, tha's the Great Tome of the Oracle."

There it sat, on its shiny, golden pedestal all dusty and aged. Its yellowed pages were delicate and crisp, and its brown, leather binding was barely holding on. It was a book many centuries old.

Strafford held his hand out over the tome and said in Greek, "
The Oracle stands before you. Show her what she must do.
"

The cover of the huge book flew open and the weathered pages began to rapidly turn all by themselves, stopping at page
MCXCVII
(1197). Chloe stepped forward to get a better look. A moment later, she frowned.

"It's in German," She said.

"
No sprichts du Deutsch, eh
?" He replied with perfect ease. German was the fourth language he had learned. English was his first; Greek (both modern and ancient), his second; and French, the third. After German had come Spanish and an attempt at Chinese, but he rarely used Spanish and Chinese was just impossible. "Accordin' to this book, the last Oracle was a German speaker."

"According to the book? So I take it you never met the Oracle before me? Apollo told me they died."

He rolled his eyes. "Did he also tell you tha' they died almost forty years ago?"

"Uh, no…"

"Figures he'd leave out somethin' as important as tha'. Truth is, there aren' many demigods left alive tha' have ever seen an Oracle. So tha' means, you're kind of a big deal, wan." He tapped his finger against the book. "Tell it wha' language you speak. It'll change the words for you."