Daimon: Prequel to Half-Blood

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  The Covenant Series

  Daimon (A Short Prequel to Half-Blood) Half-Blood

  Pure (Spring 2012)

  Pronunciation Guide for Daimon

  Daimon: DEE-mun

  Aether: EE-ther

  Hematoi: HEM-a-toy

  CHAPTER 1

  SHE SMELLED LIKE MOTHBALLS AND DEATH.

  The elderly Hematoi Minister facing me looked like she had just crawled out of the tomb she’d been stored in for a couple hundred years.

  Her skin was wrinkled and thin, like old parchment, and each breath she took I swore would be her last. I hadn’t ever seen anyone that old, but of course I’d only been seven and even the pizza guy had seemed ancient to me.

  The crowd murmured its disapproval behind me; I’d forgotten that simple half-bloods like me weren’t supposed to look a Minister in the eye. Being the pure-blood spawn of demigods, the Hematoi had huge egos.

  I looked at my mother, who stood beside me on the raised dais. She was one of the Hematoi, but she wasn’t anything like them. Her green eyes flashed a pleading look to cooperate, to not be the incorrigible and disobedient little girl she knew I could be.

  I didn’t know why she was so frightened; I was the one facing the crypt keeper. And if I survived this poor excuse for tradition without ending up carrying this hag’s bedpan for the rest of my life, it would be a miracle worthy of the gods that supposedly were watching over all of us.

  “Alexandria Andros?” The Minister’s voice sounded like sandpaper over rough wood. She clucked her tongue. “She is far too small. Her arms are as thin as the shoots of new olive branches.” She bent over to study me more closely, and I half expected her to fall in my face. “And her eyes, they are the color of dirt, hardly remarkable. She barely has any blood of the Hematoi in her. She is more mortal than any we have seen this day.”

  The Minister’s eyes were the color of the sky before a violent storm.

  They were a mixture of purple and blue, a sign of her heritage. All the Hematoi had startling eye colors. Most of the half-bloods did too, but for some reason I’d missed the whole cool eye color boat when I’d been born.

  The statements had continued on for what seemed like forever to me and all I could think about was ice cream and maybe taking a nap.

  Other Ministers had come down to check me over, whispering to each other as they circled me. I kept glancing at my mother and she’d smile reassuringly, letting me know that all of this was normal and that I was doing okay—great, even.

  That was, until the old lady started pinching every piece of my exposed skin and then some. I’d always had this thing about being touched. If I didn’t touch someone then I believed they shouldn’t touch me. Grandma had apparently missed that memo.

  She’d reached out and pinched my belly through my dress with her bony fingers. “She has no meat on her. How can we expect her to fight and defend us? She is not worthy to train at the Covenant and serve beside the children of the gods.”

  I’d never seen a god, but my mom told me there were always among us, always watching. I’d also never seen a pegasus or a chimera, but she’d sworn they also existed. Even at seven I’d had a hard time believing the stories; it had strained my fledgling faith to accept that the gods still cared about the world they had so diligently populated with their children in a way only the gods could.

  “She’s nothing more than a pathetic, little half-blood,” the ancient woman had continued. “I say send her to the Masters. I’m in need of a little girl to clean my toilets.”

  Then she had twisted her fingers cruelly.

  And I had kicked her shin.

  I’d never forget the look on my mother’s face, like she’d been caught between terror and full-blown panic, ready to run between them and snatch me away. There were a few gasps of outrage, but there were also a few deep chuckles.

  “She has fire,” one of the male Ministers had said. Another stepped forward, “She will do fine as a Guard, maybe even a Sentinel.”

  To this day I had no idea how I’d proved my worthiness after kicking the Minister in the leg. But I had. Not that it meant a damn thing now that I was seventeen and had been nowhere near the Hematoi world for the last three years. Even in the normal world I hadn’t stopped doing stupid things.

  Actually, I was prone to random acts of stupidity. I considered it to be one of my talents.

  “You’re doing it again, Alex.” Matt’s hand tightened around mine.

  I blinked slowly, bringing his face into focus. “Doing what?”

  “You got this look on your face.” He tugged me against his chest, snaking an arm around my waist. “It’s like you’re thinking about something universally deep. Like your head is a thousand miles away, somewhere up in the clouds, on a different planet or something.”

  Matt Richardson wanted to join Greenpeace and save some whales.

  He was the pretty boy next door who’d sworn off eating red meat.

  Whatever. He was my current attempt to blend with the mortals, and he’d convinced me to sneak out and go to a bonfire on the beach with a bunch of people I barely knew.

  I had bad taste in boys.

  Previously, I’d crushed on a brooding academic who’d written poems on the back of his school books and styled his dyed, jet black hair so it’d covered his hazel eyes. He’d written a song about me. I’d laughed, and that relationship had been over before it got started. The year before that was probably my most embarrassing—the bleached blond, JV football captain with sky blue eyes. Months had gone by with us barely exchanging a “hey” and “do you have a pencil?” before we’d finally met up at a party. We’d talked. He’d kissed me and mauled my boobs, all the while smelling like cheap beer. I’d punched him and broken his jaw. Mom had moved me to a different town after that and lectured me about not hitting as hard as I could, reminding me that a normal girl couldn’t throw punches like that.

  Normal girls didn’t want their boobs mauled either, and I wholly believed if they could’ve landed a fist like I could, they would have.

  I smiled up at Matt. “I’m not thinking about anything.”

  “You’re not thinking at all?” Matt lowered his head. The edges of his blond hair tickled my cheeks. Thank the gods he’d gotten over the

  “trying to grow dreads” stage in his life. “Nothing going on in that pretty head of yours?”

  Something was going on in my head, but it wasn’t what Matt hoped for. As I stared into his green eyes, I thought about my very first crush—

  the forbidden, older guy with thundercloud eyes—the one so far out of my league he might as well have been a different species.

  Technically, I guess he was.

  Even now, I wanted to spin-kick myself in my face for that one. I was like a walking romance novel character, thinking love conquers everything and all that crap. Sure. Love in my world usually ended up with someone hearing “I smite thee!” as she was cursed to be some lame flower for the rest of her life.

  The gods and their children could be petty like that.

  I sometimes wondered if my mom had sensed my budding obsession with the pure-blood guy and that was why she’d yanked my happy butt out of the only world I’d known—the only world I really belonged to.

  Pures were so off limits to halfs like me.

  “Alex?” Matt brushed his lips over my cheek, moving ever so slowly toward my lips.

  “Well, maybe something.” I lifted up onto the tips of my toes and circled my arms around his neck. “Can you guess what I’m thinking about right now?”

  “That you wish you hadn’t left your shoes back at the fire, because I do. The sand is really cold. Global warming is a bitch.”

/>   “Not what I had in mind.”

  He frowned. “You’re not thinking about history class, are you? That would be kind of lame, Alex.”

  I wiggled out of his grasp, sighing. “Never mind, Matt.”

  Chuckling, he reached out and wrapped his arms back around me.

  “I’m just kidding.”

  Doubtful, but I let him lower his lips to mine. His mouth was warm and dry, the most a girl could ask from a seventeen-year-old boy. But to be fair, Matt was a pretty damn good kisser. His lips moved against mine slowly and when he parted them, I didn’t sock him in the stomach or anything like that. I returned the kiss.

  Matt’s hands dropped to my hips and he eased me down in the sand, supporting himself with one arm as he hovered over me and trailed kisses over my chin, down my throat. I stared up at the dark sky riddled with bright stars and very few clouds. A beautiful night—a normal night, I realized. There was something romantic about all of it, in the way he cradled my cheek when his mouth returned to mine and whispered my name like I was some kind of mystery he’d never be able to figure out.

  I felt warm and pleasant, not rip-my-clothes-off-and-do-me excited, but this wasn’t bad. I could get used to this. Especially when I closed my eyes and pictured Matt’s eyes turning gray and his hair much, much darker.

  Then he slipped his hand under the hem of my sundress.

  My eyes snapped open and I quickly reached down, pulling his hand out from between my legs. “Matt!”

  “What?” He lifted his head, his eyes a murky green. “Why’d you stop me?”

  Why had I stopped him? I suddenly felt like Miss Purity Princess guarding her virginity from wayward boys. Why? The answer actually came to me pretty quickly. I didn’t want to give up my V-card on a beach with sand finding its way into unseemly places. My legs already felt like they’d been well exfoliated.

  But it was more than that. I really wasn’t in the here and now with Matt, not when I was picturing him with gray eyes and dark hair, wanting him to be someone else.

  Someone I would never see again… and could never have.

  CHAPTER 2

  “ALEX?” MATT NUZZLED A SPOT ON MY NECK. “WHAT’S

  wrong?”

  Using a bit of my natural strength, I rolled him off me and sat up.

  I readjusted the top of my dress, thankful for the darkness. “Sorry. I’m just not into it right now.”

  Matt remained sprawled beside me, staring up at the sky like I had moments before. “Did… did I do something wrong?”

  My stomach twisted and felt funny. Matt was such a nice guy. I turned to him, grabbing his hand. I threaded my fingers through his, the way he liked it. “No. Not at all.”

  He pulled his hand free and rubbed it across his brow. “You always do this.”

  I frowned. Did I?

  “It’s not just that.” Matt sat up, dropping his long arms over his bent knees. “I don’t feel like I know you, Alex. You know, like really know who you are. And we’ve been dating how long?”

  “A couple of months.” I hoped that was correct. Then I felt like a douche for taking a guess. Gods, I was turning into a terrible person.

  A small smile pulled at his lips. “You know everything about me.

  How old I was when I got into a club for the first time. What college I want to go to. The foods I hate and how I can’t stand carbonated drinks.

  The first time I broke a bone—”

  “Falling off your skateboard.” I felt good about remembering that.

  Matt laughed softly. “Yeah, you’re right. But I don’t know anything about you.”

  I nudged him with my shoulder. “That’s not true.”

  “It is.” He glanced at me, the smile on his face fading. “You don’t ever talk about yourself.”

  Okay. He had a point, but it wasn’t like I could tell him anything. I could see me now. Guess what? You ever watch Clash of the Titans or read any Greek fables? Well, those gods are real and yeah, I’m sort of a descendant of them. Kind of like the stepchild no one wants to claim.

  Oh, and I hadn’t even been around mortals until three years ago. Can we still be friends?

  Not going to happen.

  So I shrugged and said, “There’s really isn’t anything to tell. I’m pretty boring.”

  Matt sighed. “I don’t even know where you’re from.”

  “I moved here from Texas. I’ve told you that.” Strands of hair kept escaping my hand, blowing across my face and over his shoulder. I needed a haircut. “It’s not a big secret.”

  “But were you born there?”

  I looked away, watching the ocean. The sea was so dark it looked purple and unfriendly. I pulled my gaze away and stared down the shore.

  Two figures walked along, clearly male. “No,” I said finally.

  “Then where were you born?”

  I fought the soft touch of annoyance as I focused on the guys near the shore, hunkered down as the wind picked up, pelting them with a fine sheen of cold water. A storm was coming.

  “Alex?” Matt climbed to his feet, shaking his head. “See? You can’t even tell me where you were born. What’s up with that?”

  My mom thought that the less people knew about us the better. She was incredibly paranoid, believing if anybody knew too much then the Covenant would find us. Was that such a bad thing? I kind of wanted them to find us, to put an end to this craziness.

  Growing frustrated, Matt dragged his fingers through his hair. “I think I’m just going to head back to the group.”

  I watched him turn around before I scrambled to my feet. “Wait.”

  He turned around, brows raised.

  I took a shallow breath, then another. “I was born on this stupid island no one has ever heard of. It’s off the coast of North Carolina.”

  Surprise flickered across his features and he took a step toward me.

  “What island?”

  “Seriously, you wouldn’t have heard of it.” I folded my arms over my chest as goosebumps crawled over my skin. “It’s near Bald Head Island.”

  A wide smile spread across his face, and I knew the skin around his eyes was crinkling like it did whenever he was exceptionally happy about something. “Was that so hard?”

  “Yes.” I pouted and then smiled, because Matt had the kind of smile that was infectious, a smile that reminded me of the best friend I hadn’t seen in years. Maybe that’s why I was drawn to Matt. My own grin started to fade as I wondered what my former partner in mayhem was doing right now.

  Matt dropped his hands on my arms, slowly uncrossing them.

  “Wanna head back?” He nodded down the beach, at the group of kids clustered around the bonfire. “Or stay here…?”

  He’d left the offer open, but I knew what he meant. Stay here and kiss some more, forget some more. It didn’t sound like a bad idea. I swayed toward him. Over his shoulder, I spotted the two guys again.

  They were almost on us and I sighed, now recognizing them.

  “We have company.” I stepped back.

  Matt glanced over his shoulder at the two guys. “Great. It’s Ren and Stimpy.”

  I giggled at the accurate description. During the few times I’d actually met the gruesome twosome, I refused to learn their real names.

  Ren was tall and lanky, his dark brown hair so full of hair gel it could be labeled a dangerous weapon in most states. Stimpy was the shorter and wider of the two, shaved bald and built like a locomotive. The two were known for causing trouble wherever they went, especially Stimpy and his questionable weightlifting program. They were two years older than us, having graduated from Matt’s high school before I even stepped foot in Florida. But they still hung out with the younger crowd, no doubt scoping out impressionable girls. There’d been some bad rumors about those two.

  Even in the pale moonlight I could tell their skin was a healthy shade of orange. Their overly broad smiles were obscenely white. The shorter one whispered something and they fist bumped each other.


  Not unexpectedly, I didn’t like them.

  “Hey!” Ren called out as the pair’s swagger slowed down. “What’s up, Matt, my man?”

  Matt shoved his hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts. “Nothing much—you?”

  Ren glanced at Stimpy, then back to Matt. Ren’s neon pink polo shirt looked painted on his scrawny frame, at least three sizes too small.

  “We’re just chillin’. Gonna head out to the clubs later.” Ren looked at me for the first time, his eyes drifting over my dress and down my legs.

  I puked a little in my mouth.

  “I’ve seen you around a few times,” Ren said, bobbing his head to and fro. I wondered if it was some kind of weird mating dance. “What’s your name, sweetness?”

  “Her name’s Alex,” answered Stimpy in all his shifty eyed glory.

  “It’s a guy’s name.”

  I stifled my groan. “My mom wanted a boy.”

  Ren looked confused.

  “Actually it’s short for Alexandria,” Matt explained. “She just likes to be called Alex.”

  I grinned at Matt, but he was watching the two guys closely. A muscle feathered along his jaw.

  “Thanks for the clarification, bud.” Stimpy crossed his massive arms, eyeballing Matt.

  Catching Stimpy’s look, I shifted closer to Matt.

  Ren, still staring at my legs, made a sound that was a cross between a grunt and a moan. “Damn girl. Is your daddy a thief?”

  “What?” I’d never actually met my dad. Maybe he was. All I knew was that he’d been mortal. Hopefully, he’d been nothing like these two ass-hats.

  Ren flexed his nonexistent muscles, smiling. “Well, then who stole those diamonds and put them in your eyes?”

  “Wow.” I blinked and turned to Matt. “Why don’t you ever say such romantic stuff like that to me, Matt? I’m hurt.”

  Matt didn’t grin like I expected. His gaze kept bouncing between the two, and I could see his hands balling into fists inside his pockets. There was a certain edge to his eyes, to the way his lips were drawn into a tight line. My amusement vanished in an instant. He was… scared?

  I reached for Matt’s arm. “Come on, let’s head back.”