Aiden stopped and turned to me.
Whoops, better clarify that. “I mean, I can feel him, but he can’t reach me, not really. There’s just a low-level buzz. Nothing like before. He can’t get to me. I’m pretty sure.”
“Pretty sure?” Marcus asked, throat working.
I nodded and took another breath. “Look, I can’t say that something freaky won’t happen. I don’t know what he’s really capable of, but he’s going to have to try really hard to get past these shields.”
“You’ll be okay,” Aiden said. Tying off the garbage bag, muscles popped in his arms. “He won’t break through.”
Forcing a smile, I knew Aiden believed that. “And you’ll know the second he does. I don’t think I have the patience to try to fool anyone.”
Luke barked out a short laugh. “Don’t I know that.”
“Let’s take the conversation to a more comfortable place, then.” Marcus stood, grasping his glass of what I assumed was wine. I eyed the crystal longingly. “I’m sure all of us have a lot of questions.”
The group followed Marcus, but I stayed behind. Picking up the empty cans, I brought them over to the trashcan Aiden was placing a fresh bag in.
“Cleaning up?” he asked, fitting the bag to the can. “This is unexpected.”
“I’m a new girl.” I dumped the cans. “Are you okay?”
Aiden hooked a finger into the belt of my jeans and led me over to the sink. Then he rolled up my sleeves, turned on the tap and picked up the hand soap.
I rolled my eyes, but shoved my hands under the warm water. “Aiden?”
“What? You’re going to have sticky hands and be touching everything.” He squirted the apple-scented soap on my hands. “You’ll leave little fingerprints all over the place.”
I watched my hands disappear under his larger ones and sort of forgot about what I was asking. Who knew washing hands could be so… distracting? “Are you concerned about CSI visiting the place?”
“You never know.”
I let him finish, because who was I to stop his OCD at the moment, then I dried my hands. “That’s not what I meant. Are you okay?”
“Are you?”
I balled my freshly clean hands into fists. “Yes, I’m okay. Answer my question.”
He tilted to his head to the side. “What did you mean earlier about being able to feel Seth?”
So was this what had him suddenly uptight? “You know what it’s like when you’re in a house with a TV on mute? There’s that weird frequency you can feel?” When he nodded, I smiled. “It’s like that. He’s just there, but he can’t reach me.”
There was a pause. “Have you had any headaches?”
Confused, I shook my head. “No. Why do you ask?”
“Nothing,” he said, and he smiled. “And I’m okay, Alex. I’m the last person you should worry about.”
“But I do worry.” There was so much to worry about. Turning back to the fridge, I stretched up to grab a bottle of water. As I pulled one down, it revealed another bottle, but it was different.
The contents had been emptied out and replaced with vibrant blue liquid.
Aiden’s sharp inhale was like a blast of cold air. “Alex—”
Ignoring him, I dropped my bottle and reached for the other one. Hands shaking, I wrapped my fingers around the plastic. I knew what was in the bottle. I knew what harmlessly sloshed around inside would carry a sickeningly sweet aroma and could rob me of who I was in minutes.
Aiden swore under his breath.
Facing him, I held the bottle. “This is the Elixir, isn’t it?”
His hand clenched at his side. “It is.”
I glanced down at the water bottle. Two fears in life: losing myself to Seth and losing myself to the Elixir. Both had happened, and somehow I’d come back out of those rabbit holes. But holding it in my hands, I couldn’t deny the raw taste of fear building in the back of my throat.
It was like holding a bomb—a bomb designed to decay my mind.
Aiden looked like he wanted to rip it from my hands, and I gave a weak smile. “Should we keep it?”
“What?” Tension rolled off him, and something else. Disgust? Bits and pieces of memories of when I’d been under the Elixir weren’t pretty.
“What if we need it again?” I asked, fighting that cold lump in my throat. “Isn’t that why you… you all were keeping it?”
“No. I’d placed it there and forgot about it.” Then he did take it out of my hands. Moving stiffly, he brought it back to the sink and unscrewed the lid.
“Aiden?”
Without saying a word, he dumped what was left of the Elixir. Sweetness filled the air, rinsed away when he turned on the tap. I hoped he wasn’t making a mistake.
I placed my hand on his arm.
Muscles tensed as he stepped into me, placing the tips of his fingers on my chin, but before he could do anything, someone cleared their throat behind us. I turned, spying Solos in the doorway.
“Just making sure you two are okay,” he said, a single eyebrow arched.
A rush of shame and guilt smacked into my stomach. “I’m not going to kill him and stash his body in the fridge.”
“That’s good to know,” Aiden muttered.
“One can never be too safe.” Solos pivoted. “Chop, chop, kids; people are getting antsy.”
I sighed. “Gods, I kind of miss Apollo. At least he didn’t think I wanted to kill you.”
“Yeah, well, about that…”
I faced Aiden slowly, remembering that Aiden had somehow banned Apollo. “What did you do? You banned him, right? How? Why?”
His brows arched. “I’m not sure you really want to know what provoked that.”
Crossing my arms, I waited.
Aiden cocked his head to the side, jaw clenching. “Apollo wasn’t completely honest about a lot of things, namely how an Apollyon can be killed.”
I had a real bad feeling about this.
“Apollo can kill you, Alex. He was planning to if I took you off the Elixir and you connected with Seth again. And whoever is responsible for Seth can do him in, but it seems like that god may be working with them.” He paused, grimacing. “So, I banned Apollo from the house.”
My stomach lurched. Yeah, maybe I should’ve waited on that explanation until after my food had settled.
CHAPTER 10
After I forced Aiden to drop that little bomb, we went into the large sitting room. I was numb. Apollo could kill me? Apollo had wanted to kill me? Then why had he shown up and put a smackdown on Thanatos? Gods, why was I trying to be logical about this? Apollo was a god. Who knew?
I sat beside Deacon and decided to push the Apollo issue aside for right now. “Okay, can I start small? What is today’s date?”
Marcus leaned against a desk. I realized then he was in jeans and I couldn’t think of a time when I’d ever seen him so casual. “Today is April 5th.”
Blinking a couple of times, I sat back. A month… I’d basically lost an entire month. Gods, what was going on in the world outside this cabin? I cleared my throat. “And where am I? If it makes you feel better, you can just tell me the state.”
“Apple River,” Aiden said, keeping watch by the large picture window.
I folded my arms, which kind of hurt. “Okay, I know you have to be making that name up.”
A slight smile formed on Aiden’s lips. “It’s real. You’re in Illinois.”
“Illinois?” My brain was stuck on the name Apple River being real.
“And it’s about as empty and boring as it sounds,” Deacon said, tipping his head at Luke. “And really backwoods. I went out once. Scary. Lumberjacks, enough said.”
Solos scuffed. “This is my father’s hunting cabin—one of many—and it’s not that scary.”
I nodded slowly. “Okay. So the gods? How many of them are ticked off right now?”
“All of them.” Marcus laughed, swishing the contents of his glass. The smile quickly left his face. “All
of them, Alexandria.”
“We haven’t seen many of the gods, but Hephaestus reinforced the bars,” Lea said, studying her nails. “He was kind of scary.”
I guessed I’d been out of it when he’d showed. “I can’t believe Apollo hit me with a god bolt.”
“I can’t believe Aiden punched him,” Marcus said, downing the rest of his wine.
“What?” My mouth dropped open. “You did not.”
The half-grin spread until a dimple appeared in his left cheek. “I did.”
“All those times you yelled at me for hitting people, and you hit a god?” I couldn’t believe it.
That half-grin turned into a full smile. “This was a different situation.”
Oh. Okay. Shaking my head, I moved on. “All right, have there been any more attacks like… like what happened to the Covenant?”
Laadan stared at me. “He… he didn’t tell you?”
I figured by “he” she meant Seth. “I’m not sure. He kept me out of a lot of stuff.”
“Except for telling you that they were working with daimons,” she said, and I nodded. She glanced at Marcus and sighed. “A lot has been happening out there, dear. And very little of it is good.”
Steeling myself for the worst, I wrapped my fingers around the crystal rose. “Tell me.”
“We really don’t have to tell you.” Lea picked up a slim remote control and twisted, pointing it at a flatscreen on the wall. “We can just show you.”
Lea picked one of the nationwide news stations. I didn’t think there’d be anything happening right this instant, but apparently so much had happened, it was always on the news.
An image of destroyed buildings and toppled cars streamed over the screen. It was Los Angeles. Three days ago, there had been a catastrophic earthquake, a magnitude 7.0. A day later, another had hit the Indian Ocean, triggering a destructive tsunami that had wiped out an entire island.
And there was more.
Devastating wildfires plagued the Midwest and portions of South Dakota—near the University. I figured Hephaestus’ automatons had something to do with that, considering they breathed balls of fire or whatever. There were various skirmishes in the Middle East. Several countries were on the brink of war.
Scrolling along the bottom of the screen was a breaking news announcement—seismic activity had begun below Mount St. Helens. Fears of a full volcanic eruption had people fleeing nearby towns.
Holy baby daimons…
The news anchor was interviewing a doomsday fanatic.
I sat back, soaking it in, horrified by what was happening. All of this because of Seth—and me—and there were so many innocent lives that had been lost, so many more that hung in the balance. There was a good chance I was going to hurl noodles all over the floor.
Lea turned the TV off.
“The gods are responsible for all of that?” I asked.
Laadan nodded.
Man, the gods were pissed.
“There is more,” she said gently, and a mad laugh bubbled up in my throat. How could there be more? “So many Sentinels have been killed by Lucian’s… by his army. And many pure-bloods have simply disappeared. Those who have reached the Covenants are holding strong, but no one is safe. Then there are the occurrences with mortals that look like wild animal attacks, but we believe them to be the work of the daimons. It appears like they are trying to provoke the gods.”
At some point, Aiden had moved to stand behind the couch. His hands were on the back of the cushion. His presence was comforting, but I was shocked to the core. Apollo could have appeared in front of me and done a naked jig and I wouldn’t have blinked an eye. Seth hadn’t mentioned any of this, but Aiden had tried to tell me while I was in the cage.
And I’d told him I hadn’t cared.
I started to stand, but my legs wouldn’t cooperate.
“It’s a lot to swallow, huh?” Luke said as he stared at his black boots. “The world’s gone to shit in about a month’s time.”
“It’s not too late. The gods are showing us what they want.” Lea sounded entirely too mature to be the girl I’d thrown an apple at a couple of months ago. “They want Seth dead.”
I knew that wasn’t so much the case. They wanted one of us dead, preferably before we came within hugging distance. I racked my brain for something useful. After I’d Awakened, I’d learned the history of all the Apollyons, but none of that was useful. None of it except something with Solaris…
“It’s just not as simple as killing Seth.” Solos scratched at the stubble on his chin. “There is the problem of getting close. Dionysus said that Lucian had many Sentinels and Guards, mostly halfs.”
Dionysus? How in the world had he come into the picture? Wasn’t he the god of drunks or something?
“And if we get too close—if Alex gets too close, then…” Marcus trailed off.
Then he would take my power, possibly even drain me, because I now wasn’t sure Seth could stop if he wanted to. No matter what he’d said to me while we were connected, I couldn’t rely on his promises—his sales pitch—because I really didn’t believe Seth knew what he was doing.
I stood then, because I couldn’t sit anymore. Walking to the window, I stared at the shadowy landscape as I twisted the necklace between my fingers. Night had fallen and, even with my suped-up eyesight, the trees were dark and ominous. My reflection stared back at me, pale and unfamiliar. It was me—Alex, slightly rounded cheeks and wide lips. With the exception of the freaky amber eyes, I looked the same.
But I felt different.
There was a stillness in me that had never been there before. I didn’t really know what it meant yet.
“Then what do we do?” Luke asked. “Hide Alex forever?”
My lips twisted into a grim smile. That wasn’t going to work.
“I could get behind that as long as someone brings in a DS or a Wii,” Deacon joked, but it fell flat. “Or not…”
There was a pause and then Lea said, “Please gods, tell me you’re not still against killing Seth.”
“Now is probably not the best time to go there,” Marcus said.
“What?” I heard her come to her feet, and her anger blasted the room. “Alex, you have to understand, especially after everything he’s done to you.”
“Lea,” Aiden snapped, finally getting involved in the conversation.
“Don’t ‘Lea’ me. Seth has to die, and Alex is the only person who can do it!”
Dropping the necklace, I faced them. “I know… he needs to be dealt with. I understand that.”
Everyone, including Aiden, stared at me. He started to speak, but closed his mouth. Truth be told, I loathed the idea of killing anything at this point. Didn’t mean I wouldn’t do it when I faced a daimon again, and even though Seth had been a real bastard about things, I knew that deep down he was nothing more than an unloved little boy who wanted acceptance. And yeah, he had a major akasha addiction, but he was a victim in all of this, too. The only person I’d probably enjoy taking out, just a little bit, was Lucian. Yeah, I could get behind that.
But getting to Lucian wasn’t going to happen.
“Alex,” Marcus said softly.
I took a breath, unable to put forth the words necessary for what needed to be said. “What do we do?” I glanced at Aiden and then Solos. They were the skilled Sentinels here. Time for some battle strategy, which wasn’t my strong suit, because I was more of a “run into things head-first and face-plant a wall” type of fighter. “We have to stop Seth and Lucian, but we can’t just walk up to them. We need to be able to get close without them knowing, and we—I need to know how to fight Seth without transferring my power to him.”
Aiden looked like he didn’t like the sound of that, but he turned to Solos and nodded. “Apollo said that it may take a few days for him to come back, but he asked that we don’t lift the wards until he can come to us. Those wards prevent them from finding us, and right now they are the only thing stopping the gods from finding
us.”
“How did Thanatos find me?” I asked, curious.
“You went outside, beyond the wards,” Aiden said. “Hopefully Apollo can tell us more when he returns.”
“So we wait in here until then and do nothing?” Lea slumped against the cushion, crossing her arms. A petulant look crossed her face.
“We don’t sit and do nothing,” Solos said, eyeing the girl. “What we need to do is train and prepare for what… for what’s coming. That’s what Apollo wanted.”
Because something was coming, and it was a war.
“Hopefully Apollo can convince the gods to lay off,” Aiden said, jaw working. “Right now, we need the gods on our side.”
“Agreed,” half the room said.
Hope flickered in my chest. “Do you think they’ll stop this… zombie-apocalypse-in-the-making if they realize I’m back on Team Not-Insane?”
No one really looked hopeful, but Aiden smiled at me, and I knew he did it to make me feel better, because it was what I wanted to hear. It took everything in me not to cross the room and jump him.
Priorities, Alex, priorities…
Everyone agreed on starting training as soon as possible. And it made sense. Fighting was not like riding a bicycle. Muscles weakened, reflexes slowed. Honestly, we had no other choice. Hopefully no other gods showed up, dishing out some good old god wrath.
I sat on the edge of the couch and started fiddling with the rose again. I knew everyone was waiting to hear any plans Seth had shared with me. They were going to be disappointed. “The only thing Seth told me about was the daimons, and he knew I’d told Aiden afterward. I don’t think he was too concerned. He really didn’t tell me anything else. The plans he… the plans we made were about freeing my father.”
Laadan’s eyes dampened, and I hoped we could talk soon. There was so much I had to ask her.
Solos didn’t even try to hide his displeasure. “Well, that’s not really helpful.”
“It’s not her fault,” Aiden shot back.
The Sentinel cracked a distorted smile. “Simmer down, Loverboy.”
My mouth opened to deny that Aiden was my loverboy. The response was immediate, inherent in nature. I forced my mouth closed before I could say anything. Everyone in this room already knew that Aiden and I were together together. Hell, everyone in the world probably guessed, courtesy to Lucian’s announcement before Seth blew up the Council, which had made Aiden Public Enemy Number Two.
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