What was wrong with me? Better yet, what was I turning in to?
Forcing several deep breaths into my lungs, I straightened and let the suds rinse off my body. I turned off the shower and grabbed a fluffy towel, wrapping it around me.
The numbness was inside me, seeping through the pores, coating my skin. I felt like I needed to take another shower and keep taking them until it washed away whatever this was.
I didn’t check myself out when I opened the door and stepped into the adjoining room.
Aiden sat on the edge of the bed, hands resting on his knees. The Glock was next to him, and the daggers were unhooked, placed in a neat line beside the gun. He lifted his head, his dark gray eyes slowly moving over me until centering on mine. My heart jumped in my chest, and I felt the muscles in my lower stomach tighten.
When I was around Aiden, I wasn’t numb.
I could feel so much.
Crossing the distance between us, I stopped between his spread legs. Aiden sat up straighter, his gaze questioning. Air hitched in my throat as he lifted his arms. I moved forward, placing my knees on either side of his hips. He folded his arms around me, sealing my chest to his as I rested my cheek against his shoulder. Minutes ticked by in silence. His hand trailed up and down my back in a soothing gesture that beat away at the numbness, but I wanted to feel more. Needed to feel more.
I rocked back in his lap and placed my hand on his cheek. A jolt of awareness ran from my palm up my arm. Unseen to him, the marks of the Apollyon bled through my skin, swirling down my arm until they reached my hand.
His lashes lowered. “We need to talk about what happened, Alex.”
Talking was the last thing I wanted, right next to thinking. Feeling was the only thing I was interested in at the moment. I leaned forward, pressing my forehead against his. Our mouths lined up perfectly, and Aiden’s chest rose sharply.
His hand tightened into a fist against the small of my back. “This isn’t talking.”
“I don’t want to talk.” I brushed my lips across his. Nothing more than a quick sweep of our mouths, but Aiden’s embrace tightened. “I want to feel you.”
“Alex—”
I pulled back a little and dropped the towel, surprising even myself since I was definitely on the body-conscious side of things at the time.
Aiden held my gaze for a moment, and then it dipped, and I felt his stare as if it were a heated touch. Warmth rose to my skin as he dragged his eyes back up. Knowing Aiden, he wanted to do the right thing. There was a lot we needed to talk about—the numbness I felt, the fact that I’d frozen in battle the day before, the meeting in the Council, Seth, the fact that I’d just shot my stepfather in the head, and the possibility of us becoming very unprepared parents. The Aiden I knew would want to hash all that out, because every single item was important, but the Aiden I loved wouldn’t ever turn me down again.
He placed his hands on the sides of my face and guided my head to his. The moment our lips touched it was like waking up after a too-long sleep. Sensation raced through my system, pouring into my bloodstream and chasing away the coldness. The kiss deepened, and I knew that Aiden was right where I was. We would talk, but it would be later. Much later.
“What is this?” Aiden asked, his voice deep and husky.
“What?”
His fingers slimmed over my hip and lower back. He was touching the oddly shaped scar. I stiffened. Grabbing his hand, I moved it away. I kissed him deeper, harder, drawing his attention from it until I knew he wasn’t thinking about it any longer. His hands slid across my shoulders and then down to my waist, leaving a shivery wake behind. He tugged me to his chest and, though he was still in his uniform, his skin seared mine. Kissing Aiden was like taking a deep breath of fresh air after not being able to breathe. His kisses chased away all the what-ifs and strange feelings that had twisted inside me.
Aiden’s lips blazed a path down my throat, and my head tipped back. He wrapped an arm around my waist as his other hand drifted up my stomach and then further up, eliciting a sharp gasp from me. A deep, nerve-frying sound came from within his chest, and every muscle under my hands knotted in response. His lips neared the sensitive spot, and his breath rasped in my ear. There was a painstaking moment when neither of us moved and it was just our hearts pounding in our chests, thundering in our veins, and then in an instant, the exquisite feel of his lips against my pulse wasn’t enough.
I pulled back to get my hands on that annoying shirt of his and opened my eyes.
All-white eyes stared back into mine. Lips were twisted into a cruel smirk. The face was frightening familiar—chillingly handsome and devoid of compassion. “You can never win.”
Icy terror froze the scream building in my chest as I jerked back, breaking the hold around my waist. I thumped onto the floor. Ignoring the burst of dull pain across my backside, I rocked to my feet and lurched to the side, grabbing Aiden’s pistol. It was only as my fingers closed around the handle when I realized how fruitless shooting Ares would be.
I swung the gun around anyway, because I figured it had to sting at least, but I froze because it wasn’t Ares standing there.
It was Aiden, his eyes wide and the color of the sky before a violent summer storm. His hands were at his sides, and his chest rose and fell sharply. “Alex? What… what are you doing?”
I drew in a ragged breath, but it never reached my lungs. A boulder had landed on my chest, crushing me as I took a step back. I didn’t understand what I was seeing. It had been Ares—it had been him! His face—his voice.
“Agapi mou, talk to me. Tell me what is going on,” he said, his voice hoarse but his eyes still holding mine. “What’s happening?”
“Aiden?” I whispered, my hand shaking.
He nodded slowly, and the one word he spoke was hoarse. “Yes.”
The pressure turned into slicing fear and confusion as I stared at him. The logical part of me screamed that this was Aiden standing before me, that Ares couldn’t get inside the University, but I couldn’t let my guard down, because if it was him…
“It wasn’t you,” I whispered, my finger spasming dangerously over the trigger. “It wasn’t you.”
Tension pulled at his lips. “What do you mean? Because it’s me. I’m here with you, agapi mou. I’m right here.”
A tremor coursed down my arm as uncertainty spread into my chest like a gulp of too-cold water. I knew I should probably lower the gun before I accidentally did shoot Aiden, because it had to be him standing before me, but I couldn’t do it.
“Is it Seth?” he asked, his fingers curling into his palms. “Is he doing this?”
“Seth?” I blinked. “No. It wasn’t you. It was…it was Ares.”
An immediate pain flickered across his face, spreading sorrow into his brilliant silver gaze, and I didn’t like the look because it was such a deep hurt. “I’m here with you. I’ve been here with you this whole time, agapi mou.”
The next breath I took scalded my throat. “I think…I think I’m going crazy.”
“Oh, Alex…”
Those two words broke my heart in a way nothing ever had before. The ache in them settled in my bones like lead. I shuddered.
“Look at me,” he said in a low voice. “You know it’s me.”
Then Aiden stepped forward, and he was the bravest being in this world to do so with a gun pointed at his heart. Slowly, as if not to frighten me, he reached out and gently pried my fingers off the gun. My heart turned over heavily. Without taking his eyes off mine, he placed the gun back on the bed and picked up a quilt. He draped the soft material over my shoulders, pulling it closed in the front as he pressed a small, tender kiss against my forehead.
That tiny show of affection broke me.
“I’m sorry,” I said as my body shook. I’d almost shot Aiden. I could’ve seriously hurt him, if not killed him. “Oh my gods, I’m so sorry, Aiden.”
“Shh,” he murmured, wrapping his arms around me and gathering me close. He sat d
own on the bed, and I pressed my cheek to his chest above his thundering heart. I squeezed my eyes shut. “It’s going to be okay, Alex. Whatever is going on, we’re in this together, remember? And it will be okay. I promise you.”
A new terror flooded my senses as Aiden held me, one hand curled around the nape of my neck and the other smoothing up and down my back. He rocked slowly, murmuring something that I really wasn’t hearing because all I could focus on was one thing.
It was quite possible that I’d taken a detour straight into Crazyville, which would explain a lot. Would anyone be surprised? People cracked under stress all the time, and half-bloods, even though we were trained to keep our heads together, weren’t any different. But did it matter? Not really, because one thing was true.
Aiden wasn’t safe around me.
* * *
Aiden and I didn’t talk.
I think he was worried about pushing things too far for the time being since I was obviously rocking a first-class ticket to certifiable insanity. After all, a few hours ago I’d shot someone in the head, then I’d hallucinated Ares and pulled a gun on Aiden…while I was buck-ass naked.
Talk about an awkward mood killer.
Somehow, we ended up stretched out on the bed, and Aiden finally drifted off into a fitful sleep. It was late, but I couldn’t sleep. My mind raced with everything. If I was crazy, which I had a good feeling I was, how could I lead the Army of Awesome against Ares? This had trouble written all over it.
And Seth was awake.
He wasn’t trying to communicate with me, and the fact that I knew anyway was freaky on a whole new level, but his consciousness existed on the fringe of mine. He was up, and he was antsy.
And so was I.
As quietly as possible, I pulled myself away from Aiden and dressed in the dark. I figured if I ended up putting my shirt on backwards, I could blame it on my lunacy. Going crazy had to have some benefits, right? Maybe I’d just go fully crazy.
I crept from the room and closed the door behind me. I tried to tell myself I didn’t know what I was doing, but I did. Every part of me knew where I was heading, especially the annoying cord inside me. It was buzzing around like an over-eager puppy that needed to be smacked on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.
Actually, I needed to be smacked with one.
Moving through the shadows, it took no time at all to make it to the Council building. The entrance to the catacombs housing the cells was heavily guarded.
None of the Guards looked thrilled with the idea of stepping aside and allowing me access to the First. Not that I blamed them. Everyone knew what would happen if Seth transferred my power to him, but he was here, and that fact alone was risky.
Solos moved up the narrow stairwell, his eyes narrowing as he spied me standing before the Guards. “What’s up, Alex?”
“I need to talk to Seth.”
He positioned himself in front of me. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“Do you have any other suggestions other than knocking him out every couple of hours?”
His lips quirked into a grin that lessened the severity of the jagged scar running from his right eye to his jaw. “I really don’t see a problem with that.”
I laughed, but it felt and sounded forced. “Neither do I, but I need to talk to him to figure out what the hell he’s really doing here and if the Sentinels on the other side of the gate are going to be a problem.”
“They’re probably going to be a problem,” Solos replied.
He was a fountain of reassuring comments. I shifted my weight impatiently as I tucked the shorter strands of hair behind my ear. “I’m not here to connect with him,” I said in a low voice. “He doesn’t hold that kind of power over me anymore. And besides, I won’t let him get close enough to even try.”
Solos looked away, his jaw working overtime. “I don’t like this. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think you’re going to turn Evil Alex on us, but it’s the middle of the night and Aiden isn’t with you.”
My brows rose. “And what does that have to do with the Apollyon locked in our cell?”
“I just feel a hundred times more comfortable when Aiden is around, especially if you’re chit-chatting with Seth,” he admitted.
“Aiden’s asleep, and he needs to rest. Besides, I don’t need a babysitter.” Of course I did, but I sure as hell wasn’t admitting that. “Come on, Solos, don’t make me make you do this.”
He regarded me closely and then exhaled through his nose. “Don’t make me regret this.”
“What faith you have in me,” I muttered as he stepped aside and I walked past.
“It has nothing to do with faith.” Solos was right on my heels as I went down the steep stairway. A wave of cool air seeped through my jeans. Putting on the tactical pants of a Sentinel had felt wrong, all things considered. “And no offense, I don’t trust anyone. I learned the hard way many years ago, and I see the reminder of that every time I look in the mirror.”
I bent under the low archway and stepped into a wide chamber. Seth wasn’t here. My gaze fell to the titanium door across from me, and then I glanced over my shoulder. “Your scar?”
Solos leaned against the wall and folded his arms. “I didn’t get it shaving.”
“I thought you got it fighting daimons.”
He gave a slight shake of his head. “I got it when I was nineteen.”
As wrong as it might be, I was morbidly curious. “How did it happen?”
There wasn’t an immediate response, and the cord inside me tightened with impatience. “I was out one night patrolling, and toward the end of my shift, I met this woman. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. One thing led to another and, well, I was a nineteen year old guy. It was a one-night stand, no commitment or exchange of names, and all that was her idea, not mine. Sign me up for that.”
“Of course,” I said, figuring out where their meet-and-greet had ended up, but not how a hook-up had resulted in such a scar.
“But she wasn’t an ordinary woman, Alex. She was a goddess.”
My mouth dropped open.
“Aphrodite,” he said, tipping his chin down. “Apparently, she was bored and decided to pay a visit to the mortal realm. Wrong place, wrong time kind of thing. Or right place, depending on how you look at it, and who was I to turn that down?” One side of his lips tipped up as I gaped at him. “As you can imagine, good old Hephaestus wasn’t too happy about that.”
“I would think not,” I said slowly.
“He gave me this scar.” He gestured at his right cheek. “And he would’ve killed me if Aphrodite hadn’t intervened. I pretty much had to make myself nonexistent when Apollo brought him to build that cell for you, but I have to say a couple of hours with her was worth it.”
A surprised laugh burst from me, and Solos’ uneven grin spread. “But I learned to never really trust someone when they say things will be cool, you know? And I learned to never, ever trust a god—or anything they create. They’re the snakes in the grass that you never see coming.”
* * *
Solos remained in the circular chamber, and as I walked down the narrow hall lit by torches on the walls, I couldn’t help but feel like I was a snake in the grass. So was Seth. We both were dangerous beings created by the gods, and we could and had turned on everything and everyone around us at one point or another.
Maybe our violent natures were the product of those who created us. No one else in this world was more off their rocker than an Olympian god.
I tucked away Solos’ story as I rounded a corner and saw the cell several feet in front of me. The light from the flames flickered across the titanium bars. A darker shadow was pressed against the bars, and it took me a second to realize it was Seth, his back to the hall.
Stopping a few feet from where he sat, I ignored the near-intoxicating pull of the cord—of our connection.
“Are you coming to knock me out again?” he asked, his voice oddly absent of the lyrical lilt.
I crossed the remaining distance, stopping just out of his reach. “I haven’t quite decided yet.”
“You can save yourself the effort. I’m not plotting a daring escape, and I don’t have any plans to rain down chaos and destruction.”
“That’s good to know.”
“Is it?” He turned his head, and his profile came into view. His eyes were closed, and the long lashes, darker than his blond hair, rested against the tops of his cheekbones. “Does St. Delphi know you’re down here, Alex?”
My eyes narrowed. “I’m not talking about him.”
One side of his lips curled up in a quick grin and then vanished. “Good, because I really don’t want to hear about how happily in love you two are. I rather you’d knock me out.”
Considering I’d just pulled a gun on Aiden, I wouldn’t say there was a “happily” in that equation right now, but his comment took me aback. I inched to the side and knelt down out of his reach. “Let’s be real with one another. You never loved me like that. You know that, right?”
Seth didn’t respond for a long moment, and then he tipped the side of head back against the bars and let out a weary sigh. “You’re right, but I never had the chance.”
Again, I was knocked off-guard by his candidness. Seth was like the king of vague and unhelpful responses, worse than a god most of the time. I stared at his profile for a long, tense minute; the words sort of just burst from my mouth like a dam breaking under pressure.
“I loved you. It’s not the same way I feel about Aiden, but I loved you, and you betrayed me. You sided with Lucian and practically held me hostage so that I would be forced to connect with you! And I still had hope for you. I still defended you. And then you turned me into Evil Alex and started a war alongside Ares! People have died, Seth.” My voice rose and cracked as my legs weakened. I sat down, my hands limp between my knees as I stared at him through the bars. “And not just recently. How far does all of this go back? To my mom? To the daimons that were at Deity Island and killed Caleb? To all of those who died at the Catskills? Were you and Lucian using daimons then? You were, weren’t you?”
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