CHAPTER 2
PRACTICE WAS OFFICIALLY CANCELLED.
“Go straight to your dorm, Alex, and stay there,” Aiden said before leaving the training arena.
I went to the cafeteria instead.
There was no way I was going to hang out in my dorm while there was a daimon running amuck. I’d considered following the two for a moment, but my ninja stealth skills were subpar.
By the time I’d cut across the quad, the sky had darkened and turned ominous. I picked up my pace, because when the sky got this way, one had to pay attention. September was hurricane season around this place. Or it could just mean Seth was pissed off somewhere nearby; his moodiness had a startling effect on the weather.
In the cafeteria, everyone huddled together in little groups, their faces animated. I grabbed an apple and a soda, noting there wasn’t a single pure in the lunchroom. I dropped into the seat beside Caleb.
He looked up, eyes bright. “You heard?”
“Yeah, I was practicing when Leon came to get Aiden.” I glanced at Olivia. “Do you have any details?”
“All I’ve heard is one of the younger students—Melissa Callao—didn’t show up for classes today. Her friends were concerned and checked her dorm. They found her in bed, the window open.”
I sat back, squelching the unease shifting through me. “Is she alive?”
Olivia stabbed a fork into her pizza. Her pure-blood mother worked closely with the Council. Lucky for us, she kept her daughter well informed. “She was practically drained, but she’s alive. I don’t know how her roommate didn’t know, or why she wasn’t attacked, too.”
“How in Hades is a daimon running around here?” Luke held up a hand, a puzzled frown on his face. “How could one get past the Guards?”
“It had to be a half,” Elena said from further down the table. She looked like an extraordinarily tall Tinkerbell with her short hair and wide, green eyes.
Up until this summer, we’d believed that half-bloods couldn’t be turned into daimons. A pure was chock full of aether, and a daimon would chew, gnaw, and kill to get at that essence like a psychotic drug addict. Once drained of their aether, the daimon could let the pure die or turn them, adding to the daimon horde. No one thought half-bloods had enough aether inside of them to make the switch over to the dark side, but for a patient daimon more interested in building an army than getting a meal, we were as good as a pure.
It sucked that the only place we were equal to pures was in a fate worse than death.
“Halfs who’ve turned don’t change like the pures.” Olivia flicked the fork between her long fingers. “They’re immune to titanium, right?” Her gaze landed on me.
I nodded. “Yep, gotta cut off their head. Gross, I know.” Or Seth could use his Apollyon mojo. He’d zapped Kain with akasha—the fifth and final element—and that’d done the job.
Caleb rubbed a spot on his arm where I knew he’d been tagged. He stopped as his eyes caught mine. I forced a smile.
“If it’s a half, it could be anyone.” Luke leaned back, folding his arms. “I mean, think about it. They don’t need elemental magic to conceal what they really look like. It could be anyone.”
When pures turned all evil and what-not, they were noticeable to half-bloods—like, really noticeable. Empty black eye sockets, pale skin, and mouths full of razor sharp teeth doesn’t make for a look that blends into the crowd. Halfs had the wacky ability to see through the elemental magic pure-blood daimons used, but daimon half-bloods just looked the same after they turned. At least Kain had.
“Well, it would have to be a half-blood who’d been attacked by a daimon,” a throaty, husky voice intruded. “Hmm, wonder who that could be? It’s not like they grow on trees around here.”
Lifting my head, I found Lea Samos and Jackson. It was the middle of September and the chick still sported a super tan—still so beautiful that I wanted to stab her in the eye with a plastic fork. “Yeah, that would make sense.” I kept my voice even.
Those amethyst eyes settled on me. “How many half-bloods do we know who’ve been attacked recently?”
I stared at her, stuck between disbelief and wanting to throw something. “Knock it off, Lea. I don’t want to hear your crap today.”
She pulled those full lips into a cruel smile. “I know of two.”
Caleb shot to his feet, knocking his chair over. “What are you saying, Lea?”
Two Guards by the door stepped forward, eyeing the situation with interest. Olivia grabbed Caleb’s hand, but he ignored her. “Come on, Lea. Just say it.”
She tossed a mane of coppery hair over her shoulder. “Chill out, Caleb. You got tagged how many times? Two? Three? It takes a hell of a lot more to turn a half-blood than that.” She looked at me pointedly. “Isn’t that right? That’s what I heard the Guards say. That the halfs have to be drained slowly, and then the daimon gives them the kiss of death.”
I took a deep breath. Lea and I were enemies. There’d been a time when my heart had sort of bled for her after her parents had been murdered, but that seemed like ages ago. “I’m not a daimon, you skank.”
Lea tipped her head to the side. “If it looks like a daimon, then…”
“Lea, go screw someone and tan, in whatever order.” Caleb sat back down. “No one wants to hear your crap. And that’s the funny thing about you, Lea. You think everyone cares what you have to say, when all they care about is how easy it is to get you on your back.”
“Or how the Instructors found a bottle of Brew in your room last week,” Olivia added, her lips curving into a half smile. “Didn’t know you were into such freaky stuff, or maybe that’s how you get guys into you.”
I snorted. I hadn’t heard that. “Wow. Drugging guys to sleep with you? Nice. I guess that’s why Jackson practically humped my leg in class today.”
Lea’s cheeks flamed an odd shade of brown and red. “You stupid, daimon-loving bitch, you’re the reason why my father’s dead! You should have—”
Several people moved at once. Olivia and Caleb darted across the table, trying to get a hold on me, but I was fast when I wanted to be.
I didn’t think; I just launched my shiny red apple right at her face. A throw like that from a half-blood turned an apple into a serious weapon. It struck home with a loud cracking sound.
Lea stumbled back, clasping the front of her face. Blood gushed between her fingers, matching the color of her nails. “You broke my nose!”
Everyone in the cafeteria stilled. Even the drab-looking half-blood servants stopped cleaning tables to watch. No one screamed or seemed overtly startled. After all, we were half-bloods—a violent bunch. The servants were usually too doped up to be concerned.
Somehow I’d forgotten about the Guards as I’d gone for Lea. I squeaked when one of them got an arm around my waist and hauled me across the table. Drinks spilled; food fell to the floor, and mystery meat smeared itself all over my gym pants.
“Knock it off, right now!”
“She broke my nose again!” Lea dropped her hands from her face. “You can’t let her get away with this!”
“Oh, shut up. The docs will fix it. Half your face is plastic anyway.” I struggled against the Guard until he twisted my arm back so far that any movement caused my shoulder to scream.
“She wanted to get at my aether.” Lea pointed a bloodstained hand at me. “Her mother killed my parents, and now she wants to kill me!”
I laughed. “Oh, for the love—”
“Shut up,” the Guard hissed in my ear. “Shut up before I make you shut up.”
Threats made by half-blood Guards weren’t meant to be taken lightly. I quieted down while the other Guard grabbed ahold of Lea. Blood pounded in my ears and my chest still heaved with fury, but I realized that I may’ve overreacted a tiny bit.
And I was going to be in so much trouble.
Half-bloods fighting amongst themselves wasn’t a big deal. The aggression and controlled violence sometimes rolled out of the training rooms into places like the cafeteria. Whenever halfs did get in trouble for fighting, they ended up with one of the Instructors who handled disciplinary issues.
Each dorm floor had one assigned. My floor had Instructor Gaia Telis, a pretty cool chick who wasn’t overly strict or annoying. But I didn’t end up with Instructor Telis. Five minutes after breaking Lea’s nose for the second time, I ended up in Dean Andros’s office.
This was only one of many drawbacks of my uncle being the Dean.
I stared at the vibrant fish zooming across the aquarium and fidgeted with the string on my pants while I waited for Marcus. Sometimes I felt like one of those fish—trapped by invisible walls.
The doors swinging open behind me made me cringe. This was going to suck daimon butt.
“If you discover anything else, notify me immediately. That is all.” Marcus’s deep voice filled the room. The Guards adorned the outside of his office doors like Greek warrior statues. Then he slammed the door shut.
I jumped.
Marcus stalked across the room, dressed like he’d spent the majority of the day on a golf course. I expected him to sit behind his desk like a dean should, so when he ended up directly in front of me, grasping the arms of my chair, I was a bit shocked.
“I am sure you’re aware of what has happened today.” The tone of Marcus’s voice was both cold and distinctively cultured. Most pures sounded that way—classy, refined. “A pure-blood was attacked at some point last night.”
I strained back as far as I could go, focusing on the aquarium. “Yeah—”
“Do not look away from me, Alexandria.”
Sucking in my lower lip, I faced him. His eyes were the same as my mother’s had been before she’d turned into a daimon—a vibrant shade of green, like glittering emeralds. “Yes, I heard.”
“Then you understand what I’m dealing with right now.” Marcus lowered his head so we were at eye level. “I have a daimon half-blood on my campus, hunting my students.”
“So it’s a half who’s been turned?”
“I think you already know that, Alexandria. You are a lot of things—impulsive, irresponsible, and ill-mannered—but stupid is not one of them.”
I wanted to hear more about this daimon half than my character flaws. “Who was the half? You’ve caught him, right?”
Marcus ignored my question. “Now, I’m pulled out of an investigation that will make or break my career here, all because my half-blood niece broke a girl’s nose in the cafeteria… with an apple, of all things.”
“She accused me of being a daimon!”
“So your natural response is to throw an apple at her face hard enough to break a bone?” His voice dropped, deceptively soft. Marcus was Chuck Norris in an off-pink polo shirt. I’d learned not to underestimate him.
“She said I was the reason her parents were killed.”
“I’ll ask you one more time: So you decided to throw an apple hard enough to break a bone?”
I wiggled uncomfortably. “Yeah, I guess so.”
He exhaled slowly. “Is that all you have to say?”
I glanced around the room, my brain emptying out. I said the first thing that came to mind, “I didn’t think the apple would break her nose.”
Pushing off the chair, he towered over me. “I expect more from you. Not because you’re my niece, Alexandria. Not even because you have more experience with daimons than any other student here.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“Everyone will be watching you—everyone of importance. You will give Seth unprecedented power. We cannot afford any misguided behavior from you, Alexandria. Neither can Seth.”
Irritation flared deep inside me. At eighteen, something called palingenesis would hit me like some kind of instant supernatural puberty. I’d Awaken and my power would shift to Seth. What power, I had no clue, but he’d become the God Killer. Everyone cared about Seth, but me? They didn’t seem so concerned with what would happen to me.
“People expect more from you. They will watch you because of what you will become, Alexandria.”
I disagreed. They watched because they feared history would repeat itself. The only time there’d ever been two Apollyons in the same generation, the First had turned on the Council. Both Apollyons had been executed. Two Apollyons at one time was considered dangerous by the Council and the gods. It was why Mom had taken me from the Covenant three years ago. She’d thought she could keep me safe, hide me among the mortals.
“At Council, you cannot behave like this. You can’t run around starting fights and mouthing off at people,” he continued. “There are rules—rules of our society that you must follow! They will not think twice about throwing you into servitude, and it won’t matter who you’re related to. Do you understand?”
Exhaling slowly, I lifted my head and found Marcus by the aquarium. His back was to me. “Yes, I understand.”
He ran a hand over his head. “You will leave your dorm for school, training, and dinner—dinner at the assigned time—and that is all. As of now, you have no friends.”
My gaze narrowed on his back. “Am I, like, grounded or something?”
He looked over his shoulder at me, lips thinning. “Until further notice, and do not even think of arguing with me. You cannot go unpunished for this.”
“But how can you ground me?”
Marcus turned around slowly. “You broke a girl’s nose with an apple.”
Suddenly, I didn’t want to argue. I was getting off light. Being grounded also didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t like my social calendar was full. “All right, but are you going to tell me if you found the
daimon?”
He stared at me a moment longer. “No. We haven’t found the daimon yet.”
I gripped the chair. “So… it’s still around?”
“Yes.” Marcus motioned me up, and I followed him to the door. He addressed one of the Guards. “Clive, escort Miss Andros back to her room.”
I groaned inwardly. Clive was one of the Guards I seriously suspected of hooking up with Lea. Every single conversation spoken inside Marcus’s office somehow got back to Lea. Considering Clive had a thing for young girls who wore fake Prada shoes, he was the likeliest suspect.
“Yes, sir.” Clive bowed.
“Remember our conversation,” Marcus said.
“But what about—”
Marcus shut the door.
Which part should I remember? The fact I was a disgrace to him or the fact there was a daimon running around? Clive grabbed my arm, fingers biting deep. I winced, trying to jerk my arm back, but he increased the pressure. The daimon tags still felt oddly sensitive.
“I guess you’re enjoying this.” I clenched my jaw.
“That would be a good guess.” Clive shoved me into the stairwell. The pures were wealthy, and I mean, more money than anyone could comprehend. Yet there wasn’t a single elevator in the entire campus.
“You think you can get away with anything, don’t you? You’re the dean’s niece, the Minister’s stepdaughter, and the next Apollyon. You’re just so damn special, aren’t you?”
There was a very good chance I might hit him, but with my fist instead of an apple. I jerked my arm free. “Yeah, I’m that damn special.”
“Just remember you’re still a half-blood, Alex.”
“Just remember I am the dean’s niece, the Minister’s stepdaughter, and the next Apollyon.”
Clive stepped up, his nose almost touching mine. “Are you threatening me?”
I refused to back down. “No. I’m just reminding you of how special I really am.”
He stared a moment, then gave a short, harsh laugh. “Maybe we’ll all get lucky and you’ll be a daimon snack on the way back to your dorm alone. Have a good night.”
I laughed as loud as I could and was rewarded with the door slamming shut. Hurrying down the stairs, I forgot about Clive. There was a daimon on campus and it’d already attacked one pure-blood, almost killing her. Who knew how long it would take before the daimon half needed its next fix? Mom had said a pure would keep a normal daimon going for days, but was it the same for a daimon half?
She hadn’t said anything about that, but she’d talked a lot about their plans to overthrow the Council and the pures while I’d been captive in Gatlinburg. Mom and Eric, the only surviving daimon from Gatlinburg, had plotted to turn the halfs first, and then send them back to infiltrate the Covenants. Sounded like that was already well underway… or could it just be a random attack?
Yeah, I doubted that.
What I’d learned in Gatlinburg was the whole reason I’d be attending the November Council session, but my testimony seemed pointless now.
I rounded the second floor level and came to an abrupt standstill. Apprehension trailed icy fingers down my spine, awakening the uncanny sense we half-bloods carried in our blood. I glanced over my shoulder, practically expecting a half-blood serial killer to be standing behind me… or at least Clive, about to push me down the steps.
But there was nothing.
Trained not to ignore the freaky sixth sense that alerted us to all kinds of messed-up things, I admitted that maybe I shouldn’t have pissed off Clive. After all, there was a daimon roaming around. I took the steps two at a time and flung open the door to the main level.
Dread still trailed along with me, coiling around my fingers. It didn’t help that the
long hallway was lit only by flickering overhead lights, adding to the creepy feeling. Where were all the Instructors and Guards? It was tomb-quiet.
“Clive?” My eyes devoured every vacant inch of the hallway. “If you’re messing with me, I’m seriously going to break your nose.”
Silence was my answer.
Tiny hairs on my body stood up in warning. Up ahead, the statues of the muses cast harsh shadows over the front lobby. Scanning every nook and cranny for a possible threat, I made my way down the hall. My footsteps echoed madly, almost as if the sound was laughing at me. I came to a sudden halt, mouth dropping open. There was a new addition to the Academy lobby, one that hadn’t been there when I’d been escorted to Marcus’s office.
Three new marble statues had been erected in the center of the lobby. The angelic, beautiful women clustered close to one another, their arms folded close to their bodies and their wings arched high above their tilted heads.
Oh, my gods.
There were furies in the Covenant.
Entombed for now, their arrival was a sign from some very unhappy gods. I walked around them slowly, as if they’d break free from their shells and rip me from limb to limb at any moment. I imagined they were waiting, sharpening the claws that would appear in their true form.
Furies were ancient, horrific goddesses once used to capture those who had committed evil but had not been punished. Now they appeared whenever there was a threat to the pures as a whole… or to humankind in general.
Something was about to go down, or already had.
Tearing my eyes away from their serene expressions, I pushed open the heavy doors. A hand clamped down on my arm. My gasp of surprise came out as a shriek as I leaned back and brought my leg up to deliver a vicious kick. My eyes flicked up an instant before I made contact.
“Crap!” I yelped.
Aiden blocked my knee, brows raised. “Well, your reflexes are definitely getting better.”
Heart racing, I closed my eyes. “Oh, my gods, you scared the crap out of me.”
“I can tell.” He dropped my arm, his eyes falling to my pants. “So it’s true.”
“So what’s true?” I still couldn’t get control over my heart. For crying out loud, I’d thought he was a daimon about to chomp down on what’s left of my arm.
“You got into a fight with Lea Samos and broke her nose.”
“Oh.” I straightened, pursing my lips. “She called me a daimon loving—”
“Words, Alex, just words.” Aiden tipped his head to the side. “Haven’t we had this conversation before?”
“You don’t know Lea. You don’t know how she is.”
“Does it matter how she is? You can’t fight everyone who says something negative about you. If I approached people the way you do, I’d be fighting all the time.”
I rolled my eyes. “People don’t talk bad about you, Aiden. Everyone respects you. You’re perfect. They don’t think you’re a daimon. Anyway, there’s a new happy family entombed in the lobby back there.”
He frowned.
“There’re furies in the lobby—statues of them.”
Aiden dragged a hand over his head, sighing. “We were afraid that might happen.”
“Why are they here?”
“The Covenant has been breached, which is something the Council assured would never happen. It was part of their agreement with the gods ages ago, when the first Covenant was established. The gods see this breach as the Council not able to handle the daimon problem.”
My stomach flopped. “And what does that mean, exactly?”
He grimaced. “It means, if the gods believe the pure-bloods have lost control, they will release the furies. It’s not something anyone wants. The furies will go after anything they perceive as a threat—daimon, half-blood, or…”
“Apollyon?” I whispered. Aiden didn’t respond, which confirmed I was correct. I groaned. “Awesome. Well, hopefully that doesn’t happen.”
“Agreed.”
I shifted uncomfortably, my brain unable to really process the new threat. “What are you doing over here, anyway?”
Aiden pinned me with a dark look. “I was going to see Marcus. What are you doing roaming around by yourself?”
“Clive was supposed to escort me back to the dorm, but that kind of fell through.”
His eyes narrowed and then he sighed. Tipping his head toward the dorms, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his dark cargos. “Come on, I’ll walk you back. You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
I pushed away from the doors. “Cuz there’s a daimon still on campus? And furies ready to attack?”
He glanced down at me, frowning. “I know your flippant attitude is an act. It’s probably what made you turn an apple into a deadly weapon. You of all people know how serious this is.”
My cheeks flushed at his reprimand. Guilt twisted my stomach into raw knots. I stared down at the markings on the pathway. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not the person you should be apologizing to.”
“Well, I’m sure as hell not apologizing to Lea. So you can forget that.”
Aiden shook his head. “I know what Lea said upset you. I can even… understand your reaction, but you have to be careful. People are—”
“Yeah, I know. People are watching me, blah and blah some more.” I squinted at the shadows of the patrolling Guards. It was the time between dusk and nightfall, but the lamps hadn’t kicked on yet. The largest buildings—the ones housing the school, training facilities, and dorms—slipped dark shadows over the pathway. “Anyway, do you guys have any idea where the daimon could be?”
“No. We’ve searched everywhere and are still searching. Right now we’re focused on keeping the students safe.”
We stopped at the bottom of the steps outside my dorm. The porch was empty, a sign of everyone’s unease. Girls usually hung out here, hoping to get some guy time in. “Did Melissa see the daimon? Was she able to give some sort of description?”
Aiden ran a hand over his forehead. “She barely remembers anything from the attack right now. The doctors… well, they think it’s the trauma. A way of protecting herself, I guess.”
I looked away, grateful it was dark outside. Why couldn’t I forget what’d happened in Gatlinburg? “It’s probably more than just that. She’s a pure. Where one of us would be trained to pay attention to details, to gain as much information as possible, she wasn’t. She’s just like a… normal girl. And if the attack happened at night, she probably thought it was a nightmare. Waking up to something like that? I couldn’t even imagine.” I stopped. He was staring at me strangely. “What?”
“It’s just that you’re thinking along the right lines.”
I couldn’t keep the goofy grin off my face. “I’m that awesome. I know.”
His lips twitched as if he wished to smile. “So, how much trouble are you in?”
“Grounded basically, but I guess I got off light.” I was still smiling like an idiot.
“Yeah, you did.” He looked relieved. “Try to stay out of trouble and please don’t sneak around the grounds. I doubt the daimon is still here, but you never know.”
Drawing in a deep breath, I folded my arms over my chest. “Aiden?”
“Hmm?”
I stared at Aiden’s boots. They were shiny, never scuffed. “It’s starting, isn’t it?”
“You’re talking about what your mother told you, aren’t you?”
“She said this is what they would do. And Eric’s still out there. What if he’s behind this and—?”
“Alex.” He leaned toward me. We were close, but not as close as we’d been in the gym. “It doesn’t matter if it’s Eric or not. We’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again. You have nothing to worry about.”
“I’m not scared.”
Aiden reached out, brushing his fingers over mine. It was a brief touch, but my body tingled nonetheless. “I didn’t say you were scared. If anything, you’re too brave.”
Our gazes met. “Everything is changing.”
“Everything already has.”
Later that night, I tossed and turned. My mind wouldn’t shut down. The daimon attack, the apple assault, bitchy furies, the impending Council session, and everything else kept cycling in one giant, endless cluster. Each time I flipped over, I grew more irritated at the prospect of another sleepless night.
The trouble sleeping had started about a week after returning from Gatlinburg. I’d fall asleep for an hour or so before a nightmare crept into my dreams. Mom was usually in those nightmares. Sometimes I relived fighting her in the woods; sometimes I didn’t kill her, and other times it was just me and Daniel, the daimon with the too-friendly hands.
Then there were the dreams where I wanted to be turned into a daimon.
I’d flipped onto my stomach and shoved my face into the pillow when I felt a strange tingling in the pit of my stomach—like the butterflies right before a first kiss, only much, much stronger.
I pushed up and squinted at the clock. Past one in the morning, and I felt wide awake. And hot—really hot. Thinking the temperature controls may’ve gone all wacky again, I got up and opened the window by the bed. Cool, damp air rolled in from the ocean, providing some relief. I didn’t feel like I’d crawl out of my skin at any moment, but I still burned—like all over. I ran my hands over my face, aching in a way that reminded me of the time I’d spent with Aiden. Not our training sessions, oh no—but the night before I’d found Kain, the night I’d lain naked in Aiden’s bed.
But I remembered more than the physical stuff. Words I’d never ever forget in a trillion years—you got inside me, became a part of me. No one had ever said anything like that to me—no one.
I glanced at the clock again, sighing. Fifteen minutes went by, then twenty minutes, then half an hour. Finally, I stopped paying attention to the time. My heart pounded until I squeezed my eyes shut. I could almost see Aiden now, feel the soft
brush of fingertips and hear those words again. Then, without any warning, the itchy feeling vanished. The cool air coming in from the window suddenly felt brutal.
“What the hell?” I flopped onto my back. “Hot flashes? Really?”
It was a long, long time before I fell asleep.