Apollyon

CHAPTER 2

SOMETIME LATER—I HAD NO IDEA IF IT WAS NIGHT, DAY, or how long I’d slept—I was alone. There was no Aiden sitting in the chair watching me. No Seth at the end of the amber cord. This was a treat.

My head was somewhat clear.

I stood and stalked toward the bars. They looked normal—silvery titanium—but it was the fine mesh circling them that was the problem.

Hephaestus’ chain was a real bitch.

Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the bars and squeezed. A flash of blue light volleyed up the bars, billowing along the ceiling and over the mark like smoke full of glitter.

“Dammit,” I muttered, backing away.

I tried calling on akasha. Nothing stirred inside of me, not even a flicker. Lifting my hand, I opted for something smaller. Well, small to me.

I called upon fire.

Aaaaaand… there was nothing.

When I’d Awakened, the power that had broken open and flooded my veins had been a rush—a high so great I could have licked the ceiling, a high of no equal. I got why daimons yearned for aether. I’d had just a taste of it. And I hadn’t felt it since Apollo had knocked me into next week with a freaking god bolt.

Jerk.

He was also on my to-kill list.

I went to the bathroom and cleaned up. Freshly showered and attired, I returned to testing out the bars. The shimmering blue light was sort of pretty. At least it was something to stare at.

I sighed, about ready to put my head through the wall. I searched for my Seth at the end of the cord—still gone. I could call out to him and he would respond, but I was sure he was busy trying to free me. With nothing left to do, I returned to testing sections of the bars.

What seemed like hours later, a door opened upstairs. There were voices. One of them was Aiden’s, but the other…

“Luke?” I called out.

“Leave,” was Aiden’s harsh reply.

The door shut, and one heavy set of footsteps came down the stairs. I swear to the gods the sound that came out of my throat was an animalistic growl.

Aiden came into view, holding a plastic plate of eggs and bacon. One eyebrow was arched. “Do you really think I’m going to allow a half-blood near you?”

“A girl can hope.” Halfs were more susceptible to compulsions, and I now packed one on steroids.

He held the plate through the space in the bars. The last time I’d done the whole not-eating thing, it hadn’t worked. I’d pretty much starved and ended up on the Elixir because of it. Food was my friend this time around.

I reached for the plate.

Aiden’s empty hand snaked out and wrapped around my arm. His hand was so large it swallowed my wrist. He said nothing, but his thundercloud eyes willed me to do something. What? Remember us together? Remember how much he’d consumed my thoughts? How I’d ached to be with him? Did he want me to remember what it was like when he’d told me about the night the daimons had attacked and massacred his family? And what it felt like being in his arms, being loved by him?

I remembered all those things in detail.

But the emotions that belonged to those events and memories weren’t there. They were cut off completely. Gone with the whims of the past… Aiden was my past.

No. No. No. That small voice was back again. Aiden was the future. For some reason I thought of that damn oracle—Grandma Piperi. Know the difference between need and love, she had said. There was no difference. Couldn’t she have tried to educate me on how to break out of these bars?

Aiden let go, his eyes as hard as these cement walls. He backed away while I took my food to the mattress. Surprisingly, he let me eat in silence.

Afterward, not so much.

Today Aiden wanted to talk about our first training session and how much I’d apparently annoyed the crap out of him because I hadn’t stopped talking. When he got to the part when I’d mimicked his voice, I started to smile. He had been irritated and unsure of how to handle me.

Aiden’s eyes flared the same moment my lips twitched. “You said I sounded like a father.”

I had.

“You also said you were going to have to drop your crack habit when I went over the rules.” Aiden smiled.

My lips almost answered in kind. And I didn’t like that. Time to change the topic. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

Aiden leaned back in the metal folding chair. The thing had to be uncomfortable. “What do you want to talk about, Alex?”

“Where has Apollo been? Since he’s my great-whatever, I’m feeling unloved.”

He folded his arms. “Apollo won’t be around.”

Oh, interesting development. My little, old ears perked right up. “And why not?”

His stare was level. “And do you really think I’m going to tell you when you’ll run right back to tell Seth?”

I put my bare feet on the cold floor and stood. “I won’t say a word.”

Aiden shot me a bland look. “Call me crazy, but I don’t believe you.”

Making my way to the bars, I kept an eye on his expression. As I neared, it lost the insipid look. His jaw hardened as if he worked his molars. His eyes turned sharper, lips thinning. When I touched the bars, the flare of light was weak. Somehow it knew the difference between when I was just touching it and when I was trying to escape. Clever chains.

“What are you doing?” Aiden asked.

“If you let me go now, I swear that you and all those you care for will be untouched.”

He didn’t say anything for a heartbeat. “But I care about you, Alex.”

I tilted my head to the side. “But I will be unharmed.”

“No. You won’t be safe.” Sadness crept into his eyes right before his thick lashes swept down.

My stomach shifted in warning. Recalling the bits of information I’d picked up while under the Elixir, I knew there was more to what he said. “What do you know, Aiden?”

“If you leave here still connected to Seth… you will die.” The last bit came out ragged.

I laughed. “You’re lying. Nothing can harm—” Myths and legends, Alex. Duh. What had I thought earlier? There were always checks and balances of sorts. That was why the Apollyon had been created in the first place. “What do you know?”

His lashes swept up, revealing startling silver eyes. “It doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that it’s the truth.”

My mouth opened, but I snapped it shut. Aiden was trying to get under my skin. That was it. If Thanatos and his Order hadn’t found the Achilles’ heel of the Apollyons in all their centuries of trying, one pure-blood wouldn’t have succeeded. The Order hadn’t…

Or had they?

But they didn’t count. My Seth and his Sentinels had systematically wiped them off Earth.

I lifted my gaze and found Aiden staring at me. The inexplicable urge to stick my tongue out was hard to deny.

“Can I ask you something?”

I shrugged. “If I said no, you would still ask.”

“True.” There was a tight smile. “When you were with Lucian, before the Council meeting? He took you to his house against your will, didn’t he?”

“Yeah,” I said slowly, growing uncomfortable already.

“How did that make you feel?”

My hands tightened on the bars. “What are you? A psychologist now?”

“Just answer the question.”

Closing my eyes, I leaned against the bars. I could lie, but there really wasn’t a point. “I hated it. I tried to kill Lucian with a steak knife.” Obviously that hadn’t gone as planned. “But I didn’t understand then. I do now. I have nothing to be afraid of.”

Silence, and then Aiden was right in front of me, his forehead touching mine through the bars. His larger hands were above mine and when he spoke, his breath was warm. I didn’t pull back, and I didn’t understand why. Being this close to him wasn’t right on so many levels.

“Nothing has changed,” he said quietly.

“I have.”

Aiden sighed. “You haven’t.”

I opened my eyes. “Will you ever get bored with this? You have to, eventually.”

“Never,” he said.

“Because you won’t give up on me, no matter what I tell you?”

“Exactly.”

“You’re incredibly stubborn.”

Aiden’s lips tipped up in a half-smile. “I used to say the same thing about you.”

My brows knitted. “And you can’t now?”

“Sometimes I don’t even know what to say.” He reached through the bars and the very tips of his fingers grazed my cheekbone. Amoment later, he placed his entire palm against my cheek. I flinched, but he didn’t remove his hand. “And there are moments where I doubt everything I do.”

He tilted my head back so my eyes met his. “But I don’t doubt for one second that what I’m doing right now is the right thing.”

Many retorts rose to the surface, but they faded away as the little voice inside me piped up. I’d give it all up for you…

A knot formed in the back of my throat. Suddenly, this cell was too small. The basement was constricting and the little distance between Aiden and me suffocating. Heart turning over heavily, I searched for the cord—

“Don’t,” Aiden whispered. “I know what you’re about to do. Don’t.”

I jerked back, breaking the contact between us. “How do you know what I’m doing?”

His hand was outstretched, as if he could still feel my cheek. “I just do.”

Anger rose, fueled by frustration and a good mix of what-the-hell. “Well, aren’t you special?”

Shaking his head, Aiden lowered his hand. He watched me stomp over to the mattress and plop down. I glared back at him, willing almost every ill thing on him I could think of. And there were things I knew I could say that would hurt him, that would strip away his control and break him down into little pieces. Things that my Seth had whispered and things I’d told him I wanted to do. I could lash out—oh yeah, I could destroy Aiden. But when I opened my mouth, all those hurtful, destructive things got stuck around the lump in my throat.

Sitting here, I didn’t feel right in my skin, as if I really wasn’t a part of it. And the only time I felt comfortable was when I was connected to my Seth. Without him, I wanted to shed that skin, or rip at it until I bled.

I wanted to hit something. Hard.

Drawing in a shallow breath, I focused on the mark on the ceiling. There were two moons drawn, interlocking. Since so many gods were tied to the moon, I didn’t know what it represented or how it had the power to strip me of mine.

“What is that?” I asked, pointing at the ceiling.

Part of me didn’t expect Aiden to answer, but he did. “It’s Phoebe’s symbol.”

“Phoebe? Obviously you don’t mean a Charmed one.”

He snorted.

Whoa, they’d brought out the big guns. I felt all kinds of special as I squinted at the markings. They held an odd bluish-red tint to them. “So, a Titan…”

“Yes.”

“And that’s a Titan’s blood, isn’t it?” I tilted my head toward Aiden. “Care to explain how it’s possible that a Titan’s blood is on this ceiling? Do the Olympians just keep jars of it around?”

Aiden let out a dry laugh. “When the Olympians overthrew the Titans, most were imprisoned in Tartarus. Phoebe wasn’t one of them. And she has a fondness for her children.”

Racking my brain for who she’d popped out, I came up empty. “Who?”

“Leto,” he answered. “Who in turn gave birth to Apollo and Artemis.”

I groaned. “Of course. Why not? So Apollo asked his grandma for some blood? Great. But I don’t get how it works.” I gestured around me. “How is it negating my powers?”

“Titan blood is very powerful. You know that blades dipped in Titan blood can kill an Apollyon.” When I sent him a duh look, his smile was tight. “Mix that with blood of your own lineage, well, it has the ability to keep you from hurting yourself.”

“Or from hurting you,” I snapped.

Aiden shrugged.

Anger pumped through my blood like poison; with no way to expel it, I was seriously seconds away from going stir crazy. I stretched my legs, then my arms. In my head, I pictured myself running up and kicking Aiden in the shin.

There was a sigh from the other side of the bars.

Sometimes I wondered if he had the ability to read minds.

“I hate this,” Aiden admitted so quietly I wasn’t sure I’d heard him. He twisted around, giving me his back. “I hate that Seth has done nothing but play you—lie to you—and you trust him. I hate that this connection is more important than everything else going on out there.”

I was about to argue, but my Seth had lied to me. He’d probably been playing me right from the moment he’d discovered I was the second Apollyon. No doubt Lucian had.

Unease slithered up my spine, leaving cold shivers in its wake.

“It… it doesn’t matter now,” I said.

Aiden whirled toward me. “What doesn’t?”

I met his stare. “That Seth lied to me. It doesn’t matter. Because what he wants, I want. If I—”

“Shut up,” Aiden growled.

Surprised, I blinked. I couldn’t recall a moment when Aiden had told me to shut up. Wow. I so didn’t like that for a multitude of reasons.

Aiden’s eyes glowed a fierce silver. “You do not want what Seth wants because there is no you in any of that. There is only him.”

Shock rippled through me, stealing any response I could come up with. There was no me. There was only us. That freaking little voice deep inside me roared in fury, then threw itself around.

There was no me.