The Prophecy

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  “How many students do you think are registered here during the summer?” Josie asked.

  I glanced over at her. She’d thrown her hair up in some kind of twist that looked like it was seconds from toppling off her head. Had to be some kind of girl magic that kept it up there. “Not sure,” I answered. “If I had to guess, I would say probably a couple of hundred? Maybe a thousand or so.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a lot compared to a normal college.” She glanced over at one of the statues of the muses. “But that seems like a lot.”

  “Some of the students probably don’t have a home to return to.” I pushed past the cold feeling that poured into my chest. “A lot of them were displaced during the war with Ares. I imagine they use summer courses as a way to have a place to stay.”

  She looked over at me. A moment passed, and she squeezed my hand.

  “Why are you asking?”

  One shoulder lifted. “The campus just seems empty. It’s probably a good thing, with what happened yesterday.”

  I nodded. “True.”

  Stepping in front of her, I opened the door to the infirmary and led her down a wide hall, to another door that opened into a waiting room.

  We walked up to the square window where an older half-blood sat. It was a little strange seeing a half in a position like this. Before the Breed Act, halfs were either Sentinels, Guards, or servants. They weren’t in positions like this, and I doubted this was commonplace yet. The University would be one of the first places employing halfs. The rest of the communities would be slow to follow.

  She looked up, and I immediately recognized that she must’ve been a Sentinel or Guard at one point. There was a daimon tag—a bite mark—on the woman’s left cheek.

  Fucking daimons.

  They were assholes like that.

  Her nervous gaze bounced between us. She sensed what we were. “How can I help you?”

  “We’d like to talk with a doctor, if one is available,” Josie said.

  Still holding onto her hand, I placed one elbow on the ledge and leaned in. “In other words, a doctor needs to be available.”

  This time when Josie squeezed my hand, there was nothing reassuring about it. I sent her a wink.

  She rolled her eyes.

  The woman behind the window nodded. “I have a feeling we have one available. Take a seat.”

  Raising my brows at Josie, I backed away from the window, tugging her with me.

  “Behave,” she murmured as the secretary disappeared from view.

  “Always.”

  She pinned me with a knowing look as she sat and reached toward her head, but stopped with a frown. I knew what she was doing. Whenever Josie was anxious, she messed with her hair, twisting the length. She must’ve forgotten she’d pulled her hair up.

  Not wanting her to be anxious, I placed my hand on her back and rubbed. “Hey.”

  Josie looked over her shoulder at me. “What?”

  “After this, we should make a pit stop and grab some bacon.”

  Her eyes lit up. “Sold.”

  I chuckled as I continued rubbing her back. “Then we’ll go find Alex and Aiden.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” She bit down on her lip as she eyed the window. “Keep rubbing my back. I like it.”

  Smiling, I leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “Wasn’t planning on stopping.”

  “Good.”

  Movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. It was the secretary. No sooner had the half reappeared behind the window when the door to our right opened and a female pure-blood appeared. She was wearing blue scrubs and a white lab coat. “You two need to see a doctor?” she asked.

  I had a feeling that a doctor didn’t normally come out and retrieve the patient, but then again, I doubted the infirmary was accustomed to a god and a demigod asking to see a doctor.

  Josie slipped her hand free and stood. “Yes.”

  The doctor glanced at me and then nodded, holding the door open. “Together?”

  “Of course.” Josie motioned at me and then started forward. Rising from the not-so-comfortable chair, I followed behind her, making a promise that I’d keep my mouth shut and behave, because it was obvious that Josie was nervous.

  The doctor waited for us in a narrow hall. If she was wigged out by being in our presence, she didn’t show it. Her expression was one of professional interest and nothing more. “I’m Dr. Morales.” She extended a hand.

  “Josie.” She shook the doctor’s hand and then twisted to me. “This is Seth.”

  The doctor folded her cool hand around mine. “Nice to meet you both. Why don’t you two step in here?”

  Dr. Morales opened the door to a small room that looked like any other normal doctor’s office. Josie hesitated for a moment and then walked over to the exam table and sat on the edge. I stayed close to her, keeping my hand on her back.

  “So, what are you two here for?” Dr. Morales took a seat on one of those leather stools with wheels on the legs.

  Josie glanced at me, and then drew in a deep breath. Her cheeks flushed a pretty pink. “I’m pregnant and he’s…he’s, um, the father.”

  I resisted a grin. Josie was just so damn adorable sometimes.

  There was a flicker of surprise that rolled over the doctor’s face. I was sure she didn’t see a lot of people our age having children. Halfs had always been required to take birth control, and pures typically didn’t have children until they were much, much older.

  “I don’t know if you know what we are,” Josie added.

  Dr. Morales crossed a leg over the other. “I know who you two are.” A quick smile appeared. “I’m pretty sure everyone here knows who you two are.”

  “Okay.” Josie looked relieved. “I don’t think I’m very far along or anything, but we really don’t know what we’re supposed to do other than get an appointment with an OBGYN.”

  “There aren’t any OBGYNs here,” Dr. Morales said.

  “We expected that,” I intervened, still moving my hand along Josie’s back. “Not like a lot of students here are having babies, but we figured it would be a good idea to get checked out and find out what our options are.”

  “Okay.” Dr. Morales rose, reaching for the stethoscope around her neck. “What I can do is do a general exam and make sure that all the vitals for you are normal, and then we’ll go from there, all right?”

  Biting down on her lip, Josie nodded, and then it was time for me to step back and give them some space. Dr. Morales got down to work, listening to Josie’s heart and then her lungs. Josie even got her ears checked, as well as about every orifice except for the interesting ones. Then Dr. Morales moved onto questions. Personal ones. Ones that made Josie flush even deeper.

  Was this her first pregnancy?

  Was she positive she was pregnant?

  When did she think she got pregnant?

  That was when I jumped in. “It’s been about five to six weeks.”

  “You can sit up now,” Dr. Morales said after palpating Josie’s stomach. I had no idea what that did. “All of your vitals are perfect, and this is definitely an early pregnancy. Usually at this stage in a pregnancy, it’s a wait and see period.”

  “What does that mean?” Josie straightened her shirt as I returned to her side and got back to the rub-down.

  Dr. Morales sat back on the stool. “What do you two know about pregnancy among our…among our kind?”

  I lifted my brows. “Well…”

  Josie shrugged as she started gently swinging her feet. “Is it not like a…a mortal’s pregnancy?”

  The doctor smiled then. “In terms of pregnancy length? It’s nine months. Some don’t make it to full term, just like with mortals, and have the baby a little early. That does appear to be more common with our kind, especially the pure-bloods, and I imagine that will be the same for you two based on the amount of aether you both have.”

  “Wait.” Concern rippled through me. I didn’t know a lot about babies
, but I knew delivering early could be bad, real bad. “How early?”

  “Nothing too serious. Definitely in the third trimester, usually around eight months, but…” She exhaled hard. “Pregnancy between two pures is notoriously hard to carry out of the first trimester, and with half-bloods, it’s even harder.”

  I stiffened, but I didn’t let my hand still. “I didn’t know that.”

  “I didn’t think so. I know that pregnancy is not something that is often discussed among…” She trailed off, but I knew what she meant. Since I was a half-blood while I was Apollyon, pregnancy was forbidden. “No one really knows why. Some truly believe it’s just Fate and nothing medical.”

  My upper lip curled. Fate. Gods.

  “Is there something I can do to make sure I don’t lose the pregnancy?” Josie asked.

  “We’ve had women go on bed rest from the moment they found out they were pregnant and it hasn’t made a difference. It’s something that will either hold.” Dr. Morales looked at me. “Or it won’t.”

  That sounded like utter bullshit to me.

  Josie glanced up at me, her eyes wide.

  Dr. Morales focused on Josie. “Right now, you still have several weeks to go before you make it to the second trimester. I can tell you that typically women in their third trimester are more symptomatic.”

  “What does that mean?” I curled my hand around the nape of Josie’s neck, smoothing my thumb along her pulse.

  “More fatigued. Nausea and vomiting usually affect our mothers in the third trimester and not the first, like with mortal pregnancies. Backaches and other things like that, but you two…you two may be entirely different.”

  Josie inclined her head. “In what ways?”

  “As far as I know, and granted, it’s been a long time since I took Myths and Legends, but I do not recall there ever being a child of a demigod and a god.”

  Shit.

  Both of us had been so sure that there had to be another case like ours. If there wasn’t, that meant…

  Josie’s feet stopped swinging. “So, you’re saying that we’re the first?”

  “First documented case that I know of.” Curiosity filled Dr. Morales’s gaze. “Anything is possible with the pregnancy.”

  Chapter 9

  Josie

  The best OBGYN.

  That was what Seth had ordered when Dr. Morales said she was going to make some phones calls to find us an OBGYN. Dr. Morales assured us that would be the case, but at that point, I would have just been happy with any doctor who specialized in the whole birthing babies thing.

  Seth and I were the first ever god and demigod to get together and have a child? That was… Wow, that seemed insane to me. Which meant that everything Dr. Morales said, about having difficulty carrying a baby to having more symptoms in the third trimester, could mean nothing.

  Like the nurse before her, the one who administered the pregnancy test, Dr. Morales took a blood test just to confirm the necessary hormones were still present.

  I didn’t need the blood test to confirm what I already knew. I was still pregnant. Call it instinct or a soon to be mother’s intuition, but I knew.

  Seth and I didn’t get the chance to really discuss anything the doctor had spoken to us about, since we went to the cafeteria to grab some bacon and ended up running into Alex and Aiden. They were on their way to see Marcus and that’s where the four of us ended up, in Marcus’s office.

  Alexander, Alex’s father, was there, a silent sentry who smiled in such a way that the moment he saw his daughter the skin around his eyes crinkled.

  A pang lit up my chest as I watched Alex break away from Aiden, and go right up to her father and hug him. It wasn’t the burning feel of jealousy or envy. But I did envy that, their relationship. I wanted that with my father. Heck, I would have liked to see my father. So, mostly, I just felt…sad.

  I looked away as I walked to my chair, catching Seth’s gaze. There was a soft look in his eyes, one that made me wonder if he knew what I was thinking.

  His fingers brushed along my arm as I stepped around him. The touch was oddly soothing as I sat in one of the large, wingback chairs across from Marcus.

  “Thank you,” Marcus said, sitting down behind his huge, mahogany desk as he eyed Seth. “For not just appearing in my office, but instead walking through my door.”

  Aiden smirked from where he stood next to the other empty chair.

  “I figured I need the exercise today.” Seth folded his arms across his chest. “But I’ll make sure to pop in when you least expect it later on.”

  Marcus shot him a droll look before looking over at Alex. She sat in the chair beside me. “I’m assuming you all are here to discuss what happened yesterday?”

  So much had happened yesterday that I wasn’t exactly sure which part they were starting with.

  Alex spoke up, taking the lead as usual. “So, we think we have some information on the half-blood that was killed.”

  Sitting back, Marcus dropped one leg over the other. “Right now, I would love nothing more than to have the name of the perpetrator.”

  “That we don’t have,” Aiden chimed in.

  “And what would you do if you had a name?” Seth asked.

  Marcus’s gaze slid to where Seth stood beside me. “What I would need to do is turn the person over to the authorities, but that is not what I would want to do.”

  Seth inclined his head. “Understood.”

  “Okay,” I blew out a long breath. “Now that that’s out of the way… The mask yesterday had Ares’s symbol on it.”

  Marcus’s jaw hardened. “It did.”

  “And after talking with Seth, we think that whoever this is, if it’s a person or a group, they are following Ares,” I continued. “Well, following some of his beliefs, that is.”

  “At the end of the day, Ares hated half-bloods. He viewed them the same way he did mortals. There were a lot of pure-bloods that agreed with him—with the idea that pure-bloods should be ruling the mortal realm and halfs and mortals should be subservient to them.” As Seth spoke, his voice was flat and without emotion, but I knew talking about Ares was probably like stabbing yourself over and over with a hot poker.

  Especially considering who was in the room.

  “When I was doing Remediations for the gods, I took out a lot of his supporters, but not all of them,” Seth finished.

  “I wouldn’t want to believe that was the case, that whoever has been responsible for what’s been happening on campus here has anything to do with Ares,” Aiden jumped in. “But we cannot underestimate what it means for Ares’s symbol to be on that mask.”

  “And it makes sense.” Alex leaned forward, her shoulders tense. “There have been a ton of problems here—”

  “Not just here,” Marcus cut in. “There’s been similar issues and murders in some of the pure communities and at the Covenants.”

  “So, it would have to be somewhat organized,” she went on. “Right?”

  “Most hate groups are. Some are more organized than others, I imagine.” Marcus rubbed two fingers along his temple like he was trying to scrub away a headache. A long moment passed and he dropped his hand to the arm of the chair. “One of the last things I ever wanted to hear was Ares’s name.”

  “You and me both.” Alex’s voice was soft, and I knew Seth was thinking the same thing. “He may be dead, but I don’t think we’ve heard the last of him.”

  ~

  Seth

  “What’s the plan, then?” Marcus asked, getting down to business like he always did.

  “Whether it’s a group of pures who still follow Ares’s beliefs or not, I think we need to start with the obvious. The pures that are here, on campus.”

  “Not just the students, but also the staff,” Aiden agreed. We hadn’t talked about this, but we were obviously on the same page. “So, we’ll need a list of every single one.”

  Marcus raised a brow. “That is a lot of confidential information.”


  “I know it is.” Aiden’s smile was tight. “And I know sharing that info goes against a lot of rules, but we need to be able to check each of these people out.”

  “And look for what?”

  Josie leaned forward. “It would depend on what you have on the students and staff here. Their backgrounds, where they came from, family information, and what not.” Eagerness filled Josie’s voice, drawing my gaze. “If you have that kind of information, we could build a profile.”

  Alexander’s gaze sharpened.

  “What do mean by a profile?” Alex twisted in her seat toward Josie.

  “It’s a tool the FBI and other law enforcement agencies use to help recognize people who are likely to commit crimes and to also recognize a pattern among crimes that happen,” she explained. “It’s basically built on psychological behaviors and what a profiler previously knows about others who have committed similar crimes.”

  Alex stared at her blankly, and my lips twitched.

  “Okay. For example, there are already profiles out there for humans who commit hate crimes. You can take that profile and apply it to a pure-blood. I bet you’d find the same red flags—similar childhoods with earlier exposure to prejudice, they typically have no prior crimes, their bias usually isn’t as overt as others, a situation where they felt wronged somehow. I could keep going.” Her cheeks flushed pink. “But what I’m saying is we probably wouldn’t have to talk to every single pure-blood here. With the necessary info, we could probably trim down the pool of possible suspects. I’m sure there are basic profiles out there out on the Internet, or if you had any connection with law enforcement.”

  Marcus inclined his head. “Actually, we do have some connections in law enforcement.”

  “Well…” Josie sat back. “I would reach out to them and see if they have a profile. Or better yet, if they’re trained, they could possibly look over the info—”

  “Wait. Josie, you studied psychology, right?” I spoke up, and Josie’s wide gaze swung toward me. I nodded. “She can get a profile and figure out who we need to talk to.”

  Josie faced Marcus. A moment passed. “I studied psychology and I did really well in my class.”

  Damn straight she did. My girl was smart.