Chapter 5
Josie
Sitting with my legs curled under me, I hid my grin as Alexandria “Alex” Andros paced in front of me while I sat on a couch in a room I’d actually never been in before.
The University in South Dakota was on a huge, sprawling campus, so there were a ton of places I hadn’t seen yet. Entire buildings I hadn’t even stepped foot in.
But damn, I wished I’d seen this room before, because it was full of great ways to waste a day away with, everything from air hockey to Pac-Man. The arcade games behind me were quiet, as were the tables, but I figured even if they were turned on, Alex would’ve drowned out the beeps and thuds with her rant.
Saying Alex was annoyed would’ve been an understatement.
“I can’t believe they left me here.” Her pretty, heart-shaped face was flushed with irritation. “I could’ve helped them.”
This was probably my fault.
If I hadn’t started roaming around, looking to see if Seth had returned, I wouldn’t have run into Alex, who was also roaming around, looking for Aiden. The moment I asked if she’d seen Seth, she’d put two and two together, and then her uncle Marcus, the dean at the University, had confirmed what she’d suspected.
Aiden and Seth had left to deal with an issue in Los Angeles.
“They’re out there dealing with daimons on steroids and I’m here when I should be out there with them.” She stormed past me again, stopping by the ping pong table. For a second, I thought she might actually flip it, but she pivoted around. “And they know that. Both of them.”
Pressing my lips together, I resisted the urge to laugh as I folded my right arm over my lower stomach. Only Alex would be upset about being left out of hunting down and killing charred-up, gross daimons.
“Instead, I’m doing nothing but bitching and moaning. It’s not like I can’t fight. They don’t have to worry about me getting hurt or something.”
“Like they would with me?”
She stopped, her warm brown eyes widening. “No! I didn’t mean that.”
I lifted my brows. “It’s okay. It’s kind of true. That’s probably why Seth didn’t tell me where he was going.”
“He probably knew you’d insist on going with him.” Alex started pacing again. “You can fight, too. I’ve seen you.” Letting her head fall back, she groaned. “Guys are such caveman douchebags.”
I thought about the conversation I had with Seth last night. Would I have insisted before? Hell yeah. I’d want to be in the thick of it, even if it terrified me. I’d want to prove myself. Now? I would’ve wanted to help, but I wouldn’t have insisted. Fighting a battle I wasn’t even needed in didn’t seem like a wise choice to make.
Wow.
I was more mature than I realized.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to insinuate anything. I’m just so freaking annoyed.” Alex plopped down on the couch beside me. “I’m going to throat-punch Aiden.”
I laughed then, unable to help myself.
She slid me a long look and then grinned. “I’m what most people would consider ‘extra,’ aren’t I?”
“A little.”
There’d been a time, not too long ago, when I was consumed with jealousy when I thought about Alex and her history with Seth. I mean, who’d blame me? Alex was gorgeous and a legit badass, a legend among half-bloods and pure-bloods.
And she’d been involved with Seth.
Like there’d definitely been some swapping of bodily fluid going on between them at one point, and it hadn’t mattered that at the end of the day she’d always, irrevocably been in love with Aiden.
Alex was just, well, everything I wasn’t.
Or at least that was how I used to see her, and see myself. Heck, at one point I thought Seth had been in love with her. I’d gotten over all of that, mainly because I stopped comparing myself to her. We may have been oddly related in a really weird and distant way and had some bizarre stuff in common, but we weren’t the same. Alex and I were now friends, pretty close friends. She’d been with me when I found out I was pregnant.
And that had still been kind of awkward.
Alex leaned back into the couch, letting her head rest against the tall, thick cushions as her arms flopped limply at her sides. “I just hate sitting things out, you know?”
I didn’t really know, not in the way she did, because all of this—the fighting, the killing, the protecting—was still new to me, but I nodded. Alex had grown up in this life. This was just an ordinary Tuesday for her.
Her sigh was impressive, sounding so much like her uncle when he was annoyed by one thing or another. That one thing usually being Seth. “I hope we figure out why these earthquakes are still…” She trailed off as her head swiveled to the door. “Well, this should be interesting.”
I followed her gaze and saw a messy riot of curly blond hair. A grin raced across my face. “Deacon!”
Aiden’s younger brother inched into the room, his silvery gaze the only thing that physically matched his darker-haired brother. “Are you guys busy? I have a surprise.”
With Deacon, a surprise could be anything. Once he told me he had a surprise for me, and it was a painting he’d done of a Cabbage Patch Doll. It was strikingly realistic and a little unnerving.
“No. We’re not busy,” Alex answered, still sprawled beside me as if all the bones had been sucked out of her body. “We’re painfully not busy.”
Deacon eyed her and then shook his head. “I have a guest.”
He stepped aside, extending a hand. I expected to see his super handsome and always calm boyfriend Luke, but that wasn’t who crept tentatively into the room.
It was a girl about my height, with warm brown skin and raven-colored hair that fell past her shoulders in tight, springy curls.
“Cora!” Surprise rippled through me. The most recently acquired demigod—er, okay, she was kind of kidnapped—hadn’t stepped foot out of her room since Deacon and Luke brought her here. The only people who she’d spent time with had been Gable, the son of Poseidon that we’d found in Malibu, and Colin, a half-blood who went to school here.
The girl, a daughter of Demeter, gave me an awkward one-armed wave. “Hey.”
Luke was now in the doorway, beside the dark-haired and perpetually tan Gable. I imagined he got that skin tone from spending countless hours every day surfing. How incredibly cliché was that? Being the son of Poseidon and having a knack for water sports.
“Cora has decided to check out the campus.” Deacon clasped his hands together. “Isn’t that exciting?”
Alex glanced at me. “Yeah, that’s really exciting.”
I smiled at the quiet girl, who was obviously way out of her element. I couldn’t blame her for holing herself up in the room and refusing to come out. It had been a shock when I found out the truth about this world of gods and halfs and pures coexisting among the mortal realm. I’d run from the truth. I just hadn’t made it very far.
“I figured since a lot of the students are gone for summer break, it won’t be as overwhelming. I’m her official tour guide,” Deacon continued, draping his arm over the girl’s shoulders. “Luke is my assistant.”
Luke rolled his eyes.
“And Gable-boy is here for…why are you here?” Deacon raised a quizzical brow. “Moral support?”
Gable’s bronzed cheeks pinked as he quickly found something about the brown carpet to be fascinating. “Yeah. Moral support.”
Knocking a wayward curl out of his face, Deacon dropped his arm. “I thought we’d check out the chill rooms first, and low and behold, we find you guys.”
“I don’t think we’ve officially met.” Alex rose from the couch and walked over to the girl, extending her hand. “I’m Alex.”
Cora shook her hand. “I’ve heard about you.”
“It was all me.” Deacon winked. “I gave her the unofficial but true biography of Alex Andros.”
“That worries me,” Alex commented, stepping to the side. “A lot.”
Luke snorted as he glanced around the room. “I feel like we’re missing some people. Where’s Aiden and Seth?”
Alex opened her mouth, but I jumped in. “I don’t think you really want to go down that road.”
“Uh-oh,” Luke murmured, sitting on the arm of a nearby chair.
Alex lifted her chin as she popped her fists onto her hips. “They apparently left to go deal with some Tartarus daimons crawling out of a hole in L.A. or something.” She paused. “Without me.”
Cora’s brows lifted. “Tartarus daimons?” She turned to Deacon. “You never told me about Tartarus daimons.”
“Okay. Remember when I told you all about daimons? Well, these are the ones that were kind of dead, but they’ve escaped the Underworld,” he spoke like he was talking about a new Xbox game or something. “They’re like zombies, except when they touch you, it burns your flesh.”
“Oh,” she said, blinking once and then twice. “Alrighty then.”
Concern flickered across Gable’s face. “Like the ones I saw?”
“I’m guessing so,” I answered, moving my arm as I scooted to the edge of the couch and unfolded my legs. “Seth woke me up briefly to say Marcus needed him. I fell back asleep and when I woke up, he was gone—”
“So was Aiden.” Alex’s jaw hardened. “Without me.”
“Aw, poor little Alex was left out.” Deacon grinned at her. “Do you need a hug? You need a hug so you feel loved and cared about and cherished?”
Holding her hands up, Alex quickly backed away. “I do not need one of your hugs. Nope. Not today, Satan.”
Deacon started toward her, arms outstretched like a happy Frankenstein.
“Why?” I laughed. “I like his hugs. They’re all warm and squishy.”
“What? He must give you nicer hugs than me.” Alex darted behind the couch, away from Deacon. “I’m pretty sure I end up bruised after his hugs.”
Looking appropriately dejected, Deacon lowered his arms and pouted. “You gave me a sad.”
Cora looked away from Alex to me, and her gaze dropped. Her eyes became the size of saucers, and at first I didn’t get why she had that reaction or what she was saying, but then I realized she was staring at my stomach.
I stiffened. Oh crap! I’d forgotten about Cora’s abilities. Besides the fact she could bring plants back to life, she was able to tell the health of a person, anything from them being sick to them being—
Her wide-eyed gaze swung to mine. “Are you…?”
My mouth opened, but words failed me. I didn’t know what to say. Of course Alex knew, but the rest of them didn’t, and this was not how I planned on telling them. Seth should be here for that.
“Are you what?” Luke frowned as he glanced between Cora and me. His eyes narrowed on me. “What is going on?”
Understanding flared across Cora’s face. “God, I’m sorry. I really need to learn to keep my mouth shut. I just see things and blurt them out, and then this happens.”
“Oh, boy.” Alex hopped over the back of the couch, sitting so her butt was on the back and her feet were on the cushion.
I sat back, having no idea what to say. Seth and I had kept the pregnancy a secret, because we didn’t want it to get out and somehow be used against us. Not that I thought Deacon or Luke would be careless with that information, but we just hadn’t shared it with anyone other than Alex.
Who, of course, had told Aiden.
Besides, the pregnancy was still so early it seemed foolish to even be telling people. What if something happened?
Deacon’s pout grew. “Okay. Now I’m feeling left out, and if you think Alex bitching about being left out is bad, you haven’t seen anything yet.”
“There has never been a truer thing spoken,” Luke commented dryly.
“I feel left out too,” Gable chimed in. “Then again, I feel like I never really know what is going on.” He paused, his forehead creasing. “Probably because I don’t.”
“Um…” I glanced over at Alex, but she wasn’t much help at all. If anything, I was thinking she now looked grateful that she’d been left behind to witness this.
Cora smacked her hands over her face, and when she spoke her voice was muffled. “I really am sorry, Josie.”
“Wait a second…” Luke’s brows lifted as the confusion faded from his expression. I saw the moment he figured it out. His lips parted on a sharp inhale. “Holy shit.”
Deacon frowned. “What? Oh my gods, if someone doesn’t tell me what is going on, I’m going to start a fire.”
“Okay.” I lifted my hands helplessly. There was no point for me to try to hide it. I wasn’t that good of a liar. “I’m sort of pregnant.”
Slowly, Deacon turned to me. His face was devoid of emotion.
“Sort of?” snorted Alex as she twisted toward me. “How are you sort of pregnant?”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, I’m totally pregnant—”
“You’re pregnant?” Deacon whispered.
“Yes.”
“Like you’re pregnant with an actual baby?”
I started to frown. “Versus being pregnant with what?”
“So, you’re really pregnant? And you didn’t tell me?” Deacon snapped out of whatever stupor he was in. “Oh my gods, how could you not tell me? And Alex knows?”
“Hey.” The corners of her lips turned down. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Deacon stared at her. “Do I really need to explain that to you?”
I jumped in before that awkward explanation was given. “I didn’t mean not to tell you all.” I glanced between both guys. “I just found out myself, and Alex happened to be with me. Seth and I haven’t said anything because, well, there’s been a lot of stuff going on.”
A grin was creeping across Luke’s handsome face.
“I bet Aiden knows, doesn’t he?” He pinned a glare on Alex. “Because there’s no way you would’ve kept any secret from Aiden.”
“Well…” Alex trailed off, and I swallowed a snort.
Deacon shot her a dirty look before whipping around to me. “How did I not know?”
I winced. “Please don’t be mad—”
“I’m not mad!” Deacon was kneeling in front of me in a blink of an eye, proving that he was, in fact, not a mortal. “Not at you. I’m just mad that I could’ve been obsessing over the baby shower, like, days ago.”
A surprised laugh burst out of me. “Baby shower?”
“Of course! We’re going to have a huge one.” He clasped my hands and squeezed. “Like, the baby shower to end all baby showers. It’ll be Supernatural-themed.”
My brows flew up.
Luke’s grin was now a full-fledged smile.
“How far along are you? Do you know if it’s a boy or girl? When are you due?” Excitement filled Deacon’s eyes. “Can I name it? If it’s a boy, it has to be Sam or Dean. No other options.”
“Geez,” Alex laughed. “Come get your boy, Luke.”
“I don’t know how far along I am,” I said, but that wasn’t necessarily true. They didn’t need to know that the exact moment of conception occurred right after Seth had knocked Luke and Gable out and while the rest of them were asleep, in the same house. “And I don’t know when I’m due or if it’s a boy or girl.”
“Deacon.” Luke dropped his hands on the slimmer boy’s shoulders. “You need to calm yourself.”
“But a baby.” Deacon tipped his head back, grinning up at Luke. “They’re going to have a baby.” He paused, eyes widening as he locked gazes with me. “Seth is going to be a dad,” he whispered.
“Yeah,” I whispered back. “He is.”
“Wow. And he knows?”
Alex toppled over onto the couch, landing on her side as she moaned, “Did you seriously ask that?”
“It’s a valid question,” Deacon shot back.
I nodded my head. “He knows.”
Deacon smiled. “I bet he is so happy.”
It was so obvious that was a genuine statement that I felt tears start to crowd the back of my eyes. “He is. I thought he was going to pass out at first, but he’s happy.”
“Good.” Deacon lowered his voice as his gaze met mine. “You deserve it. He deserves it.”
“Thank you,” I said hoarsely, squeezing his hands.
“Okay. I have so many questions,” Deacon said. “Like, are you having a pure-blood? A half? Wait. Will it be a demigod? Or a god? Are you going to birth a god?”
I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t answer any of those questions, because I didn’t know.
Neither did Seth.
There was just so much we didn’t know about this child and pregnancy. Would it take nine months, or would it be longer or shorter? The nurse who administered the pregnancy test had seemed surprised that I’d begun experiencing symptoms so early on, but she had said that a demigod pregnancy could be different.
Which was why Seth and I were supposed to go to the infirmary today, and I guessed we would, if he ever got back here.
“I don’t know,” I said finally. “We haven’t figured that out, and it’s not like we can Google that.”
“You know who’d probably know? Apollo.” Alex’s lips pursed as my chest squeezed. “But that would require him actually showing up for longer than five seconds, and then saying something useful.”
“Yeah.” I shook off the sting that always followed when I thought of my father’s lack of involvement in my life. “It would be helpful, but it…it doesn’t matter if the kid is a mortal or a god. We’re going to love and cherish it no matter.”
“Aww,” Cora murmured. “That’s sweet.”
“It is.” Deacon rose, stopping to hug me. And it was a good hug. One that was warm and squishy. When he pulled back, Luke took his place.
“Congrats. Seriously.” He patted the top of my head like I was a puppy or something, and when he stepped back, he pulled Deacon along with him. “Happy for you guys.”
Tears filled my eyes as Gable kept his distance as he offered his congratulations, as did Cora.
“Okay.” I cleared my throat, really hoping I wasn’t going to spend however long I was pregnant being overly emotional. “So, now that the cat is out of the bag on that—”
“Or the bun is out of the oven? Heh.” Alex snorted. “That was clever of me.”
We all stared at her.
“What?” She crossed her arms. “I thought it was hilarious.”
“Aaaanyway,” I drew the word out, changing the subject. “Any update on the demigod who’s in Pluckley?”
Besides the fact that Pluckley was an interesting name for a village, it was supposedly one of the most haunted places in all of Britain.
Deacon was staring at me like he’d never seen a pregnant person before. “We were hoping to get an exact location of the dude before we head over there. Because you know how Aiden is,” he said this to Alex. “So, we’re trying to get as much information as possible.”
“Has that happened?” Alex asked.
“Not exactly, since we don’t have much to go on, but it turns out Gable is a computer genius.” Luke turned to where the guy stood. “He’s been running some searches.”
Gable shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans as Cora sat in one of those giant, “suck you in and never let you out” bean bag chairs. “Like Luke said, we don’t have much to go on, which makes it hard to even search for something. We don’t know what to look for, but I was able to hack into their local law enforcement computers.”
Whoa.
That sounded serious.
Alex’s brows knitted. “Did you find anything?”
“Yes and no.” He glanced over at Cora. “There haven’t been any missing person’s reports filed in the last year, which has to be a good sign, right? That makes me think that the Titans haven’t found him.”
“Could be,” I said, grabbing the end of my ponytail. “That would be good news if he has people who would’ve reported him missing.”
“But he did find something interesting.” Deacon looked over at Alex. “Wasn’t planning to bring this up right now. Might as well, but I’m not quite sure I should even bring it up.”
“What?” she asked. When no one responded, she rose to her feet. “Okay. You guys are starting to weird me out.” She turned to Gable. “What did you find?”
“It could be nothing.” Luke glanced at Gable, answering for him. “Just keep that in mind. It could mean nothing.”
She tensed. “Okay.”
“So, you know how Gable has an affinity with water, practically a dolphin or a merman?” Deacon said, and Gable’s forehead creased at the description. “He’s Poseidon’s son, so duh. And Cora-Bora over here is like a walking, talking Miracle-Gro. She’s Demeter’s daughter, so that also makes sense.”
I started twisting my hair into a thick rope. “Yes, we know all of that.”
“And you’ve just realized that some of your dreams are actually foretelling things that are going to happen,” he continued.
A shiver curled its way down my spine.
It wasn’t until their friend Caleb showed up from the Underworld with the means to remove the bands Hyperion had placed on me did I realize that my dreams were something more, because I had seen Caleb in a dream and I’d never met him before that moment he removed my bands. That wasn’t the only dream to come true in some fashion.
But there was one that hadn’t come true yet.
One where I was wearing a beautiful white gown, being held by Seth, and I…I was dying.
I shoved that thought aside. That wasn’t something I needed to think about. At least not at this moment.
Deacon drew in a deep breath. “We know that Zeus and Hera’s kids didn’t make it, because those two gods put the cray in crazy. And that Ares took out four more during his I-Want-To-Take-Over-The-World phase. That’s six down. We lost two more at the hands of the Titans. We know, according to what Apollo told Seth, that they were Hermes’s and Athena’s offspring. We have Poseidon’s kid here. Demeter’s kid, and of course, Apollo’s kid. That doesn’t leave very many gods left.”
“It leaves a lot, actually,” Alex said. “It could be Artemis or—”
“This is where the part about Gable discovering something else comes into play,” Deacon interrupted.
I suddenly had a bad feeling about this. Call it instinct or maybe it was a weak premonition that my demigod abilities were capable of, but either way, I had a really bad feeling about what they were about to say.
“I didn’t see any missing person’s reports, but I did see a lot of police reports involving fighting and assaults, all within the last couple of months,” Gable explained. “And I mean some serious fights. Like, entire bars throwing down. Street fights. People getting into arguments at intersections and it turning pretty violent. The police there are constantly responding to battery calls. It’s a seriously, abnormally high amount. Like, you’d think the town was the most violent and not the most haunted.”
The blood drained out of Alex’s face so quickly I feared she might pass out. “No way,” she whispered.
“Like I’m saying, it could mean nothing,” Luke reiterated. “But for some reason, both Gable and Cora had begun to experience some of the abilities tied to their parent even though their powers hadn’t been unlocked. It would be safe to assume that the same would happen to this demigod. And it made us think of…”
Alex drew in a sharp breath. “It made you think of Ares. That this demigod could be Ares’s offspring?”