Daimon by Jennifer L. Armentrout (1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Covenant Series

Daimon (A Short Prequel to Half-Blood)

Half-Blood

Pure (Spring 2012)

 

 

 

Pronunciation Guide for Daimon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 1

 

 

 

She smelled like mothballs and death.

The elderly Hematoi Minister facing me looked like she had just crawled out of the tomb she’d been stored in for a couple hundred years. Her skin was wrinkled and thin, like old parchment, and each breath she took I swore would be her last. I hadn’t ever seen anyone that old, but of course I’d only been seven and even the pizza guy had seemed ancient to me.

The crowd murmured its disapproval behind me; I’d forgotten that simple half-bloods like me weren’t supposed to look a Minister in the eye. Being the pure-blood spawn of demigods, the Hematoi had huge egos.

I looked at my mother, who stood beside me on the raised dais. She was one of the Hematoi, but she wasn’t anything like them. Her green eyes flashed a pleading look to cooperate, to not be the incorrigible and disobedient little girl she knew I could be.

I didn’t know why she was so frightened; I was the one facing the crypt keeper. And if I survived this poor excuse for tradition without ending up carrying this hag’s bedpan for the rest of my life, it would be a miracle worthy of the gods that supposedly were watching over all of us.

“Alexandria Andros?” The Minister’s voice sounded like sandpaper over rough wood. She clucked her tongue. “She is far too small. Her arms are as thin as the shoots of new olive branches.” She bent over to study me more closely, and I half expected her to fall in my face. “And her eyes, they are the color of dirt, hardly remarkable. She barely has any blood of the Hematoi in her. She is more mortal than any we have seen this day.”

The Minister’s eyes were the color of the sky before a violent storm. They were a mixture of purple and blue, a sign of her heritage. All the Hematoi had startling eye colors. Most of the half-bloods did too, but for some reason I’d missed the whole cool eye color boat when I’d been born.

The statements had continued on for what seemed like forever to me and all I could think about was ice cream and maybe taking a nap. Other Ministers had come down to check me over, whispering to each other as they circled me. I kept glancing at my mother and she’d smile reassuringly, letting me know that all of this was normal and that I was doing okay—great, even.

That was, until the old lady started pinching every piece of my exposed skin and then some. I’d always had this thing about being touched. If I didn’t touch someone then I believed they shouldn’t touch me. Grandma had apparently missed that memo.

She’d reached out and pinched my belly through my dress with her bony fingers. “She has no meat on her. How can we expect her to fight and defend us? She is not worthy to train at the Covenant and serve beside the children of the gods.”

I’d never seen a god, but my mom told me there were always among us, always watching. I’d also never seen a pegasus or a chimera, but she’d sworn they also existed. Even at seven I’d had a hard time believing the stories; it had strained my fledgling faith to accept that the gods still cared about the world they had so diligently populated with their children in a way only the gods could.

“She’s nothing more than a pathetic, little half-blood,” the ancient woman had continued. “I say send her to the Masters. I’m in need of a little girl to clean my toilets.”

Then she had twisted her fingers cruelly.

And I had kicked her shin.

I’d never forget the look on my mother’s face, like she’d been caught between terror and full-blown panic, ready to run between them and snatch me away. There were a few gasps of outrage, but there were also a few deep chuckles.

“She has fire,” one of the male Ministers had said. Another stepped forward, “She will do fine as a Guard, maybe even a Sentinel.”

To this day I had no idea how I’d proved my worthiness after kicking the Minister in the leg. But I had. Not that it meant a damn thing now that I was seventeen and had been nowhere near the Hematoi world for the last three years. Even in the normal world I hadn’t stopped doing stupid things.

“You got this look on your face.” He tugged me against his chest, snaking an arm around my waist. “It’s like you’re thinking about something universally deep. Like your head is a thousand miles away, somewhere up in the clouds, on a different planet or something.”

Matt Richardson wanted to join Greenpeace and save some whales. He was the pretty boy next door who’d sworn off eating red meat. Whatever. He was my current attempt to blend with the mortals, and he’d convinced me to sneak out and go to a bonfire on the beach with a bunch of people I barely knew.

I had bad taste in boys.

Previously, I’d crushed on a brooding academic who’d written poems on the back of his school books and styled his dyed, jet black hair so it’d covered his hazel eyes. He’d written a song about me. I’d laughed, and that relationship had been over before it got started. The year before that was probably my most embarrassing—the bleached blond, JV football captain with sky blue eyes. Months had gone by with us barely exchanging a “hey” and “do you have a pencil?” before we’d finally met up at a party. We’d talked. He’d kissed me and mauled my boobs, all the while smelling like cheap beer. I’d punched him and broken his jaw. Mom had moved me to a different town after that and lectured me about not hitting as hard as I could, reminding me that a normal girl couldn’t throw punches like that.

Normal girls didn’t want their boobs mauled either, and I wholly believed if they could’ve landed a fist like I could, they would have.

I smiled up at Matt. “I’m not thinking about anything.”

“You’re not thinking at all?” Matt lowered his head. The edges of his blond hair tickled my cheeks. Thank the gods he’d gotten over the trying to grow dreads stage in his life. “Nothing going on in that pretty head of yours?”

Something was going on in my head, but it wasn’t what Matt hoped for. As I stared into his green eyes, I thought about my very first crush—the forbidden, older guy with thundercloud eyes—the one so far out of my league he might as well have been a different species.

Technically, I guess he was.

Even now, I wanted to spin-kick myself in my face for that one. I was like a walking romance novel character, thinking love conquers everything and all that crap. Sure. Love in my world usually ended up with someone hearing “I smite thee!” as she was cursed to be some lame flower for the rest of her life.

The gods and their children could be petty like that.

I sometimes wondered if my mom had sensed my budding obsession with the pure-blood guy and that was why she’d yanked my happy butt out of the only world I’d known—the only world I really belonged to. Pures were so off limits to halfs like me.

“Alex?” Matt brushed his lips over my cheek, moving ever so slowly toward my lips.

“Well, maybe something.” I lifted up onto the tips of my toes and circled my arms around his neck. “Can you guess what I’m thinking about right now?”

Doubtful, but I let him lower his lips to mine. His mouth was warm and dry, the most a girl could ask from a seventeen-year-old boy. But to be fair, Matt was a pretty damn good kisser. His lips moved against mine slowly and when he parted them, I didn’t sock him in the stomach or anything like that. I returned the kiss.

Matt’s hands dropped to my hips and he eased me down in the sand, supporting himself with one arm as he hovered over me and trailed kisses over my chin, down my throat. I stared up at the dark sky riddled with bright stars and very few clouds. A beautiful night—a normal night, I realized. There was something romantic about all of it, in the way he cradled my cheek when his mouth returned to mine and whispered my name like I was some kind of mystery he’d never be able to figure out. I felt warm and pleasant, not rip-my-clothes-off-and-do-me excited, but this wasn’t bad. I could get used to this. Especially when I closed my eyes and pictured Matt’s eyes turning gray and his hair much, much darker.

Why had I stopped him? I suddenly felt like Miss Purity Princess guarding her virginity from wayward boys. Why? The answer actually came to me pretty quickly. I didn’t want to give up my V-card on a beach with sand finding its way into unseemly places. My legs already felt like they’d been well exfoliated.

But it was more than that. I really wasn’t in the here and now with Matt, not when I was picturing him with gray eyes and dark hair, wanting him to be someone else.

Someone I would never see again… and could never have.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 2

 

 

 

“Alex?” Matt nuzzled a spot on my neck. “What’s wrong?”

Using a bit of my natural strength, I rolled him off me and sat up. I readjusted the top of my dress, thankful for the darkness. “Sorry. I’m just not into it right now.”

Matt remained sprawled beside me, staring up at the sky like I had moments before. “Did… did I do something wrong?”

My stomach twisted and felt funny. Matt was such a nice guy. I turned to him, grabbing his hand. I threaded my fingers through his, the way he liked it. “No. Not at all.”

He pulled his hand free and rubbed it across his brow. “You always do this.”

I frowned. Did I?

“It’s not just that.” Matt sat up, dropping his long arms over his bent knees. “I don’t feel like I know you, Alex. You know, like really know who you are. And we’ve been dating how long?”

“A couple of months.” I hoped that was correct. Then I felt like a douche for taking a guess. Gods, I was turning into a terrible person.

A small smile pulled at his lips. “You know everything about me. How old I was when I got into a club for the first time. What college I want to go to. The foods I hate and how I can’t stand carbonated drinks. The first time I broke a bone—”

Okay. He had a point, but it wasn’t like I could tell him anything. I could see me now. Guess what? You ever watch Clash of the Titans or read any Greek fables? Well, those gods are real and yeah, I’m sort of a descendant of them. Kind of like the stepchild no one wants to claim. Oh, and I hadn’t even been around mortals until three years ago. Can we still be friends?

“I moved here from Texas. I’ve told you that.” Strands of hair kept escaping my hand, blowing across my face and over his shoulder. I needed a haircut. “It’s not a big secret.”

“But were you born there?”

I looked away, watching the ocean. The sea was so dark it looked purple and unfriendly. I pulled my gaze away and stared down the shore. Two figures walked along, clearly male. “No,” I said finally.

“Then where were you born?”

I fought the soft touch of annoyance as I focused on the guys near the shore, hunkered down as the wind picked up, pelting them with a fine sheen of cold water. A storm was coming.

“Alex?” Matt climbed to his feet, shaking his head. “See? You can’t even tell me where you were born. What’s up with that?”

My mom thought that the less people knew about us the better. She was incredibly paranoid, believing if anybody knew too much then the Covenant would find us. Was that such a bad thing? I kind of wanted them to find us, to put an end to this craziness.

I took a shallow breath, then another. “I was born on this stupid island no one has ever heard of. It’s off the coast of North Carolina.”

Surprise flickered across his features and he took a step toward me. “What island?”

“Seriously, you wouldn’t have heard of it.” I folded my arms over my chest as goosebumps crawled over my skin. “It’s near Bald Head Island.”

A wide smile spread across his face, and I knew the skin around his eyes was crinkling like they did whenever he was exceptionally happy about something. “Was that so hard?”

“Yes.” I pouted and then smiled, because Matt had the kind of smile that was infectious, a smile that reminded me of the best friend I hadn’t seen in years. Maybe that’s why I was drawn to Matt. My own grin started to fade as I wondered what my former partner in mayhem was doing right now.

Matt dropped his hands on my arms, slowly uncrossing them. “Wanna head back?” He nodded down the beach, at the group of kids clustered around the bonfire. “Or stay here…?”

He’d left the offer open, but I knew what he meant. Stay here and kiss some more, forget some more. It didn’t sound like a bad idea. I swayed toward him. Over his shoulder, I spotted the two guys again. They were almost on us and I sighed, now recognizing them.

“We have company.” I stepped back.

Matt glanced over his shoulder at the two guys. “Great. It’s Ren and Stimpy.”

I giggled at the accurate description. During the few times I’d actually met the gruesome twosome, I refused to learn their real names. Ren was tall and lanky, his dark brown hair so full of hair gel it could be labeled a dangerous weapon in most states. Stimpy was the shorter and wider of the two, shaved bald and built like a locomotive. The two were known for causing trouble wherever they went, especially Stimpy and his questionable weightlifting program. They were two years older than us, having graduated from Matt’s high school before I even stepped foot in Florida. But they still hung out with the younger crowd, no doubt scoping out impressionable girls. There’d been some bad rumors about those two.

Even in the pale moonlight I could tell their skin was a healthy shade of orange. Their overly broad smiles were obscenely white. The shorter one whispered something and they fist bumped each other.

Ren glanced at Stimpy, then back to Matt. Ren’s neon pink polo shirt looked painted on his scrawny frame, at least three sizes too small. “We’re just chillin’. Gonna head out to the clubs later.” Ren looked at me for the first time, his eyes drifting over my dress and down my legs.

I puked a little in my mouth.

“I’ve seen you around a few times,” Ren said, bobbing his head to and fro. I wondered if it was some kind of weird mating dance. “What’s your name, sweetness?”

“What?” I’d never actually met my dad. Maybe he was. All I knew was that he’d been mortal. Hopefully, he’d been nothing like these two ass-hats.

Ren flexed his nonexistent muscles, smiling. “Well, then who stole those diamonds and put them in your eyes?”

“Wow.” I blinked and turned to Matt. “Why don’t you ever say such romantic stuff like that to me, Matt? I’m hurt.”

Matt didn’t grin like I expected. His gaze kept bouncing between the two, and I could see his hands balling into fists inside his pockets. There was a certain edge to his eyes, to the way his lips were drawn into a tight line. My amusement vanished in an instant. He was… scared?

I reached for Matt’s arm. “Come on, let’s head back.”

“Wait.” Stimpy clapped Matt on the shoulder with enough force to cause Matt to stumble backward a few inches. “Kind of rude of you guys to just run off.”

A rush of warm air crawled up my spine and spread over my skin. My muscles tensed with anticipation. “Don’t touch him,” I warned softly.

“The ‘tude must come with the name.” Ren laughed. “Why don’t we go party? I know a bouncer down at Zero who can get us in. We all can have a good time.” Then he grabbed for me.

Ren may have meant to do it playfully, but it was seriously the wrong move. I still had a serious issue with being touched when I didn’t want to be. I caught his arm. “Was your mom a gardener?” I asked innocently.

“What?” Ren’s mouth hung open slightly.

“Because a face like yours belongs planted on the ground.” I twisted his arm back. Shock flickered over his features. There was a second when our gazes locked, and I could tell he wasn’t sure how I’d gained the upper hand so quickly.

It had been three years since I’d seriously fought anyone, but unused muscles woke up and my brain sort of clicked off. I dipped under the arm I held, bringing it along with me as I clipped his knee with my foot.

The next second Ren ate sand.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 3

 

 

 

Staring down at the guy sprawled spread-eagle in the sand, I realized I kind of missed fighting, especially the rush of adrenaline and the “Damn, I rock” feeling that came along with taking someone down. But then again, fighting mortals was nothing like fighting my own kind or the things I’d once trained to kill. This had been effortless. If he’d been another half-blood, I might’ve been the one with a mouthful of sand looking pretty damn lame.

“Jesus,” Matt whispered, jumping back.

I looked up, expecting to see a shock and awe kind of look from him. Maybe even a thumbs up. Nothing, I got nothing from him. At the Covenant, I would’ve been applauded. But I kept forgetting I wasn’t at the Covenant anymore.

Stimpy’s dumbstruck gaze swung from his pal to me and quickly turned to fury. “You act like a man? You better be able to take it like a man, you bitch.”

“Oh.” I smiled as I faced him fully. “It’s on like Donkey Kong.”

Having the obvious body mass thing going for him, Stimpy rushed me. But he hadn’t been trained to fight from the age of seven and he didn’t have my literally god-given strength and speed. He swung a meaty fist toward my face and I spun around, kicking out and planting my bare foot in his stomach. Stimpy doubled over, throwing out his hands as he tried to capture my arms. I stepped into him, grabbing his upper arms and yanking him down as I brought my leg up. His jaw bounced off my knee and I let go, watching him fall into the sand with a grunt.

Ren stumbled to his feet, spitting out sand. He swayed and then took a swing at me. It was way off, and I could have easily dodged it. Hell, I could’ve stood still and he wouldn’t have made contact, but I was on a roll now.

I caught his fist, sliding my hand down his arm. “Hitting girls isn’t nice.” I turned around, using his body weight to knock him off balance. He went over my shoulder, face first into the sand once more.

Stimpy climbed to his feet and staggered to his fallen friend. “Come on, man. Get up.”

“Need help?” I offered with a sweet smile.

Both guys scrambled down the beach, looking over their shoulders like they expected me to jump on their backs. I watched them until they disappeared around the cove, smiling to myself.

I turned back to Matt, the wind blowing my hair around me. I felt alive for the first time in… well, years. I can still kick ass. After all this time, I can still do it. My excitement and confidence dried up and shriveled away the moment I got a good look at Matt’s face.

He looked horrified. “How…?” He cleared his throat. “Why did you do that?”

“Why?” I repeated, confused. “It seems pretty clear to me. Those guys are dicks.”

“Yes, they’re dicks. Everyone knows that, but you didn’t have to lay the smackdown on them.” Matt stared at me, eyes wide. “I just… I just can’t believe you did that.”

“They were bothering you!” I planted my hands on my hips, past caring about the wind smacking my hair in my face. “Why are you acting like I’m some kind of freak?”

I bit back the string of curse words that were forming in my mind. “Okay. Maybe I shouldn’t have done all that. Can we just forget about it?”

“No.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “That was too weird for me. Sorry Alex, but that was just… freaky.”

My ever tenuous hold on my anger started to thin. “Oh, so next time you want me to stand here and let them kick your ass and molest me?”

“You overreacted! They weren’t going to kick my ass or molest you! And there won’t be a next time. I’m not down with violence.” Matt shook his head and turned away from me, plowing his feet through the mounds of sand, leaving me standing all alone.

“What the hell?” I muttered and then louder, “Whatever! Go save a dolphin or something!”

He whirled around. “It’s a whale, Alex, a whale! That’s what I’m interested in saving.”

I threw up my arms. “What’s wrong with saving dolphins?”

Matt ignored me at that point, and about two minutes later, I truly regretted yelling that. I stormed past him to retrieve my sandals and bag, but I did so with grace and dignity. Not one single disparaging remark or cuss word escaped my tightly sealed lips.

A couple of kids glanced up, but none of them said anything. The few friends I had at school had been Matt’s friends, and they liked saving whales too. Not that anything was wrong with saving whales, but some of them threw their beer bottles and plastic wrappers in the ocean. Hypocritical much?

Matt just didn’t understand. Violence was a part of who I was as a half-blood, ingrained in my blood since birth and trained into every muscle in my body. It didn’t mean I was going to snap and body slam someone for no good reason, but I would fight back. Always.

The walk home sucked butt.

I had sand between my toes, in my hair and up my dress. My skin chafed in all the wrong places and everything freaking sucked. Looking back, I could admit that I might’ve overreacted a tad. Ren and Stimpy hadn’t been particularly threatening. I could’ve just let it slide. Or acted like a normal girl in the situation and let Matt handle it.

But I hadn’t.

I never did. Now everything was going to be screwed up. Matt would go to school on Monday and tell everyone how I’d gone Xena Warrior Princess on the douchebags. I’d have to tell my mom, and she would freak. Maybe she’d insist we move again. I’d actually be happy about that; there was no way I could back to school and face those kids after Matt told them what’d happened. I didn’t care that school would be ending in a few weeks, anyway. I also wasn’t looking forward to the major bitch-fest coming my way.

One I knew I deserved.

Clenching the little purse in my fist, I picked up my pace. Normally the neon lights from the clubs and the sounds of the nearby carnival put me in a happy mood, but not tonight. I wanted to punch myself in the face.

We lived three blocks off the beach, in a two story bungalow Mom rented from some ancient guy who smelled like sardines. It was kind of old, but it had two tiny bathrooms. Bonus points there—we didn’t have to share. It wasn’t exactly in the safest neighborhood known to man, but an iffy side of town wasn’t anything that would scare my mom or me.

Bad mortals we could handle.

I sighed as I navigated the still crowded boardwalk. The nightlife was a big thing here. So were fake ID’s and super-tan, super-skinny bodies. Everyone looked alike to me in Miami, which wasn’t very different from my home—my real home—where I’d once had a purpose in life, a duty I’d be obligated to fulfill.

And now I was pretty much a loser.

I’d lived in four different cities and attended four high schools in three years. We always picked large cities to disappear in and always lived near water. So far we’d only attracted a little attention, and when we had, we’d run. Never once did my mom tell me why, not even a single explanation. After the first year, I’d stopped getting mad when she wouldn’t tell me why she’d come to my dorm room that night and told me we had to leave. I’d honestly given up asking and trying to figure it out. Sometimes I hated her for all of this, but she was my mom and where she went, I went.

Dampness settled in the air, the sky overhead quickly darkening until no stars shone down. I crossed the narrow street and kicked open the gate of the waist-high, wrought iron fence surrounding our little patch of grass. I winced at the screech as it swung open, scraping along the sandstone pavers.

I stopped in front of the door, looking up as I searched my purse for the key. “Crap,” I muttered as my eyes roamed over the little garden balcony. Flowers and herbs grew like crazy, overflowing their ceramic pots and climbing the rusty railings. Empty urns I’d stacked in a pile weeks ago had toppled over. I was supposed to have cleaned up the balcony this afternoon.

Mom was going to be pissed for a lot of reasons in the morning.

Sighing, I pulled out the key and shoved it in the lock. I had the door halfway open, thankful it hadn’t creaked and groaned like everything else in the house did, when I felt the most unfamiliar sensation.

Icy fingers ran up my spine, and then down. All the tiny hairs on my body stood up as the unerring sense of being watched came over me.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 4

 

 

 

I quickly turned, my gaze darting over the little yard and beyond. The streets were empty, but the feeling only increased. Unease gnawed at my stomach as I stepped back and reached behind me, wrapping my fingers around the edge of the door. Nobody was there, but…

“I’m losing my mind,” I muttered. “I’m getting as paranoid as Mom. Nice.”

I went inside, locking the door behind me. The uncanny feeling slowly eased off as I tiptoed through the silent house. I inhaled and nearly gagged on the spicy aroma filling the living room.

Groaning, I turned on the lamp beside the secondhand, shabby couch and squinted into the corner of the room. Sitting beside our TV and the magazine rack full of US Weekly was Apollo. A fresh wreath of bay laurel wrapped around the marble cast of his head. Of all the things my mom had forgotten to pack the many times we moved, she’d never forgotten him.

I loathed the statue of Apollo and his stinky bay laurel wreath my mom replaced every godsforsaken day of my life. Not because I had anything against Apollo. I guessed he was a pretty cool god since he was all about harmony, order and reason. It was just the gaudiest damn thing I’d ever seen in my life.

It was only the bust of his chest and head, but engraved across his chest were a lyre, a dolphin, and—if that wasn’t enough symbolic overload for the masses—there were a dozen tiny cicadas perched on his shoulder. What the hell did the annoying, buzzing insects that got stuck in people’s hair even stand for? Symbolizing music and song my rosy left butt cheek.

I’d never understood my mom’s fascination with Apollo or with any of the gods for that matter. They’d been on the absentee list since mortals had decided sacrificing their virgin daughters was a totally uncool practice. I didn’t know a soul who’d ever seen a god. They’d run around and bred a hundred or so demigods and then let them have babies—the pure-bloods—but they never showed up on anyone’s birthday bearing gifts.

Holding my hand over my nose, I walked over to the candle surrounded by more laurel and blew it out. Being a god of prophecy, I wondered if Apollo had foreseen that. Gaudiness aside, what was shown of his marble chest was pretty nice.

Nicer than Matt’s chest.

Which was something I’d never be seeing or touching again. With that in mind, I grabbed the carton of double chocolate fudge ice cream out of the freezer and a large spoon. Not even bothering with a bowl, I climbed the uneven steps.

Soft light spilled out from the gap between my mom’s bedroom door and the floor. Stopping in front of her door, I glanced at my room and then down at the ice cream. I bit my lower lip and debated bursting into her room. She probably already knew I’d snuck out earlier and if she didn’t, the sand covering half my body would give it away. But I hated the fact that my mom was home alone on a Friday night. Again.

“Lexie?” The soft and sweet voice called from behind the door. “What are you doing?”

I nudged open the door and peeked inside. She sat at the head of the bed, reading one of those smutty romance novels with half-naked guys on the cover. I totally stole them when she wasn’t looking. Beside her on the small bedside table was a pot of hibiscus flowers. They were her favorite. The purple petals were beautiful, but the only scent came from the vanilla oil she loved to sprinkle over the petals.

My mom sighed, setting her novel down. “I know you want to go out and be with your friends, especially since you started seeing that boy. What’s his name? Mike?”

“Matt.” My shoulders slumped and I eyed the ice cream eagerly. “His name is Matt.”

“Matt. That’s right.” She gave me a brief smile. “He’s a really nice boy, and I understand you want to be with him, but I don’t want you running around Miami at night, Lexie. It’s not safe.”

“Ah, yes. I’ve never had to ‘ground’ you, Lexie. I really don’t want to start now.” She brushed back the thick, wavy brown hair from her face as her gaze drifted over me. “Why in the name of the gods are you covered in sand?”

I inched inside her room. “It’s a long story.”

If she suspected I’d rolled around in the sand with the boy whose name she kept forgetting and then kung foo’d my way through two other guys, she didn’t let on. “Want to talk about it?”

Looking at her was like staring in the mirror, except I was more like a mundane version of her. Her cheekbones were sharper, nose a little smaller and her lips more lush than mine. And she had those amazing green eyes. It was the mortal blood in me that watered down my appearance. I’m sure my dad must’ve been hotness to have caught my mom’s married eye, but he had been very human. Hooking up with humans wasn’t prohibited by any means, mainly because the children—half-bloods like me—were extremely valuable assets to the pures. Well, I couldn’t be included as an asset any longer.

“What?” I felt the bed shift as she straightened. “What did they do? Did they try to hurt you? Did they… touch you inappropriately?”

“Oh! Gods no, Mom, come on.” I dropped my hands, frowning at her. “It wasn’t like that. Not really.”

Thick strands of hair blew back from her face. Simultaneously all the curtains in the room lifted, reaching toward the bed. The book beside her flew off the bed and landed somewhere on the floor. “What happened, Alexandria?”

I sighed. “Nothing like that, Mom. Okay? Calm down before you blow us out of our own home.”

She stared at me a few moments, and then the winds died down.

“Show-off,” I muttered. Pure-bloods like my mom could command one of the elements, a gift the gods had bestowed upon the Hematoi. Mom had a thing for the element of air, but she wasn’t very good at controlling it. Once she blew over a neighbor’s car—try explaining that to the insurance company. “These guys started messing with Matt and one of them grabbed at me.”

“They’re fine.” I smoothed my hands down the front of my dress. “I didn’t even hit them. Well, I kicked one of them. But he called me a bitch, so I think he deserved it. Anyway, Matt said I overreacted and he wasn’t into violence. He looked at me like I was a freak.”

“Lexie…”

“I know.” I sat up and rubbed the back of my neck. “I did overreact. I could’ve just walked away or whatever. Now Matt doesn’t want to see me anymore and all the kids are going to think I’m some kind of… I don’t know, weirdo.”

“I don’t know about that.” I crossed my arms, scowling. After a few seconds, I glanced at her. “Aren’t you going to yell at me or something?”

She arched a brow and seemed to consider it. “I think you’ve learned that action is not always the best response, and the boy called you such an ugly name…”

I giggled again, but sobered up when Matt’s horrified face flashed before me. “You should have seen the way Matt looked at me afterward. It was like he was afraid of me. So stupid. You know? Kids like me would have applauded that, but no, Matt had to look at me like I was the antichrist on crack.”

My mom’s brows puckered. “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”

The painting of a goddess on her wall became a sole focus to me. Artemis crouched beside a doe, a quiver of silver arrows in one hand and a bow in the other. The eyes were unnerving, painted completely white—no irises or pupils. “No. It was. He thinks I’m a freak.”

She scooted closer, placing a gentle hand on my knee. “I know it’s hard for you to be away from… the Covenant, but you’ll be okay. You’ll see. You have your whole life ahead of you, full of choice and freedom.”

Ignoring that comment and wherever it came from, I took back my ice cream and shook the empty carton. “Boo, Mom, you ate it all.”

“Lexie.” Cupping my cheek, she turned my head so I faced her. “I know it bothers you being away from there. I know you want to go back and I pray to the gods that you can find happiness in this new life. But we can never go back there. You know that, right?”

“That is one area you are not lacking in.” She sent me a saucy grin as I smacked at her hand. “Now get off my bed and go to sleep. I expect you up bright and early. Your little butt better be out on that balcony, cleaning up that mess. I’m serious.”

My mom smiled and it was such a beautiful smile, warm and loving. It lit up her entire face, turning her eyes into jewels. “I love you.”

I smiled. “Love you, too, Mom.”

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 5

 

 

 

After dumping the empty carton and washing off the spoon, I scrubbed my face and changed into a pair of old jammies. Restless, I tinkered around with the idea of cleaning my room, an impulse that lasted long enough for me to pick up a few socks.

I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the shuttered balcony doors. The white paint was cracked, showing a deeper layer in a pale shade of gray—like a cross between blue and silver, an unusual shade that struck an old yearning inside me.

Really, after all this time, to still even think about a guy I’ll never see again was freaking ridiculous. Worse yet, he hadn’t even known I’d existed. Not because I’d been some kind of wallflower, wilting away in the shadows at the Covenant, but because he hadn’t been allowed to notice me. Here I was, three years later, and chipping paint reminded me of his eyes.

That was so lame it was embarrassing.

Annoyed with my own thoughts, I pushed off the bed and went to the little desk in the corner of my room. Papers and notebooks I rarely used in class covered the top. If there was anything I loved about the mortal world, it was their school system. Classes out here were a piece of cake compared to what went on at the Covenant. Knocking the clutter to the side, I found my out of date MP3 player and earbuds.

Most people had cool music on their players: Indie bands or the current hits. I decided I must’ve been high on something—Apollo’s bay laurel fumes?—when I’d downloaded these songs. I clicked through—that’s how out of date this thing was—until I found Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl.

There was something about the song that turned me into a walking cheese ball from the very first guitar riff. Humming along, I danced around my room, picking up discarded clothing and stopping every few seconds to flail about. I threw the pile in the basket, bobbing my head like a deranged Muppet Baby.

Starting to feel a little better about things, I grinned as I shimmied around my bed, clutching a pile of socks to my chest. “Sha la la, la la, la la, la la, la-la tee da. La-la tee da!”

I winced at the sound of my own voice. Singing was not a personal strength, but that didn’t stop me from mutilating every song on my MP3 player. By the time my room was fairly decent, it was past three in the morning. Exhausted but happy, I tugged out the earbuds and dropped them on the desk. Crawling into bed, I flipped off the lamp and dropped down. Usually it took me a while to drift off, but sleep came easily that night.

And because my brain liked to torture me even while I slept, I dreamt of Matt. But the dream-Matt had dark, wavy hair and eyes the color of storm clouds. And in the dream, when his hands roamed under my dress, I didn’t stop him.

 

 

***

 

A strange, satisfied smile pulled at my lips when I awoke. I kicked back the covers, stretching lazily as my gaze fell on the balcony doors. Thin sheets of light broke through the creases under the shudders and slid over the old bamboo throw rug. Specks of dust floated and danced in the rays.

My smile froze when I spotted the clock. “Crap!”

Throwing the bedspread to the side, I swung my legs off the bed and stood. “Bright and early” did not translate to waking up at noon. My mom had gone easy on me last night, but I doubted she’d feel the same if I added not doing my chores for the second day in the row. A quick glimpse at my reflection in the tiny bathroom mirror while I stripped confirmed I looked like Chewbacca. I took a quick shower, but the hot water still went cold before I could finish.

Shivering from the wrath of the evil water heater, I changed into a pair of worn jeans and a loose shirt. Towel drying my hair, I started toward my door. I stopped, smothering a yawn. Mom was probably already outside in the tiny garden in the front. It was right below the balcony, facing the apartment buildings and row homes across the street. I tossed the towel on the bed and threw open the balcony doors like some kind of southern belle greeting the day, all ladylike and delicate.

Except it all went wrong.

Wincing from the glare of the bright Florida sun, I shielded my eyes and stepped forward. My foot snagged in an empty flowerpot. Trying to shake it off, I lost my balance and careened across the balcony, catching myself on the railing before I could topple over it headfirst.

Death by flowerpot would be a hell of a way to go.

Underneath my arms, the rickety-ass wooden plant stand swayed to the left and then the far, far right. Several pots of green and yellow tulips shifted all at once.

“Crap!” I hissed. Pushing off the railing and dropping to my knees, I hugged the plant stand to my chest. Kneeling there, for once I was grateful that none of my old friends had been around to see that.

Half-bloods were known for their agility and grace, not for tripping over things.

Once I got everything back to where it was supposed to be without killing myself in the process, I stood and leaned carefully over the railing. I scanned the flowerbeds, expecting to find Mom laughing her butt off, but the yard was empty. I even checked by the fence, where she had planted a row of flowers a few weekends ago. I started to turn back when I saw the gate was open, hanging to the side.

“Huh.” I was almost positive I’d closed it last night. Maybe Mom had gone to the Krispy Kreme to get doughnuts? Mmm. My stomach grumbled. I grabbed the garden spade out of the mess of tools piled atop the small folding chair, bemoaning another morning eating shredded wheat if there weren’t doughnuts. Who did I have to kill to get some Count Chocula up in this house?

I flipped the spade over in the air, catching it by the handle while I gazed past the yard. The row houses across the street all had bars on the windows and paint peeling off the sides. The old women who inhabited them didn’t speak much English. Once I’d tried helping one of them pull her garbage bags out to the curb, but she’d yelled at me in another language and shooed me away like I’d been trying to steal it.

They were all out on their stoops right now, cutting coupons or doing whatever it was that old ladies did. Traffic packed the street. It was always like this on a Saturday afternoon, especially when it was turning out to be nice day for a beach trip.

My gaze crawled over the townies and the tourists as I continued to toss the spade in the air. It was always easy to pick out the out-of-towners. They wore fanny packs or abnormally large sun hats and their skin was either fish pale or sunburned.

A strange shiver coursed over me, spreading tiny bumps over my flesh. I sucked in a sharp breath, my eyes scanning the passing crowds with a will of their own.

Then I saw it.

Everything stopped around me in an instant. The air went right out of my lungs.

No. No. No.

He stood at the mouth of the alley, directly across from the bungalow and right beside the front porch where the old ladies sat. They glanced over at him as he stepped out onto the sidewalk, but they dismissed the stranger and returned to their conversation.

They couldn’t see what I saw.

No mortal could. Not even a pure-blood could. Only half-bloods could see through the elemental magic and witness the true horror—skin so pale and so thin that every vein popped through the flesh like baby black snakes. His eyes were dark, empty sockets and his mouth, his teeth…

This was one of the things I’d been trained to fight at the Covenant. This was a thing that thrived and fed on aether—the essence of the gods, the very life force running through us—a pure-blood who had turned his back on the gods. This was one of the things I was obligated to kill on sight.

A daimon—there was a daimon here.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 6

 

 

 

I wheeled away from the railing. Whatever training I’d managed to retain vanished in an instant. Part of me had known—had always known—deep down that this day would come. We’d been outside the protection of the Covenant and their communities for far too long. The need for aether would eventually draw a daimon to our doorstep. Daimons couldn’t resist the pure-blood mojo. I just hadn’t wanted to give voice to the fear, to believe that it could happen on a day like this, when the sun was so bright and the sky such a beautiful azure blue.

Panic clawed at the inside of my throat, trapping my voice. I tried to yell, “Mom!” but it came out a hoarse whisper.

I rushed through the bedroom, terror seizing me as I pushed and then pulled open the door. A crash sounded from somewhere in the house. The space between my bedroom and my mom’s seemed longer than I remembered and I was still trying to call out her name as I reached her room.

The door opened smoothly, but at the same time, everything slowed down.

Her name was still just a whimper on my lips. My gaze landed on her bed first, and then on a section of floor beside the bed. I blinked. The pot of hibiscus had toppled over and broken into large pieces. Purple petals and soil were strewn across the floor. Red—something red—mingled among the blossoms, turning them a deep violet. My gasp drew in a metallic smell that reminded me of the nose bleeds I used to get when a sparring partner would get in a lucky shot.

I shuddered.

Time stilled. A buzzing filled my ears until I couldn’t hear anything else. I saw her hand first. Abnormally pale and open, her fingers clawed at the air, reaching for something. Her arm twisted at an awkward angle. My head shook back and forth; my brain refused to accept the images in front of my eyes, to name the dark stain spreading down her shirt.

No, no—absolutely no. This was wrong.

Something—someone—braced half her body up. A pale hand clenched her upper arm and her head lolled to the side. Her eyes were wide open, the green somewhat faded and unfocused.

Oh, gods… oh, gods.

Seconds, it had only been seconds since I’d opened the door, but it felt like forever.

A daimon was latched onto my mother, draining her to get at the aether in the blood. I must’ve made a sound, because the daimon’s head lifted. Her neck—oh gods—her neck had been torn into. So much blood had been spilled.

My eyes met those of the daimon—or at least, they met the dark holes where its eyes should be. His mouth snapped away from her neck, gaping open to reveal a row of razor-like teeth covered in blood. Then the elemental magic took over, piecing together the face he’d had as a pure, before he’d tasted that first drop of aether. With that glamour in place, he was beautiful by any standard—so much so that, for a moment, I thought I was seeing things. Nothing that angelic-looking could be responsible for the red stain on my mother’s neck, her clothes…

His head tipped to the side as he sniffed the air. He let out a high-pitched keening sound. I stumbled backward. The sound—nothing real could sound like that.

He let go of my mom, letting her body slip to the floor. She fell in a messy heap and didn’t move. I knew she had to be scared and hurt, because there couldn’t be any other reason why she hadn’t moved. Rising up, the daimon’s bloody hands fell to his sides, fingers twisting inward.

His lips curved into a smile. “Half-blood,” he whispered.

Then he jumped.

I didn’t even realize I still held the garden spade. I raised my arm just as the daimon grabbed me. My scream came out as nothing more than a hoarse squeak as I fell back against the wall. The painting of Artemis crashed to the floor beside me.

The daimon’s eyes widened with surprise. His irises were a vibrant, deep blue for a moment, and then, like a switch being thrown, the elemental magic that hid his true nature vanished. Black sockets replaced those eyes; veins popped through his whitish skin.

And then he exploded in a burst of shimmery blue powder.

I looked down dumbly at my trembling hand. The garden spade—I still held the freaking garden spade. Titanium-plated, I realized slowly. The spade had been coated in the metal deadly to those addicted to aether. Had my mom bought the ridiculously expensive garden tools because she loved to garden, or had there been an ulterior motive behind the purchase? It wasn’t like we had any Covenant daggers or knives lying around.

Either way, the daimon had impaled itself on the spade. Stupid, evil, aether-sucking son of a bitch.

A laugh—short and rough—bubbled up my throat as a tremor ran through my body. There was nothing but silence and the world snapped back into place.

The spade slipped from my limp fingers, clattering on the floor. Another spasm sent me to my knees and I lowered my eyes to the unmoving form beside the bed.

“Mom…?” I winced at the sound of my voice and the shot of fear that went through me.

She didn’t move.

I placed my hand on her shoulder and rolled her onto her back. Her head fell to the side, her eyes blank and unseeing. My gaze fell to her neck. Blood covered the front of her blue blouse and matted the strands of her dark hair. I couldn’t tell how much damage had been done. I reached out again, but I couldn’t bring myself to brush back the hair covering her neck. In her right hand, she’d clenched a crushed petal.

“Mom…?” I leaned over her, my heart stuttering and missing a beat. “Mom!”

She didn’t even blink. During all of this, my brain was trying to tell me there was no life in those eyes, no spirit and no hope in her vacant stare. Tears ran down my face, but I couldn’t recall when I’d started crying. My throat convulsed to the point I struggled to breathe.

I cried her name then, grabbing her arms and shaking her. “Wake up! You have to wake up! Please, Mom, please! Don’t do this! Please!”

For a second I thought I saw her lips move. I bent down, placing my ear over her mouth, straining to hear one tiny breath, one word.

There was nothing.

Searching for some sign of life, I touched the undamaged side of her neck and then jerked back, falling on my butt. Her skin—her skin was so cold. I stared at my hands. They were covered with blood. Her skin was too cold. “No. No.”

A door shut downstairs, and the sound broke through to me. I froze for a second, my heart racing so fast I was sure it would explode. A shudder passed through my frame as the image of the daimon outside flashed through my head. What color had his hair been? The one in here had been blond. What color?

“Hell.” I scrambled to my feet and slammed the door shut. Fingers shaking, I turned the lock and whirled around.

There were two. There were two.

Heavy footsteps pounded on the stairs.

I rushed over to the dresser. Squeezing myself behind it, I shoved the heavy furniture with every ounce of strength I had in me. Books and papers toppled over as I blocked the door.

Something slammed into the other side, shaking the dresser. Jumping back, I ran my hands over my head. A keening howl erupted from the other side of the door, and then it struck the door again… and again.

I whirled around, stomach twisting in painful knots. Plans—we had a stupid plan in place just in case a daimon found us. We modified it every time we moved to a different city, but each one boiled down to one thing: Get the money and run. I heard her voice as clear as if she had spoken it. Take the money and run. Don’t look back. Just run.

The daimon hit the door again, splintering the wood. An arm snaked through, grasping at the air.

I went to the closet, pulling down boxes from the top shelf until a small wooden one fell to the floor. Grabbing it, I yanked it so fiercely that the lid ripped from the hinges. I threw another box at the door, hitting the daimon’s arm. I think it laughed at me. I grabbed what my mom called the ‘emergency fund’ and what I referred to as the ‘we are so screwed’ fund and pocketed the wad of hundred dollar bills.

Every step back to where she had fallen ripped through me, taking a piece of my soul. I ignored the daimon as I dropped beside her and pressed my lips to her cool forehead. “I’m so sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry. I love you.”

“I’m going to kill you,” the daimon hissed.

Looking over my shoulder, I saw the daimon’s head had made it through the door. He was reaching for the edge of the dresser. I picked up the garden spade, wiping the back of my arm over my face.

“I’m going to rip you apart. Do you hear me?” he continued, squeezing another arm through the hole he’d made. “Rip you open and drain you of whatever pathetic amount of aether you have, half-blood.”

I glanced at the window and grabbed the lamp off the table. Tearing the shade off, I tossed it aside. I stopped in front of the dresser.

The daimon stilled as the glamour settled around him. He sniffed the air, eyes flaring wide. “You smell dif—”

Swinging with all my might, I slammed the bottom of the lamp into the daimon’s head. The sickening thud in made pleased me in a way that would’ve concerned guidance counselors across the nation. It wouldn’t kill him, but it sure as hell made me feel better.

I threw the busted lamp down and raced to the window. I pushed it open just as the daimon let out a string of creative cusses and threats. I wiggled into the window, perching there as I stared at the ground below, assessing my chances of landing on the awning over the small porch off the back of the house.

The part of me that had been in the mortal world too long balked at the idea of jumping from a second story window. The other part—the part that had the blood of the gods running through it—jumped.

The metal roof made a terrible sound when my feet slapped into it. I didn’t think as I went to the edge and leapt once more. I hit the grass, falling to my knees. Pushing up, I ignored the stunned looks from the neighbors who must’ve come outside to see what was going on. I did the one thing I’d been trained never to do during my time at the Covenant, the thing I didn’t want to do, but knew I had to.

I ran.

With my cheeks still damp with tears and my hands stained with my mother’s blood, I ran.