Apollyon c-4

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  “I haven’t been hiding from you, Alex.” A muscle worked in his jaw as he stared out the window. “Do you really think this is the time to be talking about this?”

  I took a deep breath and felt my famous temper rise to the occasion. “Is there a better time?”

  “Maybe when you haven’t just been sucked into gods-know-where by Seth and we’re not planning on going out there and coming face-to-face with gods-know-what.” He glanced over his shoulder, eyes a cool gray. “Maybe then.”

  Oh, I was two seconds from jumping on his back and strangling him from behind… with love, of course.

  “Do you think we’re going to get a better time to talk about this? That sometime in the near future everything is just going to pause for us to have a heart-to-heart?” Aiden had turned back to the window, but I didn’t need to see his face to know he wasn’t a happy camper. “Okay. I don’t get this. You were fine when we came back. We—”

  “We shouldn’t have done that.”

  Pain sliced into my chest like he’d socked me. At once, I felt the marks respond, bleeding across my skin.

  Aiden’s head tipped down and he cursed. “I didn’t mean it like that. That night—it was the best night of my life. I don’t regret it, but I should’ve waited until you’d had time to come to grips with everything. I lost… I lost control.”

  I stepped forward. “I like when you lose control.”

  He shook his head mutely.

  “I was okay, Aiden. I wasn’t damaged. I’m not damaged now. So why are you hiding from me?”

  “I’m not hiding from you.”

  “Bull! You avoid spending any time alone with me, except at night.”

  Aiden faced me, thrusting his fingers through his hair. “At night, when I’m sleeping, is the only time I don’t think about it—what I did. You… don’t understand. What I did to you—putting you on the Elixir? I don’t deserve anything else.”

  “You—”

  “I didn’t have to, Alex. It was weak of me. I didn’t trust that eventually you’d break the bond. And seeing what it did to you? I can’t forgive myself for that.”

  My mouth dropped open. “You can’t blame yourself for that! You did what was right.”

  Anger flashed in his eyes. “It wasn’t right.”

  “Aiden—”

  “The Elixir was one of your greatest fears, Alex! And I did that to you!”

  Surprised, I took a step back. Rarely did Aiden ever raise his voice, but I knew his anger and frustration weren’t directed at me. It was his own guilt—guilt he shouldn’t be carrying around with him.

  “How…” He came forward, lowering his voice as his eyes locked with mine. “How is what I did any different than what Seth did to you—is still doing to you?”

  I gaped. “Putting me on the Elixir isn’t the same thing as Seth twisting me into a psychotic Apollyon!”

  “But I stripped you of who you are, Alex. It’s the same.” Heat rolled off him in waves, intensifying as the seconds passed. Most people would’ve been terrified of him like this.

  I was mostly annoyed—and saddened.

  “I held you down and forced your mouth open as Marcus gave you the Elixir.” He shook his head a little, as if he was dumbfounded by his own actions. “You begged for me to stop and I didn’t. I watched the Elixir take hold, and it was me who became your Master. I can’t…” He cut off and turned away.

  Tears filled my eyes. Wanting nothing more than to take that guilt away, I was at a loss as to how I could. I stepped behind him, wanting to just hug him until he understood I didn’t blame him. If there was anyone else more stubborn than me in this world, it was Aiden. If the tables were turned, Aiden would’ve had something ridiculously supportive to say. He would use an eloquent mash-up of words that meant something, and when that didn’t work, he would just tell me how it was.

  I didn’t have pretty words, so I settled on second—er, third best. “Look, I hate to cut through your self-pity with a big dose of grow-up.”

  Turning around, Aiden’s brows shot up and he opened his mouth.

  “No.” I placed my hand over his lips—his warm, warm lips. My entire arm tingled from the contact. “You had to make a tough decision. All of you did. I was Evil Alex. And I remember threatening to pull out Deacon’s ribcage. I can understand why you did it.”

  He wrapped his fingers around my wrist and gently removed my hand, though he didn’t let go. Score! “Alex, this isn’t about you forgiving me.”

  “Then what’s it about?” I moved closer, my thighs knocking into his locked knees. “I forgive you. Hell, there’s nothing to forgive. And if anything, I should be thanking you.”

  Dropping my hand, he looked away and shook his head as he moved to the couch, sitting heavily. “Don’t ever thank me for putting you on the Elixir.”

  “Ugh!” I threw up my hand. I was this close to knocking him off the couch. “I wasn’t thanking you for that. I was thanking you for not giving up on me. For still being there for me when I was acting like a psycho.”

  He stared up at me, stony as ever.

  “I want to strangle you.”

  Aiden arched a brow.

  I let out a long breath. “We’ve all done things that we regret. I’m living with the fact that I threatened everyone that I care about. You have no idea the things I thought—the things I believed in—when I was connected with Seth. Or maybe you do, but it’s not the same. And if I can get over it, then by gods, you need to get over it.”

  His mouth opened, but I wasn’t done. “I need you right now, more than ever. And I don’t need you to just hold me at night.” I paused, frowning. “Even though that’s really nice and all, I need you to really be here.”

  Hurt flashed in his silvery eyes. “I am here for you.”

  “You’re not.” I shook my head. “You can’t be when you’re sulking around here, blaming yourself for something you had to do. I need you to man up, Aiden.”

  “Man up?” He sat back in a lazy, arrogant sprawl, but the coiled tension was in every muscle in his body. “It’s a good thing I love you or I’d find that particularly insulting.”

  “If you love me, you’d get over this. You’d deal with it, accept that you had to do it, and get past it.” My breath got caught. “Because I’m scared out of my mind, Aiden, and I don’t know how any of us are going to survive what’s happening. Right now, I need you—all of you. We—we—are more important than your guilt, or at least I thought so, but apparently I’m wasting my breath.”

  I was really close to tipping the couch back and dumping him off of it, but he shot up and was in front of me before I could blink an eye. He wrapped an arm around my waist and our eyes locked. Everywhere our bodies touched, heat rushed to the surface. It wasn’t like I had forgotten what it was like to be in his arms, I just wasn’t prepared for it.

  I could never be prepared for it.

  Neither was Aiden. His eyes were burning a liquid silver and his arm tightened around me. “I would never give up on you, Alex. Never.”

  “Then why are you being such a—”

  “What?” His voice dropped low. “I’m being what?”

  Infuriating. Stubborn. Thick-skulled. Freaking sexy. “Good gods, can we stop arguing and just, I don’t know, make out?”

  A deep, husky laugh rumbled through his body and teased mine. “Is that what you want?”

  More than the air I breathed. “What do you think?”

  He moved forward, backing me up until I was pressed against the closed door. “That I’m seriously in love with your one-track mind.”

  I opened my mouth to point out that my multitasking skills had drastically improved, but Aiden took advantage. His mouth was on mine, and the kiss—oh, the kiss killed that freshly acquired skilled. Blew it right out the window.

  When he lifted his head, just by the slightest, I gasped.

  “Okay. You may have a point,” he said.

  “A point?” I thought I’d made several.
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  “It’s hard, Alex, remembering how you were,” Aiden admitted quietly. He slid a hand through the mess of hair at the nape of my neck, sending shivers dancing over my skin. “I hated it. Hated every moment of it.”

  I placed my hand on his cheek. “I know.”

  “And all I could think about was getting you back.” He pressed his lips to my temple and then the hollow of my cheek. “But you’re right. I haven’t been here completely.”

  “You’re not going to feel guilty over that, too?”

  He grinned against the side of my neck, his lips moving against my wildly pounding pulse. “You always have to be such a smartass.”

  Looping my arm around his neck, I smiled. “Maybe…” Hope dared to spark. “Are you okay, now? Are we okay?”

  “We’re okay.” Aiden kissed me softly and kept on kissing me as he lifted me just by one arm and turned me around. Within seconds, my back was pressing into the cushion and he was over me, fully-clothed and covered with weapons. “I’m okay.”

  “You are?”

  He smiled and it revealed those dimples. “I will be.”

  I started to say something, but his hand drifted down my side, tracing the line of my ribcage and then higher, and I totally forgot what I was going to say. I felt dizzy with expectation, of want and need, and a hundred other things as my heart pounded and my breath grew short.

  “Thank you,” he whispered, and then brought his lips to mine again, pressing me closer, until our hips fitted together tightly. Crazy-insane sensations rushed over my body. “Thank you.”

  I wasn’t sure how we went from arguing to this, or what he was really thanking me for, but I wasn’t complaining, and in a really twisted way it seemed normal. Aiden worshipped me as if I’d been born worthy of such a beautiful, complicated man, and over the course of that night, he truly showed me that we were okay, that he was okay, and, for now, that was what I needed to face tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 17

  I had a stupid grin on my face for the most of the next day. Even though I was chilly, covered in mud from training in the warded area, and tired from using akasha and the elements, I looked like I’d been smacked with a silly stick.

  Only a few times did it slip, and that was when I thought about Seth and the stunt he’d managed to pull yesterday. After Aiden and I… well, when we’d started actually using our mouths for words again, we agreed to keep what had happened between us and Marcus. There was no reason to freak everyone else out, and going by the way Marcus had reacted, it’d been a smart decision.

  Marcus hadn’t thrown anything, but he’d been as angry as Aiden.

  And I knew that was why Marcus had switched out with Solos when it came to training today. But it was weird beating up my uncle.

  Whenever our ragtag group took a break, Aiden was by my side. There were moments when he’d become unbearably quiet and Broody McBroodsters, and I knew he was thinking about what he had done with the Elixir. He was trying though, and that was what mattered.

  We ended the day and hobbled back inside, greeted by the scent of the stew Laadan had cooked up. I went upstairs to wash the day’s worth of grime off, and Aiden followed.

  Once inside the room, I tossed him a coy look over my shoulder. At least, I thought it was coy, but I probably looked like I had something in my eye.

  Aiden grinned nonetheless.

  “Are you following me?” I asked, kicking off my boots.

  He prowled forward, moving like one of those caged panthers we’d seen at the zoo. “I’m just being here for you, and I think you really need me right now.”

  “Ha. Ha.” Out of my shoes, Aiden towered over me, I felt like a hobbit standing in front of him.

  Aiden’s grin spread and a dimple in his left cheek appeared. He tucked a strand of my hair back, then his hands dropped and he tugged the shirt out of my cargos. “I think you called it ‘manning up’.”

  This wasn’t the kind of manning up I’d been talking about the night before, because even with my limited knowledge of such things, he excelled in that department. But I said nothing as I stared up at him.

  Lowering his head, his lips brushed over mine. I was sure I tasted of dirt and sour apple, courtesy of the Blow Pop I’d been nursing earlier, but he made this sound against my mouth, part growl and part something deeper. As the kiss deepened, like he could just devour the taste and feel, I melted against him.

  “I really like your idea of manning up,” I murmured, clutching at the front of his shirt.

  Aiden chuckled as the tips of his fingers skimmed over my stomach. Heat followed, chasing away the chill in my skin. I reached up, wanting more, always needing more—

  “Don’t stop on my account.”

  I shrieked at the sound of Apollo’s voice and jerked back, tripping over my feet. Aiden caught my arm, steadying me before I face-planted the floor.

  “Gods,” I muttered, placing a hand over my pounding heart. I’d been so caught up in Aiden I hadn’t even sensed Apollo’s presence.

  Apollo sat on the edge of the bed, head cocked to the side, one leg crossed over the other. His blond hair was loose, framing a face that was eerily perfect. Vibrant blue eyes stared back at me instead of the creepy all-white eyes of a god. I was surprised that he remembered how much they freaked me out.

  Aiden recovered first, moving to stand in front of me. He stiffened at the sound of Apollo’s amused chuckle. “How did you get in here?”

  “The wards on the house faded about three hours ago. Luckily, none of the other gods have realized that and, for the most part, they don’t want Alex dead.” And then he tacked on, “…right at this moment.”

  I looked at him blandly. “Good to know.”

  “Maybe next time you’d want to knock?” Aiden suggested, relaxing a fraction of an inch.

  Apollo’s shoulders lifted. “Where is the fun in that?” But he stood, his head inclining to the side. “We need to talk, but both of you look like you’ve been wrestling in mud.”

  “We’ve been training,” I pointed out. “Like you suggested.”

  If he was grateful that we’d actually followed instructions, it didn’t show. “I will be waiting downstairs. Try not to take ten years.”

  With that, he simply blinked out of existence. A moment later, I heard a startled yelp downstairs. Glad we weren’t the only ones he liked to do that to.

  I slumped against the wall. “I think he took a few years off my life.”

  Aiden’s brow arched. “I still think we need to put a bell on him.”

  My lips twitched. “And I still think that’s a good idea.”

  He glanced at the door and then took my hand, tugging me toward the bathroom. “We only have a few minutes. Let’s make them worth our while.”

  More than a few minutes later, Aiden and I stood in the large living room with everyone else. Apollo was busying himself with a bowl of the stew Laadan and Deacon had made.

  “Hungry?” I asked, after several moments of awkward silence stretched out.

  He looked up. “Not really, but this is delicious.”

  Laadan all but beamed from the couch. “Thank you.”

  “We wouldn’t know,” Aiden said. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed.

  Apollo’s lips spread into a smile. “Sorry. I’ll try to come after dinner next time.” The bowl disappeared from his hands, and I wondered where it went. “Well, it’s good to see the Scooby gang all in one piece. Warms my heart and all thatjazz, but let’s get to the point.”

  “Let’s do that,” I murmured as I hopped up on the desk, letting my feet dangle off the edge. “You said we needed to talk.”

  “We do.” Apollo drifted toward where Olivia and Deacon sat primly beside Laadan. He looked at them a long moment, as if he could see something beyond what our eyes were capable of, and then turned around. “First, I need you to fill me in on everything the First has shared with you.”

  Kicking my legs off the side of the desk, I gave him the quick and dir
ty version of events. There wasn’t much to tell, and Apollo didn’t pass over that fact.

  “That’s it?” He didn’t even attempt to hide his irritation and disappointment. “You guys have this unbreakable bond that nearly destroyed the entire world, and all you can tell me is that you think he’s heading north, which is something I already know?”

  My lips pursed. Way to make me feel like an epic failure of an Apollyon.

  “It’s not her fault,” Aiden snapped, eyes flashing like quicksilver. “He kept most of his plans to himself.”

  “Probably because he feared that she might eventually break the bond,” Marcus said. “So the question remains—what do we do with the knowledge that we have?”

  “And hopefully you have some knowledge to bring to the table?” I fixed an innocent look on my face. “That would be a nice change of pace.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “Can you tell us how Thanatos was able to discover us?” Marcus asked.

  “Yes, that’s rather easy. Alex’s little display of akasha while fighting Aiden drew Thanatos to her.”

  I frowned at the reminder. “But I’ve been practicing with it since then.”

  “Practicing with akasha is one thing, Alex. It doesn’t even register on our scale, especially if you stayed within the wards I sensed outside.” His eyes slid toward Aiden. “Using it to try to kill someone is like throwing up a homing beacon.”

  Flinching, I looked away. “So you’re saying not to use akasha then?”

  “I have a work-around for that.” Apollo held out his hand and the air around it shimmered an electric blue. A second later, a small medallion appeared in his palm, connected to a chain that dangled from his fingers. A smug, satisfied grin stretched Apollo’s lips. “I took Hermes’ helmet, melted the mother down, and here you go. An invisibility charm just for you.”

  Apollo dropped the necklace into my palm. It was a reddish-gold color, and a crudely shaped wing was etched into it. “Ha,” I said. “It’s like Harry Potter and the invisibility cloak.”