Jerk.
He was also on my to-kill list.
I went to the bathroom and cleaned up. Freshly showered and attired, I returned to testing out the bars. The shimmering blue light was sort of pretty. At least it was something to stare at.
I sighed, about ready to put my head through the wall. I searched for my Seth at the end of the cord—still gone. I could call out to him and he would respond, but I was sure he was busy trying to free me. With nothing left to do, I returned to testing sections of the bars.
What seemed like hours later, a door opened upstairs. There were voices. One of them was Aiden’s, but the other…
“Luke?” I called out.
“Leave,” was Aiden’s harsh reply.
The door shut, and one heavy set of footsteps came down the stairs. I swear to the gods the sound that came out of my throat was an animalistic growl.
Aiden came into view, holding a plastic plate of eggs and bacon. One eyebrow was arched. “Do you really think I’m going to allow a half-blood near you?”
“A girl can hope.” Halfs were more susceptible to compulsions, and I now packed one on steroids.
He held the plate through the space in the bars. The last time I’d done the whole not-eating thing, it hadn’t worked. I’d pretty much starved and ended up on the Elixir because of it. Food was my friend this time around.
I reached for the plate.
Aiden’s empty hand snaked out and wrapped around my arm. His hand was so large it swallowed my wrist. He said nothing, but his thundercloud eyes willed me to do something. What? Remember us together? Remember how much he’d consumed my thoughts? How I’d ached to be with him? Did he want me to remember what it was like when he’d told me about the night the daimons had attacked and massacred his family? And what it felt like being in his arms, being loved by him?
I remembered all those things in detail.
But the emotions that belonged to those events and memories weren’t there. They were cut off completely. Gone with the whims of the past… Aiden was my past.
No. No. No. That small voice was back again. Aiden was the future. For some reason I thought of that damn oracle—Grandma Piperi. Know the difference between need and love, she had said. There was no difference. Couldn’t she have tried to educate me on how to break out of these bars?
Aiden let go, his eyes as hard as these cement walls. He backed away while I took my food to the mattress. Surprisingly, he let me eat in silence.
Afterward, not so much.
Today Aiden wanted to talk about our first training session and how much I’d apparently annoyed the crap out of him because I hadn’t stopped talking. When he got to the part when I’d mimicked his voice, I started to smile. He had been irritated and unsure of how to handle me.
Aiden’s eyes flared the same moment my lips twitched. “You said I sounded like a father.”
I had.
“You also said you were going to have to drop your crack habit when I went over the rules.” Aiden smiled.
My lips almost answered in kind. And I didn’t like that. Time to change the topic. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
Aiden leaned back in the metal folding chair. The thing had to be uncomfortable. “What do you want to talk about, Alex?”
“Where has Apollo been? Since he’s my great-whatever, I’m feeling unloved.”
He folded his arms. “Apollo won’t be around.”
Oh, interesting development. My little, old ears perked right up. “And why not?”
His stare was level. “And do you really think I’m going to tell you when you’ll run right back to tell Seth?”
I put my bare feet on the cold floor and stood. “I won’t say a word.”
Aiden shot me a bland look. “Call me crazy, but I don’t believe you.”
Making my way to the bars, I kept an eye on his expression. As I neared, it lost the insipid look. His jaw hardened as if he worked his molars. His eyes turned sharper, lips thinning. When I touched the bars, the flare of light was weak. Somehow it knew the difference between when I was just touching it and when I was trying to escape. Clever chains.
“What are you doing?” Aiden asked.
“If you let me go now, I swear that you and all those you care for will be untouched.”
He didn’t say anything for a heartbeat. “But I care about you, Alex.”
I tilted my head to the side. “But I will be unharmed.”
“No. You won’t be safe.” Sadness crept into his eyes right before his thick lashes swept down.
My stomach shifted in warning. Recalling the bits of information I’d picked up while under the Elixir, I knew there was more to what he said. “What do you know, Aiden?”
“If you leave here still connected to Seth… you will die.” The last bit came out ragged.
I laughed. “You’re lying. Nothing can harm—” Myths and legends, Alex. Duh. What had I thought earlier? There were always checks and balances of sorts. That was why the Apollyon had been created in the first place. “What do you know?”
His lashes swept up, revealing startling silver eyes. “It doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that it’s the truth.”
My mouth opened, but I snapped it shut. Aiden was trying to get under my skin. That was it. If Thanatos and his Order hadn’t found the Achilles’ heel of the Apollyons in all their centuries of trying, one pure-blood wouldn’t have succeeded. The Order hadn’t…
Or had they?
But they didn’t count. My Seth and his Sentinels had systematically wiped them off Earth.
I lifted my gaze and found Aiden staring at me. The inexplicable urge to stick my tongue out was hard to deny.
“Can I ask you something?”
I shrugged. “If I said no, you would still ask.”
“True.” There was a tight smile. “When you were with Lucian, before the Council meeting? He took you to his house against your will, didn’t he?”
“Yeah,” I said slowly, growing uncomfortable already.
“How did that make you feel?”
My hands tightened on the bars. “What are you? A psychologist now?”
“Just answer the question.”
Closing my eyes, I leaned against the bars. I could lie, but there really wasn’t a point. “I hated it. I tried to kill Lucian with a steak knife.” Obviously that hadn’t gone as planned. “But I didn’t understand then. I do now. I have nothing to be afraid of.”
Silence, and then Aiden was right in front of me, his forehead touching mine through the bars. His larger hands were above mine and when he spoke, his breath was warm. I didn’t pull back, and I didn’t understand why. Being this close to him wasn’t right on so many levels.
“Nothing has changed,” he said quietly.
“I have.”
Aiden sighed. “You haven’t.”
I opened my eyes. “Will you ever get bored with this? You have to, eventually.”
“Never,” he said.
“Because you won’t give up on me, no matter what I tell you?”
“Exactly.”
“You’re incredibly stubborn.”
Aiden’s lips tipped up in a half-smile. “I used to say the same thing about you.”
My brows knitted. “And you can’t now?”
“Sometimes I don’t even know what to say.” He reached through the bars and the very tips of his fingers grazed my cheekbone. Amoment later, he placed his entire palm against my cheek. I flinched, but he didn’t remove his hand. “And there are moments where I doubt everything I do.”
He tilted my head back so my eyes met his. “But I don’t doubt for one second that what I’m doing right now is the right thing.”
Many retorts rose to the surface, but they faded away as the little voice inside me piped up. I’d give it all up for you…
A knot formed in the back of my throat. Suddenly, this cell was too small. The basement was constricting and the little distance between Aiden and me suffocatin
g. Heart turning over heavily, I searched for the cord—
“Don’t,” Aiden whispered. “I know what you’re about to do. Don’t.”
I jerked back, breaking the contact between us. “How do you know what I’m doing?”
His hand was outstretched, as if he could still feel my cheek. “I just do.”
Anger rose, fueled by frustration and a good mix of what-the-hell. “Well, aren’t you special?”
Shaking his head, Aiden lowered his hand. He watched me stomp over to the mattress and plop down. I glared back at him, willing almost every ill thing on him I could think of. And there were things I knew I could say that would hurt him, that would strip away his control and break him down into little pieces. Things that my Seth had whispered and things I’d told him I wanted to do. I could lash out—oh yeah, I could destroy Aiden. But when I opened my mouth, all those hurtful, destructive things got stuck around the lump in my throat.
Sitting here, I didn’t feel right in my skin, as if I really wasn’t a part of it. And the only time I felt comfortable was when I was connected to my Seth. Without him, I wanted to shed that skin, or rip at it until I bled.
I wanted to hit something. Hard.
Drawing in a shallow breath, I focused on the mark on the ceiling. There were two moons drawn, interlocking. Since so many gods were tied to the moon, I didn’t know what it represented or how it had the power to strip me of mine.
“What is that?” I asked, pointing at the ceiling.
Part of me didn’t expect Aiden to answer, but he did. “It’s Phoebe’s symbol.”
“Phoebe? Obviously you don’t mean a Charmed one.”
He snorted.
Whoa, they’d brought out the big guns. I felt all kinds of special as I squinted at the markings. They held an odd bluish-red tint to them. “So, a Titan…”
“Yes.”
“And that’s a Titan’s blood, isn’t it?” I tilted my head toward Aiden. “Care to explain how it’s possible that a Titan’s blood is on this ceiling? Do the Olympians just keep jars of it around?”
Aiden let out a dry laugh. “When the Olympians overthrew the Titans, most were imprisoned in Tartarus. Phoebe wasn’t one of them. And she has a fondness for her children.”
Racking my brain for who she’d popped out, I came up empty. “Who?”
“Leto,” he answered. “Who in turn gave birth to Apollo and Artemis.”
I groaned. “Of course. Why not? So Apollo asked his grandma for some blood? Great. But I don’t get how it works.” I gestured around me. “How is it negating my powers?”
“Titan blood is very powerful. You know that blades dipped in Titan blood can kill an Apollyon.” When I sent him a duh look, his smile was tight. “Mix that with blood of your own lineage, well, it has the ability to keep you from hurting yourself.”
“Or from hurting you,” I snapped.
Aiden shrugged.
Anger pumped through my blood like poison; with no way to expel it, I was seriously seconds away from going stir crazy. I stretched my legs, then my arms. In my head, I pictured myself running up and kicking Aiden in the shin.
There was a sigh from the other side of the bars.
Sometimes I wondered if he had the ability to read minds.
“I hate this,” Aiden admitted so quietly I wasn’t sure I’d heard him. He twisted around, giving me his back. “I hate that Seth has done nothing but play you—lie to you—and you trust him. I hate that this connection is more important than everything else going on out there.”
I was about to argue, but my Seth had lied to me. He’d probably been playing me right from the moment he’d discovered I was the second Apollyon. No doubt Lucian had.
Unease slithered up my spine, leaving cold shivers in its wake.
“It… it doesn’t matter now,” I said.
Aiden whirled toward me. “What doesn’t?”
I met his stare. “That Seth lied to me. It doesn’t matter. Because what he wants, I want. If I—”
“Shut up,” Aiden growled.
Surprised, I blinked. I couldn’t recall a moment when Aiden had told me to shut up. Wow. I so didn’t like that for a multitude of reasons.
Aiden’s eyes glowed a fierce silver. “You do not want what Seth wants because there is no you in any of that. There is only him.”
Shock rippled through me, stealing any response I could come up with. There was no me. There was only us. That freaking little voice deep inside me roared in fury, then threw itself around.
There was no me.
CHAPTER 3
When my Seth decided to show up on the other side of the rainbow, I was grumpy and he was…well, he was wound up. There were, uh, things he said through the connection that just weren’t right.
Distracting? Yes.
Acceptable in the mood I was in? No.
I want out of here, I told him, mentally shaking him off. I can’t take it any longer. Aiden… he…
Seth’s disapproval was like razor blades knocking around in my skull. Aiden what?
What could I tell my Seth? That Aiden was making me think? Aiden talks a lot.
His laugh tickled the back of my neck. That he does. Angel, it won’t be much longer. Lucian has done us a great favor.
With who? White Robe of the Month Club?
Another pleasant laugh curled through me. Let’s just say he’s given me an endless supply of bait and leverage.
I gave him a mental eye roll. Yeah, I don’t get it.
There was a pause, and I could feel what Seth was wanting through the bond. He was in a playful mood, but this conversation was too important for screwing around. Finally, he answered. The pures that have stood against us have proven to be useful.
How so?
Do you remember how Telly refused to accept that the daimons could play nice and work together to form a cohesive attack against the Covenants?
Yeah…and Marcus didn’t believe it was just them working against us.
And neither had I. At the emergency Council meeting Lucian had called before my Seth had leveled the Council members, I’d suspected that Lucian had been behind the daimon attacks somehow, but there hadn’t been any real proof. Besides, my hatred for Lucian probably had led to that idea.
Well, Telly was obviously half-right. Without the right motivation—say, an endless supply of aether—they are likely to settle for whatever pure they can get their hands on.
There was another gap, and the intensity of what he was feeling, what he wanted, roared through the connection. For a moment, I really believed I could feel him, and the emotion swamped me, draining my thoughts and filling me with the bliss of the connection.
Alex. His voice was chiding, self-satisfied. Are you paying attention?
Yes. Daimon… aether… stuff…
Good. Let me ask you a question, Angel. Do you really think daimons orchestrated those attacks all by their little selves?
Some of the lovely fog my Seth was creating faded as if icy wind had blown down the nape of my neck. What? What do you mean?
Even reasonable daimons couldn’t pull off what they did in the Catskills. They had to have help, don’t you think?
I couldn’t think as my pulse kicked up. So I’d been right? A sour taste filled the back of my throat.
Don’t be upset, Angel. Lucian needed discord for all of this to happen.
Thinking back to the attack in the Catskills, I tried to remember where Lucian had been in the chaos. I’d assumed that he’d been in the ballroom with the rest of the pures, but I hadn’t seen him. All I knew was that my Seth had contacted him…
All those dead half-blood servants, the Guards, and Sentinels… all innocent…
I jerked up, almost losing the connection with my Seth.
Angel, how do you think the daimons got into Catskills in the first place? You saw the security there. And the ballroom? There were only two entrances, and both were guarded. One of the doors belonged to Lucian’s guard.
; Suspecting that Lucian had been behind these attacks was one thing—I didn’t put anything past that man—but my Seth? He couldn’t be okay with that. Believing he was a part of all those innocent people dying was accepting something horrific. What my Seth wanted, I wanted, but the daimons… they were and always would be the enemy.
Foes can be allies in war, Angel.
Oh, my gods. A huge, freaking, crater-sized part of me couldn’t process what my Seth was saying. I fought the pull of his emotions, resurfacing as if I were drowning, then gulping in air.
There were so many innocent people, I reasoned. Appalling images of the slaughter came one after another—the servants in the hall with their throats ripped opened, the Sentinels and Guards who’d been eviscerated and then thrown through windows.
They don’t matter, Angel. Only we matter, only what we want matters.
But those people did matter. We could’ve been killed, Seth. My father could’ve been killed.
But he wasn’t, and I would never let anything happen to you. Nothing did.
We’d been separated during the attack. And if I’d remembered correctly, I’d come very close to being trampled to death. Not to mention I’d had to fight the furies alone. Not sure how he’d exactly prevented my death in all of that.
Angel, we need this to happen. The daimons will help me get to you. Don’t you want that? For us to be together?
Yes, but—
Then trust me. We want the same things, Angel.
Aiden’s words came back to me and I squirmed in my own skin. Seth? You… you aren’t making me want anything, right? You’re not influencing me?
He didn’t respond immediately, which caused my heart to trip over itself. I could, Angel, if I wanted to. You know that, but I’m not. We just want the same things.
I bit my lip. We did want the same things, except the thing with the daimons… I stopped those thoughts. As if two strong arms were pushing down on my shoulders, I was on my back. And then I was drowning in what Seth was feeling again.
Aiden returned with food, and he brought company with him this time—my uncle Marcus. The man was actually being sort of decent toward me now. Ironic. I ate and drank my water like a good captive.
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