"She must be taken to her room!" Apollo barked at a bellboy who was staring with wide eyes at the golden apparition who had seemed to appear suddenly out of the rain-shrouded night. He was carrying the damp body of a petite woman who was wearing only one shoe.
"The elevators are just inside and around the corner, sir."
Apollo's confusion at his odd words (What exactly was an elevator?) changed to anger.
"Show me to her room, or I will flay the flesh from your living body!" he growled.
"Room number?" the bellboy squeaked.
"Eleven twenty-one," Pamela said into Apollo's shoulder.
Apollo glared at the bellboy. The youth nodded and scampered ahead of them through the swinging doors. The God of Light ground his teeth together as the metal box they stepped into closed. The boy punched a round button that read 11. It lit up as the box began to move. The god's stomach dropped, and he held Pamela more tightly against him. Bacchus had explained nothing about this particular mechanical form of transportation to them. Apollo definitely didn't like it. Not at all. Thankfully, the ride was short, and the doors parted smoothly. He followed the boy out into a plushly carpeted hallway. Statuettes decorated niches, and chandeliers hung from the ornately painted ceiling. They stopped in front of a door boasting the golden numbers 1121.
The bellboy looked at Apollo. Apollo looked at the bellboy. The god narrowed his eyes dangerously. The bellboy cleared his throat nervously.
Pamela stirred and handed the boy the purse she still clutched to her chest. "It's in there."
Swallowing audibly, the boy unclasped the little purse and extracted the card key, ran it through the lock, and opened the door. Apollo strode in and slammed the door behind him with one thought.
"You should have tipped him," Pamela said faintly.
"I should have skinned him," Apollo muttered. He hesitated at the entrance to the room, assessing his surroundings. There was one large room with a divan and two silk-covered side chairs, plus an overlarge armoire. Doors painted to look like marble were half open to reveal a glimpse of a large bed. Apollo headed in its direction.
Pamela moaned and as he lay her on top of the thick silk comforter. Her body spasmed, and her teeth chattered.
"I d-don't know why I'm's-suddenly's-so cold," she said.
Apollo knew why. She was in shock. He hadn't healed her ankle - he'd just temporarily blocked some of the pain. He sat gently on the edge of the bed and touched her face, willing her to relax.
"You must rest. Trust me to see to your pain."
He watched as his hypnotic suggestion caused her thick-lashed lids to begin to flutter over those wide amber eyes.
"I don't..." she began sleepily, and then lost the thread of her thought. Struggling against a drugged sense of lethargy, she blinked her eyes. "I'm wet... towels through there..." She made a weak gesture in the direction of the bathroom.
"Your ankle comes first," he said.
When her eyes closed and did not open, he rearranged himself at the end of the bed. He shook his head. The ankle was badly injured. It was already swollen to double its size and terribly discolored. He could see where the bone had snapped, causing the foot to hang at an awkward angle. He took her ankle between his hands and closed his eyes in concentration. Within his mind he mapped the skeleton of her foot and ankle. Taking his time, he envisioned the path of each bone, muscle and nerve. And he saw the break. Apollo's hands warmed. Heal, the God of Light commanded. Suffering cease. Health return. Purge her of pain.
The intensity of the glow between Apollo's hands would have blinded Pamela, had she been conscious to witness its splendor. But she did not awake. Instead she slept on as the golden Apollo used his vast powers to knit her broken bones together and end her pain. Much later, when he was finished, he rose and went into the small room just off the bedchamber. In there he found a quantity of towels and a thick, white robe. He brought them back to Pamela and hesitated. He could disrobe her easily. She would not awaken; he would be sure of that. The wet fabric of her dress molded to her, revealing her gentle curves and the roundness of her breasts. She was a lush land awaiting his exploration...
No, his mind shied away from the thought of seeing her naked body without her consent or knowledge.
"Pamela," he whispered. That within her, which slept at his suggestion, roused.
"Oh!" she said, sitting up and looking around. "What happened? My ankle!" She leaned forward and then stopped short, frowning at her leg. "But it felt terrible, like it was broken. I could have sworn it was already swelling. Now it looks perfectly normal." Testing, she flexed and then rolled her foot in a circular motion. "And it feels fine."
"You just needed to rest it. You strained it, that is all." He handed her a towel, and she dried her face absentmindedly.
"I feel kind of stupid. I mean, you actually carried me up here. In the rain."
"I am a doctor. Healing is my job."
She looked up at him. He was completely wet. His shirt clung to the muscular ridges of his chest as if it was liquid silk. His hair curled in damp tendrils around his forehead. And those eyes! She thought the lyrics of the Faith Hill song described them perfectly: impossible... unstoppable... unthinkable... unsinkable...
"Well, I guess it's a good thing that you were close by." With an effort, she pulled her eyes from his and began towel drying her hair with considerably more enthusiasm than was necessary.
Apollo watched her. She looked bedraggled and sodden. Her hair was a limp mess. Her clothes were wet. She only had on one shoe - and that one was leaking bright dye colors onto the ivory comforter. His heart lurched. He had never been so attracted to a woman, mortal or goddess, in his life.
"I should leave," he said abruptly.
Pamela peeked up through a fold in the towel. "Oh?" She looked at her soaked watch. (Thank God it was waterproof.) It was past 4:00 a.m.! "I didn't realize it was so late." She reminded herself that he was a strange man and that, although the chances of him being a rapist or a serial killer were slim, especially in light of the fact that he'd "rescued" her, he was still a man alone with her in her hotel room way past midnight. The situation had the makings of a Lifetime Movie of the Week, and they never ended well.
"Yes, it is late." He definitely didn't want to leave, which was why his conscience was telling him firmly he must go.
"I suppose your sister will be wondering what happened to you."
Apollo paled. "You have no idea."
His expression made Pamela smile. "Oh, but I do. My brother would be pacing back and forth while he waited up to yell at me for staying out so late and worrying him."
His lips quirked. "She will definitely want to know what has taken me so long."
Pamela cocked her head to the side in a gesture that had already become familiar and endearing to Apollo.
"And what will you tell her?" she asked.
"I will tell her that I was detained by an unexpected accident." He walked to her and with one graceful movement knelt at the side of her bed. His hand touched her ankle gently. Then he stroked it, letting his fingers travel a short way up her calf. He felt more than saw the slow intake of her breath. "A lovely, unexpected accident."
She could hardly breathe when he looked at her and touched her like that. She wanted to beg him not to leave, to ask him to stay the night with her... Pamela's stomach clenched. She shouldn't want him so much and so soon; he was a stranger. A handsome, sexy, wonderful, stranger...
Apollo watched the shifting emotions that were so clearly written on her face. That she desired him was obvious. He saw the soft, liquid wanting in her eyes. He could have her - he could take her in his arms and complete the seduction. That was what he was supposed to do. It was what Artemis expected and what he had planned. Pamela hadn't said that she wanted to be made love to when she had spoken aloud the desire of her heart and completed the invocation, but her need had been transparent in her words. He'd seen it, as had Artemis. So, in order to fulfill the invocation, he needed to make love to her.
And then what? A sudden thought blew through his mind like an unexpected winter storm. Perhaps the invocation had cast some kind of spell over her, and the desire he saw in her eyes was only a result of the powerful magic the nymphs had worked. If that were true, then once he made love to her, the spell would be broken. She would no longer desire him. She would no longer gaze at him with those intelligent, expressive eyes that turned the rich color of honey when he aroused her earthy passion. The thought left him feeling lost and sick. Abruptly he stood.
"I must go," he said. "No," he motioned for her to stay in bed when she moved to get up. "You should rest your ankle. Sleep with it elevated tonight. Tomorrow it will be as if the accident never happened."
Pamela's stomach dropped as he turned to the door. He'd said he would explain her to his sister as an accident. Was he saying that this was it? That after this one night they wouldn't see each other again?
"And tomorrow will it be like the accident never happened to you, too?"
She only realized she'd spoken her thought aloud when her words stopped him. He turned, and his brilliant blue eyes seemed to glow. He lifted the hand that had so recently caressed her ankle and presented it to her, palm open.
"Tomorrow I will still feel your skin against mine. Tomorrow I will still taste the silk of your mouth. Tomorrow the breeze will still carry your scent to me. How could I possibly forget you?"
"Then I will see you again?" she asked breathlessly.
"I would not stay away from you, even if I wished it. And I do not wish it. I will be at our cafe again tomorrow evening at the same moment we met this night. Until then, my sweet Pamela, I will think of you."
When he left the room, Pamela felt as if the sun had suddenly fallen from the sky. She looked at the clock and began counting the hours until she would see him again.
Artemis waited in the obscure Railway that branched from an unadorned delivery entrance to Caesars Palace. She stood beside a door, which opened to an incongruous-looking closet that held a portal leading to another world. She crossed her arms and sighed. She had told Apollo that she would wait for him in Olympus, but as the night had waned she had become increasingly restless. It was late - almost dawn - and still she felt the chains that yoked her to the mortal woman. What could possibly be taking the God of Light so long to seduce her?
A tall man dressed in sodden clothes turned a corner and approached her. With hardly a thought she lifted her finger to force him to turn away and use a different exit.
The man surprised her by laughing.
"Your tricks do not work so well upon me, Sister," Apollo said.
Artemis' eyes widened in recognition. "Apollo? By Zeus' beard! What has happened to you?"
Apollo shrugged and pulled his wet shirt away from his body. "An accident."
"An accident! But what of the seduction?"
"It comes along well."
"Well!" Artemis almost shrieked in frustration. "How could it be coming along well if I can still feel the bond of the invocation upon me?"
"These things take time, Artemis. Pamela is not a city to be breached, or a fortress to be attacked and sacked. She is a mortal woman who desires romance."
"I understand that all too well. What I don't understand is why you have not yet bedded her."
"Because it is not truly what she desires," Apollo said.
Artemis' eyes narrowed at the odd, introspective tone of his voice. "Having the God of Light in her bed is not truly what she desires? I find that hard to believe, brother."
Apollo sighed. "What would you say if I told you that bedding her tonight is not what I desire?"
She would say that that was easier for her to understand. She had thought that her brother had found the mortal attractive, but apparently that had changed. "Well," she said slowly, "this really is Bacchus' fault. He's just going to have to be involved in fixing it. Perhaps he can use the most potent of his wines to drug her into a desirous state. He is a god; I supposed he has seduced mortal women before, no matter how repulsive it is to imagine him engaging in such an act."
"No!" The word exploded from him. "That toad will not touch her!"
Artemis' slender brows knit in confusion. "Apollo, be clear! One moment you say you do not desire the mortal, and the next you are ready to defend her against another god as if you were that fool Paris, and she your Helen."
"I simply said I did not wish to bed her tonight, not that I didn't desire her. She injured herself tonight," he blurted as his sister stared silently at him. "Of course I healed her. Without her knowledge," he added quickly before Artemis could speak. "But to take her to bed after that would have been an ignoble act."
Artemis' sharp eyes saw the veiled discomfort on her brother's face. He was not being entirely truthful - not with her and perhaps not even with himself. Either way, she could tell by the stubborn set of his jaw that he would admit no more to her.
"Tomorrow?"
Apollo nodded tightly. "Tomorrow."
"Good. Let us retire to Olympus. I find that I am weary of the mortal world."
Apollo opened the closet door and motioned for her to precede him through the shimmering, shell-colored portal. He was returning to their world, but he had no intention of retiring to Olympus. He bade his sister a distracted good night and then transported himself to the one place he knew in which he could find aid.