The Power

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  “At the motel. You were completely in a different world,” he explained.

  Bending forward, I kissed his forehead. “I started to think about something really random.”

  “You? Thinking something random?” He laughed when I leaned back and smacked his arm. “Never would’ve guessed that.”

  “Ha. Ha.”

  “So what were you thinking about?”

  “About the fact that I’m immortal and you’re not,” I explained, grinning when his brows inched up. “But I’m going to fix that.”

  His mouth moved wordlessly for a moment. “How . . . how are you going to fix that?”

  I grinned at him. “I know Apollo can do that—make you immortal. He made Alex and Aiden immortal, so it’s totally possible.”

  “Yeah,” he said slowly. “It’s possible, but that was different for them. Apollo isn’t going to make me immortal.”

  Undaunted, I continued. “Oh, he will. And he’ll also make sure that deal you made with Hades is null and void if he wants me to help take down the Titans.”

  Shock splashed across Seth’s face. “What?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it for a while. They want me to help them. They need me, actually.” Feeling pretty smug, I moved to kiss him again, but Seth pulled back. He rose. I frowned. “What?”

  He stared down at me like I’d sprouted a boob out of the middle of my forehead. “You’re going to try to negotiate with the gods?”

  “Well, with my father—”

  “Who is a god, Josie. You cannot negotiate with them, not even Apollo. They will turn every deal and flip it back on you,” he said. “I’ve seen them do it, and your father is no different.”

  That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear, but I wasn’t surprised. “If they want me to stop the Titans, they will do this for me.”

  “You’re insane,” he whispered, backing up.

  “Geez. You’re welcome.” I pushed a loose strand of my hair back. “Look, I’m going to do something. There is no way I’m going to allow them to continue using you and then take over your afterlife. Nope. Not going to happen. So just accept it and move on, because I’m hungry.”

  Seth gaped at me. “I am not worth that kind of risk, Josie.”

  Anger flashed through me. “Would you please stop saying that? I hate it when you say that.”

  “Why?” Frustration filled the air. “Because it’s true. Is that why?”

  “It is not true, Seth.”

  He laughed harshly. “You have no idea, Joe. That’s the problem. It isn’t your fault, but you have no idea.”

  “Well, that’s not insulting or anything.”

  “I don’t mean it to be, but it’s the truth. You’re willing to put yourself in a very precarious position when you don’t know what I’m capable of, but I do, Josie. I know exactly what I’m capable of.”

  I forced myself to take a nice slow and even breath. “Seth—”

  “No. This conversation is over and done with. You’re not going to make any crazy deals that backfire in your face.” He waved his hand as if he was signaling the end of this conversation, and that was a big oh-hell-no. “I made my bed and I’m going to roll around in it.”

  I waited a second. “Are you done yet?”

  His eyes flared a bright ocher.

  “Just wanted to make sure, since you think you can tell me what I can and cannot do. Guess what? You can’t. And you know what else? I understand that because of what you did in your past, you think you’re not worth me—”

  “In the past?” Seth laughed again, the sound cold and hard. “You think I’m talking about that shit with Ares? How about a couple of weeks ago?”

  “What . . . what do you mean?”

  Seth stared at me a moment and then he spoke a shattering four words. “I fed off you.”

  “What?” I whispered after what was probably an entire minute of trying to process what he’d said. There was no way he said what I thought he said, because it didn’t make sense.

  He turned sharply, stalking away from the bed, giving me his back. “Fuck. I should’ve told you before . . . before you gave yourself to me, but I’m a fucking selfish bastard. You heard me right, Josie. I fed off you—off your aether.”

  My lips moved, but my tongue forgot how to form words. Shocked, I sat there as an icy shiver danced down my spine. Goosebumps raced over my skin. Seth had fed off me?

  “That’s the kind of . . . of thing I am.”

  Lifting my gaze, I saw him drag his hand through his hair. His fingers spasmed around the strands, tugging them briefly before his hand dropped to the nape of his neck.

  “I have a . . . a problem. I’ve had one for a while now, and I tried . . . I’m trying not to be that person, but it’s in me, and it comes out. I know it’s going to again, and when it does, I don’t care who I hurt—what trust I break. In that moment, I don’t care who I’m hurting. Even you.” The raw edge to his words cut deep. He turned slowly, his chest rising sharply. “I don’t want to be that person. Gods, not with you, but I am.”

  Suddenly, he was in front of me, clasping my cheeks. My heart jumped in my chest. “Every day I want you, Josie. I want everything about you. I see you and I want to get between those thighs and spend a lifetime there. I want to get so deep in you that you can’t tell where you end and I begin. I want to taste you and fuck you until I don’t know anything else. Constantly. I want more than that. Not going to lie. I want to hold you.”

  I couldn’t breathe as his gaze held mine captive.

  “I want to be with you. I want to spend every day with you. Every hour, down to the last fucking minute and second,” he said, his voice rough. Cutting. “But that’s not all I want. What’s in you? The aether. Fuck.” His eyes closed briefly and when they reopened, they burned with unholy light, shocking me. “I want that just as badly. Yeah. I want that. I had that when you were coming on my knee.”

  My heart pounded fast. His words created a mixture of disgust . . . and God, lust. That was there, too, responding to his words. There was something wrong with me. There was something definitely wrong with him.

  “I cannot be trusted,” he said, holding my chin so I couldn’t look away, so that I had to hear and see those words. And I saw his words. I heard them. “And you know what? You’re the only one who doesn’t see it. You think Alex doesn’t? That Aiden doesn’t? They do. That’s the kind of person you’re willing to anger the gods over. That’s the kind of person you’re willing to make a deal for and give up gods know what for.” Dropping my chin, he straightened, letting his hand fall to his side. “I am not worth that.”

  Seth walked away again, and the numbness faded. Emotion rose inside me, as violent as a hurricane battering the shoreline. Hurt exploded in my chest just as fury burned red-hot in the pit of my stomach.

  “How many times?” I asked.

  There was a pause. “Does that even matter?”

  “How many times?” I shouted this time, not caring if anyone heard me.

  His head fell back. “Just once.”

  I let that sink in. I wasn’t sure if that changed anything or not. I wasn’t even sure what I was supposed to do with this information. The back of my throat burned as I stared at his rigid back. I couldn’t even really think. “When?”

  Seth didn’t answer for a moment. “I did it the . . . the last day I trained you. When we were arguing and then . . . making out. I lost control and fed off you.”

  My mind raced back to that day. “I don’t understand. I didn’t feel anything. The last time I was fed off of, it hurt.”

  His spine seemed to stiffen even more. “It doesn’t always hurt. It can be done so that it doesn’t.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath. He’d been all over me that day, and I had . . . I shook my head, so . . . so freaking numb. And suddenly, it made sense. Why he’d pulled away immediately afterward. It wasn’t just because he thought he wasn’t worth it, but also because he’d done something wrong, horribly wrong.
To me.

  And he’d never fessed up to it. Not until now.

  Seth had fed off me.

  I shot off that bed like a rocket. He faced me just as I reached him. I didn’t even think as I cocked my arm back and punched him right in the stomach. Seth doubled over with a grunt.

  “That,” I said, shaking as I forced myself to step back. “That is for feeding off me.”

  “Gods,” he gasped. “I deserved that.”

  “How could you?” I demanded, hands clenching into fists again. “How could you do that after knowing Hyperion had—he had done that to me?”

  “I . . .” He didn’t finish that statement, because what could he say?

  I wanted to hit him again. I wanted to kick him. Gods, I wanted to whale on him. Tears filled my eyes as I continued walking back, until I bumped into the bench. I wanted to . . . I wanted to shake him and I wanted him to never have told me what had happened. “Why didn’t you try harder?”

  He straightened and he sounded like he’d swallowed glass when he spoke. “I didn’t realize what I was doing at first. That . . . that doesn’t make it right, but as soon as I did, I stopped. That’s why . . .”

  “Why what?” My voice cracked.

  Seth looked away. “That’s why you weren’t hurt. You were just tired.”

  “Just tired,” I whispered, remembering falling asleep while eating. My legs shook and I sat down heavily on the bench. I tried to make sense of this. “So you stopped when you realized what you were doing.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that I did it.”

  Did it? Or not? I had no idea. Nothing to base this on. I mean, it wasn’t like he’d cheated on me or had been abusive in the way normal people were, but this was a betrayal. This was a big deal.

  I smoothed my hand down my face, shaken. “I want you to be honest with me. You only did it once?”

  Seth nodded.

  “And that’s why you stayed away from me after that?”

  Another nod.

  I squeezed my hand, placing it against my chest. “But you haven’t done it since we . . . since we got back together. Why?”

  “I . . . I never want to ever hurt you or . . . take from you what is not mine.” He went to the door and leaned against it. Slowly, he shook his head, and in that moment, I’d never seen him look so young and vulnerable. So human. “And I decided that night we came together that I wouldn’t ever do it again, and if I did . . .”

  “What? What would you do then?”

  Lips thin and pressed together, he closed his eyes again. “I would make sure you’d never see my face again.”

  Anger beat out all the other emotions once more. “Oh, instead of, I don’t know, coming and talking to me about it? Letting me help you? Us working together—”

  “Working together on what, Josie? You think you can help me with this, with this thing inside of me?”

  I snapped my mouth shut even though there was so much I wanted to say, that could be said. I could’ve told him no. That this—that becoming better and doing better—was all on him. I could’ve told him yes. That I could help him. I could support him making right . . . right choices. I could be aware of when it was becoming too much for him. I could tell him that I wanted to throat punch him. I could tell him that I still loved him.

  And I did.

  But I didn’t.

  Because I was furious. My skin practically split with the anger. Because I was hurt. The ache was in my chest, spreading and swelling, because . . . dammit. Because I was revolted. I expected better from him, and he had betrayed that expectation and trust. He’d done to me what Hyperion had done to me. That made me want to hurl.

  Lowering my gaze, I pressed my balled hand against my forehead and forced the knot in my throat to ease back.

  “So.” His gravelly voice broke the silence. “This is it?”

  I didn’t say anything. All I could think about was that night he said he was afraid that everything would turn into a nightmare and that I would hate him forever. He’d been living with this secret for weeks, like a sword of Damocles hanging over his head.

  Several moments passed and Seth then said, “Out of everything that I’ve done, what I did to you was the worst. You were a gift to me, and I fucked that up. That’s on me, and I’m so incredibly sorry.” He paused, and I squeezed my eyes shut. “There’s nothing more in this world I’m—”

  A sudden shout from downstairs cut him off. I reacted out of instinct, springing to my feet as Seth spun around, throwing open the door. There was a loud crash, raising the hairs on my arms. Everything with Seth was pushed aside as we rushed from the room.

  Chapter 29

  Seth

  Feeling gutted, I left the room, rushing out into the long hallway. At the end, Deacon was coming out of the room he was sharing with Luke, his expression pinched with concern as he tugged a clean shirt on over his head. He joined us as we hit the steps.

  I was sick to my stomach, even though I’d done the right thing by telling Josie, and discouraging her from making a deal she’d regret.

  Shit. I’d tasted fear the moment she said she planned on making a deal with the gods for me. They would’ve flipped it back on her so fast her head would be spinning. There was no way I could allow her to do that.

  So I did what I should’ve done weeks ago, when she’d told me that she loved me. I’d told her the truth, exposing who and what I really was to her. If she never spoke to me again, I wouldn’t be surprised.

  But I couldn’t focus on that right now. I had to compartmentalize, shut down the turmoil. There’d be time later to dwell in that shit, roll around in it.

  Our feet pounded off the hardwood steps of the stairs. The foyer came into view. I saw Hercules’s massive ass first, and then Aiden. He had a Covenant dagger in his right hand.

  “What’s going on?” Josie asked, her voice hoarse. The muscle along my jaw tensed.

  “He’s . . . he’s dead,” murmured Gable.

  Not seeing whoever he was talking about, I stepped down into the foyer and found Gable standing nearly under the stairs. His face was as white as a daimon’s. Not a good sign.

  “Who’s dead?” Deacon walked past Josie, joining Luke where he stood off to the side, near the entrance to the living room. Or the sitting room. One of the dozen needless rooms in this house.

  “Look outside,” Alex replied as she strolled in from the kitchen area, the duffel bag of weapons clenched in her hand. She placed it on the floor, just behind the table in the middle of the atrium.

  My gaze tracked the length of the atrium to the double doors. There were glass panes, and in the center of the left door I could see a rough circle of spiderweb fissures in the glass. The cracked glass was smudged with what looked like a mixture of blood and some other kind of fluid.

  Then I looked down. The porch light was on, casting a yellowish glow on the prone body. I could make out sandals, pale white legs, and dark shorts.

  “He k-knocked on the door,” Gable said, lifting a hand and thrusting it through his hair. He tugged on the ends. “When we came out here to see who it was, he saw u-us through the glass and . . .”

  “He decided to introduce his face to the glass door, total zombie style.” Luke pulled a Glock out of the bag. “There was a shade in him. The moment he hit the ground outside, the shade came out and took off.”

  Shit. “That’s not good.”

  “Nope.” Aiden’s shoulders tensed. “I think it was scouting.”

  “It?” whispered Gable. “That’s Mr. Nanni. He lives d-down the street.”

  “He don’t live anywhere now,” Hercules responded. “That’s a dead Mr. Nanni.”

  Aiden pivoted around, jaw tight as he pinned Hercules with a look. “Not helping.”

  The demigod shrugged. “Whatever,” he muttered, cracking his knuckles.

  There was a pause. “Nothing can get through that glass, right?” Gable asked. “It’s reinforced.”

  “Reinforced glass didn�
��t mean shit,” I replied. “That won’t even stop a daimon.”