Watching her, I tried to think of something . . . supportive to say, but what could you say in a situation like this? Her father was a dick and he was on the absentee list. It was obvious to anyone with a functioning brain that it bothered Josie. The fact that he didn’t actively try to fix that somehow confirmed the first fact.
“Who do you think the demigod is going to be?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” I rubbed my fingers through my hair. “But knowing Apollo, it’s going to be the most annoying demigod he can get his hands on.”
Chapter 8
Josie
I had another nightmare last night.
This time I’d been training with Seth, hand-to-hand combat. He’d taken me to the ground, except it hadn’t been Seth I stared up at.
It had been the same unfamiliar face.
And he’d said the same thing he’d said in every dream. I’m going to find you. But this time, I was so lucky and got four extra words of warm and fuzzy. I’m coming for you.
I’d woken up in a cold sweat, with a scream stuck in my throat, and somehow I’d managed to not wake up Seth this time, but my entire day was off. I didn’t think it was just the dream throwing me off, though.
I was also rocking some hardcore daddy issues.
And some mommy issues too.
Part of me was thrilled that I’d gotten to see Apollo yesterday, even if he’d only been there for a few minutes. I was like a sponge when it came to him, soaking up every precious second, because except for that one summer, he’d been gone all my life. I was like a puppy. Any attention was good attention. It was still hard processing that I had a dad that was in the picture, albeit not often. And even more crazy to process that said dad was Apollo, the Sun God.
There was the other half of me that was pissed every time he left, because he was leaving yet again. We never really got to talk. There was no chatter over coffee or lunch. Nothing personal. I’d gotten a chance to ask him about Erin but not my mom. And you’d think Apollo would, oh, I don’t know, start the conversation off with news about my mother, because hello, she was my mother, but there was nothing.
Training had been flipped around today. Solos worked with me on the more physical stuff in the morning, which sucked, because I’d gotten used to not having my ass kicked first thing in the morning, and the day was ending outside with Seth.
And I wanted to throat punch him.
“Concentrate, Josie. That’s all you have to do.” He paced in front of me, obviously at his wits’ end with the whole thing. “That’s it.”
“If that was all that it was, don’t you think I’d have done that by now?” I fired back.
He shot me a look. “You’re not concentrating.”
“I am too!”
“That is one thing you definitely got from your father.” He stopped to my right, eyes flashing. “A bird flies by and you’re staring at it for the next minute, no matter what you’re doing. ADD must run in the family.”
My mouth dropped open. “That is not true.”
“Really?” Incredulity filled his expression. “Because a couple of minutes ago, when you were supposed to be concentrating on summoning the water element, you were staring at an eagle.”
“It was a bald eagle!” I argued, unsure if that was the kind of eagle I’d actually seen or not. “And it was perched on that statue.” I pointed at the gigantic marble thing. “Artemis’s statue! I mean, what a coincidence.”
His brows lowered. “You do realize she uses hawks, right? Not eagles.”
“Oh, whatever. It was still pretty cool.”
He rolled his eyes. “Okay. What about when we first started? The clouds?”
Frustrated, I threw up my arms. “It was like for five seconds and it was because the clouds looked like boobs. Giant boobs.”
Seth stared at me.
“I don’t like you.”
He stalked toward me. “You don’t have to like me right now, but you need to concentrate. You need to get better at this, because if you don’t, you’re never going to leave this campus. You understand that?”
Pressing my lips together, I refused to respond.
“Do you, Josie? Because if you can’t summon the elements and harness them, how will you ever be able to control akasha? The most powerful and deadliest of all the elements.” Seth got all up in my face. What he was saying was true. That also didn’t mean I had to like it. “And if you can’t harness akasha, you’ll never be able to face down the Titans.”
My hands curled into fists. “I know that.”
“I don’t think you do.” His voice was low, deadly calm. His gaze met mine. “I won’t let you leave here if I don’t think you can actually defend yourself.”
“Oh? What? You think you can stop me? Oh, my gods!” I shrieked.
I didn’t think. I spun around and threw my arm out toward the dummy, palm open. He wanted me to concentrate? Well, I wanted to throw the damn dummy through some walls and into next year. Maybe even throw him along with it. Energy coursed through me, and the wind picked up. I opened up my hand, and I felt it—the lick of power.
A gust of wind rattled the benches as it rushed out from my palm and struck the dummy. It lifted the stupid thing up in the air, tossing it several feet backward. The dummy landed just in front of the low marble wall surrounding the cemetery, arms and legs askew.
“There.” I turned to Seth, folding my arms. “Happy?”
His ultra-bright gaze roamed over me. “First off,” he said, shifting back a step, “you just used ‘gods’ for the first time ever. Secondly, I just need to get you angry and you can do it. No problem. And finally, your eyes are glowing, Josie.”
“They are?”
Seth nodded. “Glowing like Apollo’s do when he wants to punch me.” He walked over to where the dummy had landed, near the wall. He stood it up. “Now do it again.”
Do it again? Like I was some dog learning a new trick.
“You have to do it again,” he insisted, returning to his Instructor of Annoying Jerk-Face position. Legs spread wide. Arms across his chest. “You have to do it more than once, and not when you’re just pissed at me.”
My skin prickled with frustration, and anger was like lava in my blood. Screw wind, though. I was so damn sick of the dummy. Sick of not being able to do it correctly every time. Sick of my missing mom and my absentee dad. Sick of the nightmares. So over the responsibilities I never asked for.
Just sick of everything.
Like a flower blossoming for the rain, whatever existed deep inside me opened up. A chasm ripped open, like it had when I blasted Hyperion. Pure power rippled through me, and this time when I lifted my hand and opened my palm, I wasn’t summoning the element of air. I tapped into the power of the gods, the energy that gave life and ended it.
Seth made a sound of surprise.
Whitish light powered down my right arm, circling like a cyclone, and then the intense white bolt of light erupted out of my palm and slammed into the dummy, lifting it back into the air again. The dummy continued to climb, higher than the trees surrounding the campus.
Akasha covered the dummy, the intensity too much for the plastic and fake flesh. It exploded with a loud crack, shattering into a million little pieces that rained down several feet away.
Closing my hand, I dropped my arm and turned to Seth. “There.”
He was staring at me again, his gaze feverish this time, and the glyphs were out, sliding across his skin.
“And yeah, I did that on purpose, jerk-face.”
Seth said nothing as he took a step toward me, but I was ready to explode like that stupid dummy. “I totally get that I need to be better at this, but I’m trying. I’m doing my best. I didn’t have years and years of training. I’ve had months, so excuse you if I get a little distracted by the random eagle or boob-shaped clouds!”
His features were tight, highlighting the angular sharpness of his cheeks, and he was still coming at me with this hungry look on his fa
ce.
I was so not finished.
“And I know I’m going to have to be freaking awesome to fight Hyperion and the rest of the Titans. Trust me. I think about it every day,” I told him, my voice warbling as tears clogged my throat. “And I try not to, because when I do, I think about—” I cut myself off, shaking my head. “You know what? Never mind. I’m going to go eat my emotions.”
I started to turn away, but Seth wrapped his arm around my waist and drew me back to him. I hit his hard chest and would’ve bounced off if his arm hadn’t clamped around me.
“Seth—”
His mouth closed over mine. I gasped into the kiss as he pulled back, lifting my feet clear off the ground. Clutching his shoulders, I was pressed between the cool base of a nearby statue and the heat of Seth within a few stuttered heartbeats. There was nowhere to go, and despite the fact that I was just yelling at him, I didn’t want to go anywhere.
If yelling at Seth ended in him kissing me like this, holding me like this, then hell, I was going to yell at him more often.
I was quite happy here, even if it was out in public where anyone could stumble upon us. Then again, being in my room wasn’t exactly private considering Apollo had a habit of just appearing randomly.
Seth caught my bottom lip between his teeth, and I wasn’t really thinking about anything. My lips parted in response to the wicked pressure, and there was no room for anything but the way he tasted and how he felt, and I could really, really feel him. He was hard against my lower belly, and then he shifted, sliding his thigh between mine.
As his tongue tangled with mine, he moved his thigh in the perfect way, right against the bundle of nerves. Liquid heat flooded my veins and I moaned into his mouth as my hands dug into his shoulders.
“You liked that, huh?” His voice was thick and sexy, sending shivers straight down my spine and into the most interesting places.
“Yes.” I nodded just in case he didn’t get the message.
He chuckled against my mouth. “You know what that makes me want to do?”
“What?”
Seth’s tongue traced my lower lip. “Makes me want to hear you make that sound.” He moved his thigh against me, and he got what he asked for. I moaned as pleasure pulsed through me. “And again.”
Oh. Oh, goodness.
His mouth was on mine again, drowning me in kisses as the arm around my waist tightened. He lowered his leg slightly, so my feet were on the ground. “Ride me,” he ordered gruffly.
Heat blasted my face. Ride his leg? Oh my God, my face was burning up, but it was nothing compared to the other areas of my body. I didn’t move, so he gripped my hip with his other hand and then he moved me against him. The friction was immediate.
“Seth,” I gasped out, shuddering.
“Do it.” His kiss was more demanding, more overwhelming. The hand on my hip guided me again, rocking me against his thigh.
I did it.
I so did it.
Didn’t care that we were outside or that I was basically riding his thigh like someone who seriously needed to get a room. I didn’t care that things had been weird in the moments leading up to this. Or that a handful of minutes ago, I was contemplating throat punching him.
On the tips of my toes, I wrapped my arms around his neck and I did what I wanted to do with no clothes between us. I rocked my hips back and forth, slow at first and then faster.
In a distant part of me, where my brain still functioned, I couldn’t believe I was actually doing this out here, but the exquisite pressure building in my core obliterated common sense.
The hand on my hip glided up my waist and over my ribs, creating wave after wave of shivers. He then coasted his hand over my breast, stopping in the center of my chest.
Seth made this sound in the back of his throat, a groan that pulled me out of the haze of pleasure, because it was part aroused, but . . . but part anguished.
I started to pull back, but then he kissed me again, and I was dragged back in, back under. Our breaths were coming out in short, shallow pants in between hot and hard kisses. The tension built. My fingers dug into the nape of his neck. What felt like every nerve ending in my body stretched tight. There was a deep pulling and tugging sensation coming from several sensitive points in my body. Then it all snapped. Release coiled out from my center, and I might’ve shouted. It felt like I did. My throat was suddenly hoarse and there was a hollowness in the center of my chest. I didn’t know if anyone heard it or if the wind whipped it away, and I wasn’t even sure if I cared or not.
The release left me breathless, weak in the knees and utterly sated. If it weren’t for how tightly Seth was holding me, I would have been eating the ground.
His hand trembled against my chest as he lifted his mouth from mine. The bridge of his nose dragged over the curve of my cheek and then his warm breath was dancing on my lips again. He stilled.
Seth jerked his hand back and lowered his leg so fast, I almost did fall right over. “Are you okay, Josie?”
I laughed. What a weird question. “I don’t think I can feel my legs.”
Seth drew back, cupping my cheek. He held me close as he lifted my head. “What?”
His eyes were doing the glow-bug thing. They were a luminous tawny color, and his glyphs were out, racing across his skin wicked fast, as if he were in the presence of a god. “Your eyes are glowing.”
Seth’s lashes lowered, but there was no shielding those babies. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah.” I squeezed his shoulder, confused by his concern. “You gave me an orgasm, Seth. Not a punch to the vagina.”
He blinked.
I grinned. “I’m completely fine. Except now I feel like I need a nap. And maybe some fries. Okay. Definitely some fries.”
“Okay,” he said after a moment, stepping back but still keeping his arm around me. “Let’s go—”
“Back to the room so I can repay the favor?” I asked, touching his chest. Under my palm, his heart pounded fast. “How about that?”
Seth laughed, but the sound was off. Strained. “How about we get those fries first and then see where we’re at?”
I opened my mouth to protest, but a very loud and very obnoxious yawn broke free, right in Seth’s face.
“Yeah,” he murmured, turning me around. “Let’s get some food in you.”
Chapter 9
Seth
Josie passed out halfway through eating her French fries, and by some miracle she didn’t end up face-first in the greasy basket. She was curled on her side, hands limp and open just below her chest.
I’d pulled her sneakers off for her and draped a thin blanket over her legs. A herd of Minotaurs could’ve performed a flash mob in the center of the room and she would’ve slept right through it.
Sitting on the edge of the couch, I watched her sleep like a total creeper, but I watched to make sure she was okay. That she was breathing normally. Paranoia was hitting me hard, because I knew she was okay. Tired and weak? Yes. It would pass. Maybe it wasn’t paranoia. Maybe it was guilt.
It was definitely guilt.
Because I, on the other hand, was wired, chock-full of energy. Buzzed like I got after a good fight, a good fuck. Buzzed like I was every time I touched Josie.
I was wired, and I was fucking sick.
Every part of me was fucking sick, because the power lighting me up and that fucking “touch the gods-damn sky” high was borrowed. It was stolen. Fuck, it was the worst kind of thing.
I’d caved to that thing inside me.
When she tapped into akasha, it had woken up and it started paying attention. It needed and demanded, whispered to me, telling me what I could do. It remembered that I could feed off Josie without really hurting her. And I’d listened. Gods, I’d listened to it.
What the hell was wrong with me?
And it was all me. There wasn’t something or someone else living inside me that I could blame.
Pushing off the couch, I stalked to the
window in the bedroom and drew back the blinds. Nothing but darkness greeted me.
What in the fuck had I done?
Oh gods, I knew exactly what I’d done. I thrust my fingers through my hair. The weeks of working on the elements had been chipping away at my restraint. Fuck. And today? When she’d tapped into the akasha, the lick of power that washed over me had dug in deep with razor-sharp claws, opening up a need I did not want.
But could not ignore.
I knew I should’ve walked away. I should’ve ended training the first second I felt her aether calling out to me. Fuck. I should’ve ended these trainings the first time I found myself wanting what I should never ever want from her. There was a lot of shit I should’ve done, but I didn’t listen.
“Fuck,” I grunted, turning around as I stepped to the side. I leaned against the wall, tipping my head back. “Fuck.”
I’d lost control today.
When she’d gotten angry and used the air element, it hit me right in the gut. It had also turned me on, because whenever Josie got pissed, I couldn’t help but find it hot. But when she tapped into akasha, the rush of power that permeated the air had dragged me under.
There had been no room for warnings or thoughts or seconds to consider what I was doing. I’d become a ball of action, of a thousand different things, and somewhere lust and need and want got all mixed up.
I’d wanted to give her pleasure.
I’d wanted to get in her.
I’d wanted what was in her.
Gods. It all got mixed up. No excuse. None whatsoever. I didn’t even realize what I was doing until it was too late, until I felt the ebb and flow of aether, moving from her to me.
I’d fed off her.
Gut twisting, I closed my hands into fists. I’d fed off Josie, off someone who trusted me irrevocably. It was the worst kind of betrayal, and she didn’t even know. She had no idea why she’d been so tired afterward. No clue to the cause behind the fact she couldn’t even finish eating a basket of fries.
I’d done it, and even though I hadn’t been thinking and I wasn’t even sure if that was the main reason why I’d gone after her today, I still knew what had happened to her. The daimons had fed on her before we reached her grandparents’ house. Hyperion had gotten her outside of their house, and even though she wouldn’t talk about what had gone down when he had her, I knew he would’ve fed on her. After all, that was why the Titans were after the demigods in the first place. For Hyperion it was also personal. And I’d done to Josie the same thing he had.
The Power (Titan #2) Page 7
