CHAPTER 16
“ARE YOU FEELING UNWELL?”
“Huh?” I looked up from my untouched plate.
Marcus eyed me curiously. “You haven’t eaten any of your breakfast.”
I glanced over at Aiden. He also watched me. So did Seth. Laadan’s eyes were on me, too, except she kind of had this nostalgic look about her, as if she really wasn’t seeing me.
This breakfast was a whole lot of awkward.
My gaze settled back on Aiden and I couldn’t stop the image of the pure-blood Guard stabbing Aiden in the back from flashing through my mind. I felt the blood slide out of my face.
Aiden put his glass of orange juice down. “Alex?”
“Yeah… I just didn’t get much sleep last night.” I could feel Seth’s eyes boring through me. “It’s just being in a new place and all.”
“Is your room not to your liking?” asked Marcus.
“Have you seen my room?” I debated shoving forkfuls of egg in my mouth, but the way Aiden studied me over the rim of his glass, it didn’t sound like a good idea. “If you can even consider that box a room.”
Marcus sat back, crossing one leg over his knee. “I haven’t seen your room, but I’m sure it’s not that—”
“Marcus, what time are the sessions this morning?” asked Laadan.
Distracted, he glanced at his watch. “They should be starting shortly.”
I sent Laadan a grateful smile, and she winked as she twirled her glass of
champagne. Drinking champagne this early in the morning appeared sophisticated and cool to me, and so did the awesome green dress she wore. It was demure, with little cap sleeves.
The scratching of Seth’s chair across the marble tile sounded harsh. “Alex, it’s time for practice.”
Aiden glanced over his shoulder at Seth. “She hasn’t eaten anything.”
“Then at least she’ll eat her lunch,” Seth replied.
Hardness crept across Aiden’s face. “Or you could give her a few minutes to eat her breakfast before she starts practice.”
“Hmm… I’m having this strange sense of déjà vu, except you were telling me to stay out of your training business, and I told you how weird—”
“That’s funny.” Aiden’s full lips twisted into a smirk. “I’m having the same feeling, except I said you should—”
“Oh, for the love of baby daimons everywhere, I’m ready to start practice.” I pushed up from the chair.
Aiden twisted around, his eyes narrowing into thin slits. I grabbed my glass of juice and took a healthy swallow while Laadan watched on with amused interest. “Happy?”
“Do they do this often?” she asked, taking a sip from her crystal flute.
Marcus cleared his throat. “Do you even have to ask?”
“What?” Seth scowled, turning his beauty even colder. “What do we—”
“Dean Andros, I’ve been looking for you. There are some things I’d like to talk with you—oh, is this the infamous Alexandria?”
I tensed, recognizing the voice. Minister Telly. I met Seth’s stare for an instant, and then I forced my body to turn around. Seeing him after he’d ordered Hector’s death caused my stomach to sour. I smiled—probably looked more like a grimace—but I tried.
Telly’s gaze drifted over me in a wholly condemning matter. “So this is what all the fuss is about?”
That plucked the wrong nerve. “I guess so.”
He smiled faintly. “Well, there has been a lot of uproar surrounding what you’ve
accomplished. Many rumors have spread, claiming you have already killed daimons. I am curious if this is true. How many daimons have you killed?”
Vaguely, I sensed Seth moving around the table. Odd that I knew where he was in a room. “I’ve killed three.”
“Oh.” Telly’s brows rose. “Impressive. And how many innocent people have you thrown into harm’s way? Or gotten killed?”
Blood came rushing back to my face. Telly’s smile spread, becoming genuine. He was getting off on seeing me squirm.
“Seth? Isn’t it time for Alex’s practice?” asked Aiden.
If Seth was humored by Aiden’s sudden change, he didn’t express it. “Why, yes. Excuse us, Minister Telly, but we must—”
I met Telly’s icy stare. “One.”
“One what, dear?”
Everyone behind me probably stopped breathing. “I’ve gotten one innocent person killed, and I don’t know how many I’ve put in harm’s way—maybe dozens.”
Seth swore under his breath.
Telly’s eyes flared wide for a second, filled with shock. “Is that so?”
Surprisingly, it was Marcus who came to my rescue. He slid in front of me, blocking the Minister’s hostile glare. “Minister Telly, there were a few things I wished to discuss with you also. If it pleases you, would now be a good time?”
Without waiting for Telly’s response, Seth grabbed hold of my arm and pulled me away from the table. He waited until we were a step away from the doors. “Gods, you just cannot keep your mouth shut.”
“Whatever.” I yanked my arm free and stepped outside. The thermal and sweats I wore were no protection against the biting wind.
Seth seemed unfazed by the chilly air. He held his hand up as we walked toward the labyrinth, a small ball of blue energy formed in his open palm. “He is not someone you want as an enemy.”
The little ball went up, then down, then up in his palm. My inner golden retriever couldn’t look away. “I don’t think he liked me to begin with.”
“Still, you don’t need to make it worse.”
His tone pissed me off. “You know what, you need to stay out of my bedroom. You have your own.”
He smiled. “I know I do. I see it quite often. I just prefer your bed. It smells better.”
I made a face. “It smells better? What does your bed smell like? Regret and bad taste?”
Seth chuckled. “Wherever you sleep, it smells like you.”
“Gods, that has to be the creepiest thing I’ve heard in a long time. And that is… that is saying something, Seth.”
“You smell like roses and summer.” He tossed the ball a little higher. “I like it.”
I choked. “I smell like summer? For real? Summer?”
“Yeah, you know. Warm. You always smell warm.”
Two pures passed us, glancing over their shoulders at Seth’s little display of power. I started to smile at their shared looks of shock, but remembered I was supposed to be mad. “I don’t care if you like the way I smell, you freak.”
“It’s not like Marcus is going to walk in.” The ball grew bigger, swallowing his hand. “That’s why I locked the door. He can’t interrupt our cuddle-fest.”
“That’s not the point, and would you put that away!” I snapped.
Seth was quiet for a whole minute—a new record for him. “Don’t worry; you’ll be able to do this one day. And you’d miss me if I didn’t want to cuddle.”
“That’s not true.”
He cast me a sideways glance that said he remembered me cuddling up against him last night. I groaned, wanting to smack him with every fiber of my being. But he did put the ball of energy away as we cleared the labyrinth and the amphitheater came into view. A shudder ran through me that had nothing to do with the temperature. “Where are we going?”
“Not in there.”
“Well, I figured that much.” I followed him around the building, refusing to look at it. Just like the servants we passed on the way refused to look at us.
Behind the Council building I could finally see the actual Covenant. A wrought iron fence surrounded the campus grounds. While our school looked like something straight out of Greece on a good day, theirs looked like a medieval fortress with creepy turrets and towers that rose out of the fog. Behind the sprawling structure, I could see the tops of gray buildings I assumed were the dorms.
I noticed the designs in the fence as we neared it. “What’s up with the torch thing?”
“Huh?”
“These downward torch things.” I pointed one out on the fence, “They’re everywhere here.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed that. They’re a symbol of Thanatos.”
“One of my Instructors at the Covenant has a tattoo of it on his arm.”
His lips pursed. “Minister Telly has one on his arm, too.”
“How in the world do you know that?” We cut across the frost- covered lawn to one of the covered walkways connecting smaller buildings to the main one. “Have you been sneaking into his room and cuddling with him, too?”
“Don’t be jealous. You’re my only cuddle bunny. But to answer your question, when I got here with Lucian, Telly was waving his arm around as he yelled at some servants. The sleeve of his robe slipped back and I saw the tattoo.”
“I wonder if they belong to some secret society or something.”
“A secret society of douchebags, maybe.”
I snickered. “Sounds about right.”
We passed two halfs walking to class and they came to an abrupt standstill. Eyes wide, they gawked at us. One boy elbowed the other. “That’s him! And that has to be her—the other one.”
The other boy’s mouth dropped open. “Then it’s true! There really are two Apollyons.”
“By the gods,” his companion ran a hand over his chest, “this is so cool.”
Seth bowed at them. “Way cool.”
Rolling my eyes, I pushed him to the side. The whole sensing Seth thing was getting annoying. “Where are we going?”
“Since it’s freezing up here in the mornings, I figured we’d do our first session in a training room. Then move outside.”
My shoulders slumped. “I have to practice with you all day?”
Seth spun around in front of me, the perpetual, cocksure grin on his face. “You have to spend all day with me. Every day. For as long as we are here.”
I stared at him.
He clapped his hands together, letting out a rather high-pitched squeal before grabbing my hand. “Oh, we are going to have so much fun! Aren’t we? Fun, Alex—we will have fun.”
We weren’t having fun.
I spun around, blocking first his kick then his jab. Sweat poured off me and my muscles ached from the never-ending onslaught that was Seth.
Then again, I preferred these morning sessions over the afternoon ones. Over the past three days, I’d come to dread the outside training sessions. The weather didn’t warm up very much by then, and the frozen ground was unforgiving, even with the magically green grass springing up from it.
Seth tossed me a bottle of water. “Five minutes.”
I retreated to the edge of the mats and took a long swallow. Seth, who never seemed thirsty, decided to entertain the ever-growing crowd of gawkers. In between class changes, half students had started gathering at the doors. Seth left them open since this kind of thing stroked his ego. All the halfs were pretty cool, though, and they didn’t treat me like people did at my Covenant. Somehow—and I totally blame Seth—they’d found out I’d already made some kills, which upped my cool factor into uncharted territory. We had students and Instructors watching us try to tear each other’s heads off.
This, in a way, was what we really wanted to do.
It seemed the only time we didn’t fight was when we slept. There hadn’t been another repeat of the night I’d used Seth as a pillow, and I think that ticked him off.
I strolled across the mats, catching that tail end of what Seth was saying to the pretty little half with eons of red hair and a chest that made me feel like I wore a training bra.
“Maybe after practice I’ll show you my balls of—”
I chucked the water bottle at the back of Seth’s head. He spun around and caught it before it connected. Gasping, the girl stepped back and stared at me. I had a feeling that if I were anyone else, she’d pull my hair out.
“Not nice.” Seth threw the bottle to the floor.
“Five minutes are up.” I bounced back a few steps, grinning.
Cross, a half-blood who’d become a regular at the door, elbowed his friend. “Hundred dollars they end up in a fight to the death by week’s end.”
“Who’d you think would win?” Will, another now familiar face, grinned.
“I’d put my bets on that one.” Cross jerked his head at me.
I tossed my head back, smiling at Seth. “Me,” I mouthed.
Seth looked bored.
Boobs stopped twirling her hair for five seconds. “Oh no, I’d say the First would come out on top.”
My smile faded, and I decided to ignore them. I turned to Seth. “Ready, sweetheart?”
He moved to stand in front of me, his back to his—our—groupies. “I’m always ready for you, cuddle bunny.”
My hand slipped past his block, slamming hard into his solar plexus. He staggered backward, grunting. “Moving a little slow there, Apollyon?”
Not to be outdone with the growing fan base by the door to witness, he tapped into the elements. Jerk-face, I thought. The first gust of wind missed me only by an inch, but the second was so far off that I stopped to laugh. The third punched me square in the chest. I hit the mats hard but rolled to my feet before he could pin me down. We went at it until we broke for lunch. Seth liked eating with the students. It provided more chances for his head to grow bigger.
Cross and Will invited us to a party they were throwing Saturday night. “It’d be awesome if you guys could come,” said Cross. “The pures will be doing their own thing, so no one will be checking on us.”
The pures had been doing their own thing every night. Even five floors up, I could hear their raucous laughter in the wee hours of the morning. Thinking about that soured my mood. I wondered if he was one of the pures partying it up.
Seth thought the party sounded like a great idea. So did Boobs. I wasn’t so sure, because the secondhand hot flashes I’d caught from Seth had been bad enough from a distance. I really didn’t want to experience them in the same room. At the end of our afternoon practice outdoors, Seth caught my hand before I could make off without him.
“What?” I desperately wanted a long, hot shower.
Uncaring of the cold mud covering every square inch of my clothes, he pulled me toward him. “You have to come to the party with me.”
I arched a brow at him. “I didn’t say I wasn’t going.”
“You didn’t say you were, and you’ve been grumpy all afternoon.”
“That’s because I’m stuck with you, day and night.”
“I don’t believe that.” Seth’s gaze flicked up and behind me, and then he inched me closer. I braced myself by putting my hand on his shoulder, but he smiled down at me—a different kind of smile, one he usually reserved for girls like Boobs and Elena. Sudden wariness shifted through me, ratcheted up to the tenth degree when he reached out with his free hand and cupped my chin.
My pulse skyrocketed. “What are you—?”
Seth smoothed his thumb over my lower lip, sending a weird mix of shivers through me. His stare locked onto mine, and the yellow of his eyes flared. “You have mud on your lip.”
“Oh.” I wiped my hand over my mouth, twisting out of his embrace. “I have—”
Aiden stood under a statue of Apollo, appearing just as unmoving and fierce as the god. It took quite of a lot for me not to turn and sock Seth in the face.
“Hey there.” Seth stepped around me. “Checking out our training sessions, are you? Don’t fret; I’ve been taking really good care of her.”
I decided right then and there: the first thing I was going to do once I Awakened was zap Seth.
“I’m sure you have.” Aiden’s voice was cold.
Seth moved past Aiden, clapping him on the shoulder as he did so. “How are the Council sessions going? Changing the world?”
Aiden’s gaze settled on Seth’s hand and then slowly lifted to his face. Whatever Seth saw in his eyes must’ve told him to remove his hand as quickly as possible. Chuckling as if it amused him, Seth glanced back at me. “See you later, cuddle bunny.”
What came out of my mouth made Aiden’s eyes widen, but only made Seth laugh harder as he strolled back toward the campus.
“Hey,” I said, grateful that mud did cover half of my flaming face.
Aiden shoved his hands into his white trousers. “I can see training with him is going as expected.”
“I hate him, really I do.”
“‘Hate’ is such a strong word.”
My chin jerked up. “You’d understand if you had to spend five seconds with him.”
His gray eyes settled on my face, then my lips—lips that he’d seen Seth touch. “I guess so.”
“So why are you here?” I sounded harsh, but I was bristling at the coldness in his eyes and still licking the emotional wounds Aiden had sliced open.
“I haven’t seen you in a few days, so I was actually checking in on you.”
I felt warm despite the brisk air and hated myself for it. “Why?”
He shrugged. “I’m not allowed to?”
Secretly, my heart was jumping around happily at the idea of Aiden searching me out. My brain, on the other hand, brutally ordered me to walk away. I stayed. “I guess so.”
“Walk you back?”
“Is that okay—I mean, no one will care that a pure is walking with a half? I don’t see many of them doing so here.” I paused, frowning. “Actually, I never see any pures talk to halfs here.”
“Minister Telly is a bit archaic in the way the Council and the Covenant are run here. He wants things to be as if centuries of change has not occurred—a complete separation of breeds and races.”
We started back toward the main house, together. “So that’s why I haven’t seen any mortals here.”
Aiden nodded. “I think Minister Telly would go completely back to the old ways, to a time when our kind devoted every aspect of our lives to the gods. He doesn’t even believe we should have any contact with mortals, not even through compulsion.”
“Well, how does he expect to build up his half-blood army of daimon killers?” He gave me a straight look. It hit me. “He doesn’t think there should be any half-bloods, does he?”
“He thinks that pures should be able to refrain from the carnal activities that lead to little half-bloods being made, and that we should be able to defend ourselves against the daimons.”
I knocked back a mud-encased strand of hair. “Then what would you all do for servants? Actually take care of yourselves?”
He stared at the cloudy sky. “There are enough half-bloods in the world now to carry the pures through several generations. After that, I don’t know what Telly would do.”
“So he wants to see all half-bloods enslaved? Nice. I knew there was a reason why I thought he was a giant douchebag. My judgment wasn’t as bad as I thought it was.”
Aiden glanced down at me, a curious expression on his striking face. “Why would you think your judgment is off?”
I looked at him pointedly.
He pursed his lips and nodded stiffly. “Got it.”
We continued on in silence for a few minutes. “So… how do you like it here?”
I wet my lips, thinking about Hector. “I miss… home.”
Aiden continued to stare up at the overcast sky. “I miss it, too.”
I drifted closer to him as we neared the Council building. I told myself that was normal. Aiden was my friend—only a friend. “This whole place makes me uncomfortable. I just wish I could get on with my hearing and be done with it. It’s stupid that I have to be here all this time, when my hearing isn’t even scheduled until the end of the session. Anyway, how have the hearings been?”
“Long. The Councils spend more of the time arguing than anything else.”
That didn’t surprise me. “Have they talked about halfs turning yet?”
His expression suddenly emptied. “That discussion provokes the most arguments, but anyway, what are you planning to do with your evening?”
“What am I planning to do?” I tipped my head back and sighed. “Shower.”
Aiden laughed, sending a flurry of warm and fluttering feelings through my stomach. It’d felt like years since I’d heard him laugh. “You are such a mess right now.”
I sighed pitifully. “I know. I think I have mud in my mouth.”
“Well, I might have something that’ll make you feel better.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slender black tube about four inches long.
“What is that?”
Aiden smiled as he held it out from his body. “They’ve been working on new weapons since the discovery of halfs being turned. This is what they came up with.”
“A black tube? Wow.”
His smile turned into a grin. “Just watch.” His fingers moved to the end of the tube, pressing down on a small button. Titanium blades shot out from each side. Aiden shook his wrist and the blade on the right side extended and curved in.
My eyes went wide. “Whoa. I like.”
He laughed. “I know how much you like things that stab. Here.” He handed me the blade. “But be careful. The ends are wicked sharp.”
I took the weapon, holding it reverently. It was heavier than I expected, but still manageable. My fingers curved on the cool matter of the center. One end had been finished down to a sharp point, while the other reminded me of a sickle. Why had
they shaped the blade this way?
Then I felt stupid for not realizing right off the bat. Cringing, I pointed to the sickle end. “This is for taking off heads, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, we all can’t harness akasha like Seth. And even he can’t zap every daimon half. Using akasha soaks up energy, so he can only use it when he really needs to.”
“Oh.” I made a wide-sweeping motion, grinning in spite of the messy business it represented. “I wonder what it will be like after I Awaken. If he’ll be able to use akasha easier.”
“I don’t know.” Aiden eyed the blade warily. “Probably something you should ask Seth.”
I remembered what Lucian had said about Seth pulling from me once I Awakened. “He’s going to suck me dry, probably.” The moment those words left my mouth I froze. Mom had said that. Was that what would happen?
Aiden noted my sudden stillness. “You okay?”
I blinked. “Yeah, I’m fine.” I pressed the little button on the end of the metal tube. The sickle side straightened before both ends collapsed back into the tube. I handed it back to Aiden, forcing a casual smile. “Thanks for letting me see that.”
“No problem.” We walked a while in silence before he spoke again. “You sure you’re all right?”
“Yep,” I said, promising myself that Seth and I would have a conversation very soon.
Aiden stepped in front of me, opening the door to the main house. Inside, we stuck to the less-travelled areas as we made our way to the stairwell. We passed another one of those damn paintings with the torch, but this one had something written in ancient Greek.
“Hey, you read ancient Greek, right?”
Aiden halted in front of me and turned around. “Yes.”
I pointed one dirty finger at the painting. “What does this say?”
He stepped closer. “It reads ‘Order of Thanatos.’”
“I know that from somewhere.” I crossed my arms. “What’s up with all the Thanatos stuff here?”
He brushed messy waves off his forehead. “I really don’t know what the fascination is, but the Order was a mystic group that existed centuries ago. It’s in the Myths and Legends book I gave you.”
“Well, that’s currently being used as a doorstop in my dorm.”
Aiden grinned at that, and I realized we hadn’t argued or said anything mean to each other. This was progress. “The group died out centuries ago. I don’t remember much about them, but they were pretty extreme about tradition and the old ways.”
I thought about the tattoos Instructor Romvi and Telly shared. “What do you think it means if someone has a tattoo of Thanatos’s symbol?”
“Nothing probably, since a lot of us have tattoos of various symbols.”
“You don’t.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them.
His eyes turned from gray to silver in a heartbeat. I imagined he was remembering how I would know if he had a tattoo hidden somewhere.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“It’s okay.” Aiden stepped back, his eyes dropping to my lips again, then back up.
What passed between us in those tense moments could’ve caught the whole damn building on fire. A yearning—deep and powerful—sprung alive. My fingers dug into my own skin, but it did nothing to dampen the desire to be close to him, to be in his arms. I thought I saw the same look on his face.
I squeezed my eyes shut, letting the mad desire wreak havoc on my heart. Aiden was gone when I reopened them. Pressing my lips together, I headed up the stairwell used by the servants since I was sure Aiden had taken the main one, and being stuck with him in a stairwell… well, my overheated imagination supplied possible scenarios that would never happen. I rounded the fifth landing, almost plowing through a servant coming through the door to my floor.
“Sorry! I should have—”
The half-blood from the first day here—the servant with eyes that seemed so familiar, stared down at me, incredibly alert. A second passed before he jerked his chin down and hurried past me. I spun around, gripping the handrail. “Hey!”
He stopped.
I went down a step. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
No answer.
“I know you can talk—you especially.” I inched down one more step. “You don’t look like the rest.” He whipped around so fast I leaned backward. His eyes searched my face, but he still didn’t say anything. I took a deep breath. “Your eyes aren’t glassed over like… like most of the servants here.”
His head cocked to the side and he came up a step.
I held my hands up, my heart pounding. “I’m not going to say anything. I’m totally Team Half-Blood. Are there others like you, others that aren’t all doped up?”
Probably not the best word choice, but he nodded.
I mulled that over, studying his features. He may’ve been handsome before the servant’s life took a toll on him, but I kept going back to his eyes. They were such a warm brown. “Why won’t you talk to me?” I made a face. “Why won’t any of you talk to me?”
His hand clenched the rail, knuckles bleaching.
“Okay. Anyway.” I swallowed nervously. Were the servants up here unstable? “You look familiar to me.”
That seemed to be the wrong thing to say, because he backed off.
“Wait—just wait a second.” Once again, he stopped and watched me, lips thinned into a tight line. “What’s your name?”
The door opened and Marcus’s voice rang out. “Alex, is that you in the stairwell?”
The servant’s eyes narrowed then he disappeared down the stairs. Groaning in frustration, I pulled myself up the last couple of steps. “Yeah, it’s me.”
“Who are you talking to?”
I shook my head, sliding past him. “No one.”