Read the Prologue of "HIS FOREVER" by T.J. Ryan

Prologue

It was almost midnight, but he sensed someone behind him. He gritted his teeth, praying that it wasn’t the man he’d longed and dreaded to see in this lifetime. However much he tried to avoid it, they always seemed to find each other.

No, he always finds you. And you let him.

“I know.” Hyacinth’s voice was so deep and filled with emotion that it tugged at his heartstrings. The tether that bonded them remained as strong as ever.

He couldn’t possibly know. In this lifetime, this world, he had made every move to distance himself from the man he’d loved for a millennium.

“Know what?” Apollo asked through gritted teeth. He was on a balcony that overlooked the campus grounds. He’d come out here to read, never bothered by the chilly English weather. Truth be told, he was hiding.

This university was meant to be his escape. A university in the heart of the countryside had seemed a safe place to wait out this lifespan, hiding out as a student. Now, the idea was beyond idiotic.

You wanted him to find you!

No, that’s not true…

With a mask of indifference, he turned to face him. Hyacinth glared at Apollo; a crumpled piece of parchment clutched in his hand. His name had changed with every reincarnation, but this was the first time he had found a version of his beloved that so closely resembled the man he was… before.

Beautiful, kind-hearted and stubborn. The man who had captured his heart. The man he was forced to watch live and die while he kept… being.

“I remember this,” Hyacinth said, and a flicker of surprise crossed Apollo’s disinterested expression. It was a drawing. A drawing neither of them had seen for centuries. It was a portrait of Hyacinth, naked as he lay in a meadow. Every muscle and curve of his sun-kissed skin was captured in careful detail.

The detail that caught Apollo’s attention was the peaceful smile. A smile Apollo took great care in sketching with perfect accuracy. Except… that portrait had been lost to time.

Yet here it was.

“Where did you get that?” Apollo asked, anger overshadowing the trickle of fear that had wrapped around his insides.

“You drew it,” Hyacinth said in a rush, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “Ages ago. We were in a meadow. Somewhere hot, Greece I think. It was just us. And you drew this after… after we… we made love.”

“I think I’d remember if I slept with you,” Apollo sneered, hating how cruel the lie sounded. They hadn’t slept together in this timeline. “This obsession you’ve developed is quite sad.”

“I’m not obsessed!”

“Then why do you seek me out like a little puppy?” Apollo demanded, knowing the question should have been aimed at himself.

“Because I keep having these dreams!” Hyacinth snapped and without warning, he shoved Apollo hard in the chest. “Places I’ve never been, times I’ve only seen in movies, and facts I shouldn’t know anything about. It’s like I’m time-travelling every time I close my eyes, and every therapist I’ve seen most definitely thinks I have a complex. But do you know what’s the constant throughout all of these visions or whatever they are?”

“No—”

“You!” Hyacinth said, unable to hold back the tears as he looked up at Apollo’s sky-blue irises. “You dancing with me at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I’ve never been to America in my life, but I remember the heat of that summer in Louisiana—”

“Stop this.”

“Verona, you took me to Juliet’s Balcony in the dead of night,” Hyacinth said. “You held my hand, even though we knew someone might catch us. You held it so tight—”

“Please—”

“What about Dunkirk?” Hyacinth demanded, and Apollo was unable to hide how unnerved he was. “Your letters. Your love letters were the only thing that kept me going. I was a soldier in the trenches. I could smell the mud, the smell of death. Those letters kept me sane. I remember all of it. Every single one and you’re at the heart of these lives I’ve lived. Why?”

“I haven’t the finest idea,” Apollo said, his anger boiling over. “Who gave you that drawing?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes!”

“Show me the scar on your stomach first,” Hyacinth said firmly, watching as Apollo’s face drained of colour. “In this dream, I traced a scar over your stomach. You told me it was a reminder. A reminder of your punishment. You killed a python—”

Genuine terror had robbed Apollo of his voice. He shook his head violently, but Hyacinth kept talking.

“You’re being ridiculous—”

“You shot a python,” Hyacinth cut across him, and in Apollo’s mind’s eye, he was reliving the story as if it were being told for the first time. “Your mum was pregnant, and you shot it with your bow and arrow. You were just a boy. You were just trying to protect your mum—”

He was, but that mattered little to his father. Nor did it matter that the dryads had goaded him to act. None of these facts mattered except to mother and…

Hyacinthus.

“The Python’s mother, Gaea, was mad. She wanted you banished to…” Hyacinth struggled to remember the word for a moment. “Tartarus! But Zeus punished you by exiling you from Olympus and making you serve as a slave on Earth for nine years.”

To his shock, Hycinth took his hand and threaded his fingers through Apollo’s. Even though he’d felt this before, the rush of feeling this man’s touch was almost euphoric.

“He was wrong for that. You made a mistake. You were only a child.”

“Just shut up,” Apollo pleaded through his teeth.

Apollo snatched his hand away so violently that it was as if the touch physically revolted him. Yet, it was the compassion he wanted to see gone from Hyacinth’s eyes. He’d rather have this version hate him for this lifetime if that meant he got to live it to its fullest.

“Prove me wrong,” Hyacinth said, a challenge in his emerald eyes. There was more, a vulnerability. Apollo knew he had the power to soothe Hyacinth with the terrible truth or break his heart with a lie that could protect him.

Never had he wanted to make this choice.

Apollo lifted his shirt slowly, his eyes fixed on Hyacinth’s. He watched as Hyacinth’s eyes widened as he found what they both knew was there: a long scar etched over the expanse of hard muscles over Apollo’s chiselled stomach. It was from his fall, a reminder that his existence was fragile without his immortality.

Hyacinth breathed a shaky breath as he met Apollo’s hardened gaze. He was begging for an answer that would reassure him he was not insane.

But was that not better?

“What does it mean?” he asked, but Apollo couldn’t give him the truth. It would kill him. Again.

“I think it means you’re not well.”

Hyacinth let those words wash over him. The effect was chilling, almost sobering. Something had broken inside him. Apollo had been this fairytale prince in his mind for his whole life. The man of his dreams. Literally. Until he came to Oxford and found that the man of his dreams was a living and breathing… arsehole.

He thought he’d have the answers, some magical solution to the dreams of death and destruction that haunted him every night.

Yet standing before him was another person telling him he was broken.

Maybe he was.

“You know my whole life,” Hyacinth said in a small, defeated voice. “Everyone has said I was crazy.”

“You’re not crazy,” Apollo whispered, but Hyacinth was no longer listening. Instead, the boy stepped closer to the balcony and stared at the cobbled courtyard below. “What are you doing?”

Hyacinth didn’t answer. He climbed up on the balcony and stepped closer to the edge. He knew the fall would be a long one. What was that saying? The higher the pedestal, the harder they fall…

“I think it’s time we see if they’re right,” Hyacinth said. Without giving himself a moment to rethink what he was about to do, he turned and let himself fall backwards into the empty air.

As the wind rushed past his ears, he heard a scream that broke through the night.

“NO!”

As he plummeted towards his certain death, a blinding flash of sunlight blazed above him. He squeezed his eyes shut as he braced himself for the end. It didn’t come. The air was knocked out of him as he hit something solid. Two strong arms instinctively tightened around him and held on.

He cautiously opened his eyes and found Apollo’s blue eyes looking down on him. Hyacinth breathed a sigh of relief, but his insides squirmed as he realised what he had just done to prove a point.

But how am I still alive?

He looked down, and his arms wrapped around Apollo’s neck, too shocked to vocalise what he had just seen.

They were flying. Correction: Apollo was flying.

“You’re not crazy,” Apollo breathed against Hyacinth’s neck, keeping a firm grip on the human as wings that glowed with the brightness of the sun beat steadily and kept them afloat. “But you are fucking stupid, my love!”

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