The Power (Titan #2)

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  God, his words still stung, but I saw the truth behind what was driving them. I’d probably seen it before, but hadn’t wanted to truly acknowledge it.

  Plopping onto my back, I stared up at the ceiling. Seth’s sudden change of heart sort of made sense now. He had to have known it was getting close to when Alex would return. There was no way he hadn’t. Not with the kind of bond they had. He had to have known she was coming.

  I’d seen the way he’d stared at her yesterday.

  And when I left the quad, Seth hadn’t followed. He stayed there with them, with her. That wasn’t jealousy talking. That was just reality.

  Even though Alex and Aiden had the kind of love poets rambled on about, there had been something powerful between Seth and Alex. Deacon had said so himself, something practically unbreakable.

  I always thought his reluctance to talk about Alex had to do with his guilt, but now, I knew there was more to it. Seth wasn’t over Alex and whatever they shared.

  And that sucked.

  Because I couldn’t compete with someone who was a legend. Someone Seth had given up eternity for.

  I was in love with someone who was still wrapped up in someone else—someone who was a freaking legend among their kind.

  A knock on the door drew me out of my thoughts. Sitting up, I swung my legs off the bed and stood. I hoped it was Deacon or Luke or both of them. Deacon would watch Supernatural with me and everything would be right in the world, at least for a few hours, and I wouldn’t feel like I . . . like I was forgotten.

  Opening the door, I came face to face with Alex.

  Holy crap.

  Startled, I took a step back as I felt my mouth drop open. What was she doing here? Was she at the wrong door? Oh my God, what if she was at the wrong door and had meant to knock on Seth’s?

  I was going to punch her.

  Okay. She could probably kick my ass, so I would punch her and run.

  She clasped her hands together as she looked up at me. “Hi,” she said. “I know we don’t know each other, but I was wondering if you had a couple of minutes to chat?”

  Struck dumb, I stepped aside. Would I seriously refuse her? Uh. No. Alex walked in and closed the door behind her. I faced her, having no idea what in the hell was going on.

  Standing in front of her, as close as we were, I felt like—like Bigfoot looming over her. A blonde Bigfoot. I could legit pick her up and put her in my pocket.

  “I’m Alex An—”

  “I know who you are.” The moment those words left my mouth, I cringed. Icicles could’ve formed in the room. “I mean, I know who you are. Everyone knows who you are.”

  Her brows lifted. “That’s kind of creepy.”

  I snapped my mouth shut.

  “Not that you’re creepy for saying that. It’s just that I’m not used to everyone knowing who I am.” She paused, wrinkling her nose—and oh my God, my eyes widened. I did that. All. The. Time. “Well, people kind of knew who I was before the whole ‘rise from the dead’ demigod thing, but it usually wasn’t anything good.”

  “Oh,” I murmured, still staring at her.

  A half-smile formed on her lips. “Anyway, you’re Josie.”

  I nodded slowly.

  Alex laughed, the sound husky and warm. “Well, duh. You know who you are.”

  I nodded again.

  “This isn’t coming out right,” she said with another laugh. “I wanted to meet you. I hear there’s something we have in common.”

  “We’ve both been with Seth?” I blurted out, and holy shitballs, I did not just say that.

  Her brown eyes widened slightly as her mouth formed an O.

  I totally just said that.

  “Oh my gosh, I mean, not that you’ve been with Seth, like with him. I haven’t even actually been with him in that kind of way.” Heat scalded my cheeks. I wasn’t even sure if Seth and Alex had gone there, but I was seriously hoping that they hadn’t because that would be yet one more thing she had going for her that I didn’t.

  Ugh. I couldn’t even believe my brain was spewing out these kinds of things.

  “I meant that we have him in common and that’s all I was trying to say,” I finished lamely.

  “Um. That’s not what I was going to say,” Alex said, blinking slowly as she reached up, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I was going to go with us both having Apollo in common.”

  “Ah. That . . . that makes more sense.” Walking around her, I dropped onto the cushions of the love seat, suddenly exhausted. The epic diarrhea of the mouth was tiring. “Apollo. Yeah, he’s, um, something else, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah,” she drew the word out as she sat in the small chair. “I want to talk about Apollo, but let’s back up a second. You and Seth are . . . together?”

  My face was going to melt right off. Tongue twisted, I had no idea what to say, because we weren’t together anymore, and Alex was the absolute last person I wanted to be discussing this with. But it was my fault for letting my mouth strip down and do a jig.

  Alex’s lashes lowered, but the intensity of her stare could still be felt. “Okay. I know you don’t know me at all, but you’re going to learn pretty quickly that I’m super blunt, and I feel like I totally need to get this out in the open, because I didn’t know we had more in common outside of Apollo. And I’m going to probably punch someone for not filling me in on that.”

  Oh geez. I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “You know that Seth and I—”

  “I know what you guys are,” I cut in. “I know a lot about what happened. Deacon filled me in and Seth . . . he talked a little about it.”

  Her gaze sharpened. “Okay. Then did Seth explain that he and I kind of were seeing each other only for, like, a hot second?”

  I shifted uncomfortably. “Well, we didn’t really get into that kind of detail.”

  “I see.” She paused, glancing down at her hands. “Seth and I never got together like that.”

  Something did a wholly inappropriate happy dance in my chest.

  “We did fool around a couple of times,” she added, lashes lifting, and that something stopped dancing and whipped out Covenant daggers. “But Aiden was my first and he will be the only one.”

  Oh. That something slowly lowered the daggers.

  “Don’t get me wrong. I cared about Seth—I still do. Things are . . . weird between us. Complicated isn’t even a right enough word, and if you really know what happened, you understand that, right?”

  I nodded. “I do.”

  Alex held my gaze for a moment and then reached up, wrapping her hands around the middle of her hair. “Seth and I never went that far.” She started twisting her hair, and oh my God again, I did that all the time too. This was so weird. So weird. She twisted her hair into a rope. “But you two . . . ?”

  “No. I mean, we were seeing each other, but not . . . not anymore.”

  She eyed me closely. “Were you guys serious?”

  “Yes. I mean, I thought so. I . . . uh, I really cared—” I cut myself off, looking away as I shook my head. “None of that matters.”

  “I think it matters if you were actually dating Seth and he didn’t have sex with you.”

  My attention swung back to her sharply.

  “The Seth I knew would pretty much hump a tree if there was a hole in it,” she said, and my nose wrinkled. “And he was never serious about anyone.”

  “I don’t think that really makes me feel better about not having gone there with him,” I admitted, and when she opened her mouth, I continued. “Look, what he and I were at one point doesn’t matter now.”

  “Yes. It does.” She stopped twisting her hair. “As long as I knew Seth, he didn’t get involved seriously with anyone. Like, no one would’ve been under the misconception that it was serious if it wasn’t. Seth didn’t do relationships.”

  Seth apparently still didn’t do relationships, and as jealous as I was when it came to Alex, she wasn’t the problem. She was in love with Aiden
, but that didn’t mean Seth hadn’t harbored those kinds of feelings for her. It was obvious that he had.

  And still did.

  And I really did not want to be talking about this with her.

  Scrubbing my temples, I tried to come up with a way to say that without being completely rude to the myth, the legend known as Alexandria Andros.

  “You really don’t want to talk about Seth with me, do you?” she asked.

  I glanced over at her, frowning. “Can you read minds?”

  Alex tipped her head to the side and laughed. “Nope. But I feel you. I just want to say one thing. I hope that things aren’t really over between you two, because Seth . . .” She sat back, exhaling softly. “Seth is . . . he deserves some happiness.”

  Tears immediately rushed my throat and burned the back of my eyes. I believed the same thing, but I wasn’t his source of happiness. I didn’t even know what I was to him, but it wasn’t that.

  “I haven’t talked to him. He’s avoiding me. I’m not surprised,” she said, and then let go of her hair. The thick strands were slow to unwind. “Sorry. You don’t want to hear about that.”

  I sort of, kind of wanted to hear about her and Seth and his avoidance, even though I didn’t, but I was a glutton for punishment, so I did.

  “So.” She scooted forward, dropping her hands to her knees. “Apollo is your father, and he’s kind of like my great-great-great-times a million grandfather, so we’re kind of, like, related in a really weird, this shouldn’t happen in real life sort of way?”

  I laughed, unable to help myself. “Yeah, something like that, I guess.”

  Alex smoothed her palms over denim-clad knees. “So, Deacon and Luke were saying you had no idea what you were until Seth showed—”

  An ear-piercingly shrill alarm sounded, silencing Alex. My head jerked up, and Alex was on her feet, her hand snaking around her back. A second later she held a dagger in her hand. I had no idea where she’d gotten it from. Thin air? A nifty hidden pouch? It didn’t matter, because I knew what the blaring horn meant.

  The Covenant was under attack.

  Chapter 16

  Seth

  Pacing the length of my room, I tried to work off the pent-up restlessness that was crawling through my system like an army of fire ants. I’d already run five miles, boxed with Solos, showered—rubbed one off in the shower while my mind conjured up a stream of things I’d done with Josie and things I’d never gotten the chance to—and I still couldn’t sit still.

  Not when I wanted to be across the hall. Not when I wanted to go find Colin and remove his balls with a dull dagger, centimeter by fucking centimeter, because I knew he’d gone to breakfast with her this morning. Wasn’t the first time, but usually Deacon and Luke were with them, and that made it different.

  And not when I knew Alex and Aiden were roaming this very dorm.

  I could feel Alex.

  She was a faint hum in the back of my subconscious, like a light far off in the distance, visible but not bright. It was nothing like it had been before, much more muted and a hell of a lot more tolerable. Thank the gods I couldn’t feel what she was feeling, because damn, I would need to give myself a lobotomy. Or she and Aiden weren’t currently screwing like an Olympian god after a dry spell and that was why I wasn’t feeling much. Gods, I hoped that wasn’t the case. If I started feeling what was going on with them, I was going to have to—

  Sirens blasted, breaking the silence and spinning me around. The shrill sound was all too familiar, and I snapped into action. Vicious excitement replaced the restlessness, and I knew just how screwed up that was, but right then? Oh yeah, I could use a fight. Yesterday in the quad had been child’s play.

  Grabbing the Glock loaded with titanium bullets, I hooked it into the holster and fit it around my thigh. I snatched the daggers off the dresser and headed out the door, not even bothering with grabbing a shirt.

  I came to a complete stop as Josie’s door swung open.

  What in the holy fuck were Alex and Josie doing together? For just a few seconds, the three of us were literally frozen, staring at each other as the sirens blared overhead.

  And then Alex broke the silence.

  “Really?” she said dryly, eyeing me with a smirk. “You’re going to fight with the awesomeness of your six-pack as a weapon?”

  I arched a brow. “Yeah, you know, I was going to test out the whole abs of steel theory thing. The gun attached to my thigh and the daggers in my hands are just props. Mainly for show. Don’t want to take away from the gloriousness that is my body, though.”

  Her smirk flipped into a grin. “Whatever.” She started forward. Up ahead, a tall figure stepped out in the hall, and light glinted off the titanium daggers in his hands. Aiden. Of course their room had to be close to mine.

  Of. Course.

  My gaze shot to Josie. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  She was in the process of closing the door when she frowned. “I’m going to help—”

  “You are going to help by staying safe in your dorm and not answering the door to anyone but me or one of the guys.”

  “I can fight,” she insisted, her cheeks flushing pink. “You saw me yesterday. I know what—”

  “Do you hear those sirens?” I lifted my chin to the ceiling. “This isn’t a fight between halfs and pures. That means something has gotten inside that shouldn’t be inside.”

  Her blue eyes deepened to storm clouds. “I know that. I can—”

  “Do you remember what happened last time?” I stepped to her, my chest and stomach clenching at the memory. “I’m not going to end the night searching you down and finding you like I did last time.”

  Blood drained from her face. “And last time, I was taken from your room. You know, the safe place!”

  Well. Shit. She had a point. I shook my head. Time was of the essence here. “Then you don’t answer the door unless it’s me.”

  “Seth—”

  “Just stay in your room, Josie. You’ll be safe there.”

  “I don’t see you telling Alex to stay in her room,” she fired back. “Nor did Aiden seem to stop her.”

  “That’s because I know Alex can hold her own.” And truth? I also wouldn’t lose my shit if Alex got hurt. Josie? I would go nuclear on this gods-damned Covenant and level the place.

  Josie stepped back, bumping into the door, and I could tell I’d said something very, very wrong to her. I wasn’t quite sure what it was. I’d said a lot of bad shit to her recently, but I didn’t have time to really question it. She turned around stiffly and went back into her room.

  At least she was staying put.

  Hooking the daggers on to the belt, I took off down the hall. When I hit the lobby, I spotted Colin standing with a group of halfs. I started to order him to keep watch over Josie, but I trusted that she’d only open the door for me. I didn’t trust that of Colin. He was a young half, susceptible to compulsions, and I had no idea what was going on out there.

  Bursting out the front doors and into the cooler evening air, I made my way past the small army of Guards. They had already begun setting up a line in front of the dorm.

  I stopped, grabbing the collar of one of the older Guard members. His eyes widened with surprise as I lifted him up on the tips of his toes. “Try actually defending the students this time. If this line is broken when I get back, I’m not going to be happy, and that means you’re not going to be walking for the next week or month. Feel me?”

  The older man swallowed hard and nodded. Letting him go, I sure as hell hoped, for his sake, he got the message. Last time, the possessed Guards and Sentinels had gotten right into the dorm and right to Josie.

  That knowledge ate at me as I forged forward. After what had happened that night, I’d told myself I wouldn’t put duty before Josie, and I was doing it again. A ball of dread settled in my stomach like lead. The nymph’s words floated through my thoughts as I cut across the quad, heading for the walls. Was I going down the same
path again?

  Up ahead, I could see Sentinels racing forward. Smoke billowed from the vicinity of the main wall and spilled into the courtyard. Shadows moved inside the dense smoke, and from a distance it looked like a macabre dance. In about ten seconds, I caught up to Alex and Aiden, and it was more than a little bizarre falling into step beside them. As we drew closer, the scent of burnt trees and something far more pungent filled the air.

  Aiden glanced over at me. “Lose your shirt, man?”

  Back in the day, that question would’ve opened the door for the perfect comeback, one that usually involved Alex. Now? I lifted my hand and flipped him off. “Anyone know what’s going—?”

  A white-garbed Guard staggered out of the smoke, the front of his outfit splashed with red. His throat was torn open, revealing the pink, congealed tissue and shattered bone. The Guard went down on one knee and then crumpled.

  “Daimons,” Alex said, flipping the dagger in her hand. “Or a mountain lion.”

  Reaching to my side, I unhooked one of the daggers. “I’m going to go with a daimon.”

  “That’s a relief.” Alex slowed her step. “Because I really don’t want to kill a kitty.”

  I paused long enough to look at her. She tossed a grin in my direction.

  Aiden moved ahead, throwing up a hand, stopping us. “Hold on a second.” He moved his arm, holding his palm out toward the thick smoke. A slight ripple of power sparked. Wind picked up behind us, turning into a heavy, churning gust. The stream moved over the courtyard, lifting the smoke and blowing it back.

  Holy shit, there were daimons everywhere, and the titanium gate was open. A few bodies littered the ground and as the wind settled, I realized all those still standing were halfs, which explained why no one had summoned wind yet, and on the ground . . .

  Shit.

  Dead and/or dying pures.

  Some still being fed on, like a scene straight out of a zombie horror.

  Aiden looked over his shoulder. “Being able to control all the elements has its bennies.”