CHAPTER 4
Aiden flipped from sex god to warrior god in about two seconds flat while I just sort of stood there, rooted to the floor like one of the many statues outside. My lips still tingled in a pleasant sort of way, but the ball of ice was back in my chest, spreading like a winter storm.
He spun toward me, dipping his head and kissing me quickly. “We’ll have to pick this back up later.”
Then he started for the door.
I forced myself to follow him out of the supply closet and down the empty hall. Sirens continued to scream, and the whole time all I could think was that Ares was back and trying to get past whatever wards Apollo had thrown down. It couldn’t be Seth, because I didn’t feel him.
My steps were slow, but Aiden’s were long, purposeful strides. He was ready to face whatever waited outside. I wasn’t. In my chest, my heart was throwing itself against my ribs, and my palms were sweating again. The rush of nervous energy made me feel sick. An image of the shattered aquarium and the vibrant-colored fish flopping on the floor filled my head, followed by the sound of Ares’ cold, taunting laugh.
I can’t do this again.
Air punched from my lungs in an unsteady rush as Aiden pushed open the heavy double doors. I had to do this. Battle was what I’d prepared for, and as a Sentinel, we could be walking into a fight at any given moment. That was why two Covenant daggers were attached to Aiden’s legs, hanging from his black tactical pants. The same were secured to my thighs, their weight so familiar that I’d forgotten them.
A Sentinel never left home without them.
Reaching down, I curved my fingers along their slender handles. This is what I’d trained for. Well, kind of. I’d trained to face daimons, not a cray cray God of War.
I have to do this.
Outside, we headed toward the front of the campus. Several Guards had taken up defensives stances outside the coliseum-style building that held the common rooms and cafeterias. Most of the campus would be in there right now for the feast, but as we rounded the building, pure-blooded students were being ushered inside, their faces pale and fearful.
I wondered if I had the same look on my face. If so, I bet that wasn’t very reassuring to them.
“What’s going on?” Aiden asked one of the Guards.
The half-blood shook his head. “Something’s going down at the wall. We’ve been ordered to get all the pures into one safe area.”
“It can’t be what they said,” another Guard said, eyes wide as he gripped the handle of his Glock, his attention being pulled toward a group of pures who appeared from the side of the building. “Hey! You all need to get inside. Now!”
“What did they say?” I asked, happy to hear my voice didn’t crack, but there was no answer. The Guards were distracted with the lagging group of pures. “Never mind, then,” I muttered.
Before I could start forward, though, Aiden turned to me, putting his hands on my shoulders. “You should stay back.”
“Huh?” It was the only thing I could come up with.
Determination flashed in his gunmetal gray eyes. “Alex, you’re not completely healed, and we have no idea what the hell is happening up there.”
A big, really irresponsible part of me wanted to say “okay” and skip into the building to join the frightened masses, but no matter how scared I was, I would not fall apart. “I’m fine, Aiden. I—”
“You are a lot of things, Alex. Strong. Brave. Beautiful. Incredibly sexy,” he said with a quick grin. “But you are not fine. You and I both know that.”
Okay. He had a point. “You’re right, but you don’t understand. I can’t hide. If I do…” I took a deep breath and decided to be honest for once. Go me. “If I don’t go out to that wall and face whatever’s there, I never will. You get that? And I can’t let myself do that. I have to…I have to get over this.”
And that was true. So much was riding on me. I needed to face Seth and transfer the power of the God Killer from him to me, and that was going to require a major throwdown between us. Then I’d have to face Ares. I couldn’t wimp out because I got my ass handed to me. I needed to pick myself up and get going. I’d done it before.
But this time is different, whispered that annoying voice that sounded so much like me.
I ignored the voice. “I have to do this or…” Or I would hide again.
Aiden looked away, drawing in a deep breath. His shoulders tensed, and I knew he was going to argue with total Aiden logic. He let out the breath. “Okay. But stick close to me. If it gets out of hand, and if I think you can’t handle it, I’m throwing you over my shoulder. Do you understand?”
Color me surprised—and a little annoyed—about the high-handed statement, but I got that it was coming from a good place, and the sirens weren’t shutting up anytime soon. I nodded.
“Deal?”
I sighed. “Deal.”
“Then let’s do this.”
Picking up my pace, I forced my tired muscles to work as we jogged down the pathway. As we got closer, we were joined by several more Sentinels, and I could already see a couple dozen near the wall.
The sirens eased off, but the thick, unnatural tension hanging in the air like heavy clouds told me that whatever had happened hadn’t ended. Scanning the grounds, I felt my stomach dip. To our left, a small group of Guards and Sentinels crouched, circling something. I recognized Luke, Olivia, and Solos, and I wasn’t surprised to see them in the thick of things. They didn’t hesitate. Even though Luke and Olivia hadn’t technically graduated, they were Sentinels.
I, on the other hand, was a poser in black.
Solos straightened, tucking back a strand of shoulder-length brown hair that had escaped his low ponytail. He turned at the sound of Aiden’s voice, and the jagged scar stood out against his abnormally pale cheeks.
I didn’t hear what he was saying. My gaze was fixed on what the other Sentinels were staring at.
A body was on the ground, totally unrecognizable. Male? Female? No clue. It had been a Sentinel, that much I could tell from the tattered remains of the black uniform. The skin and clothing looked like they had been pecked away until only thin slices of flesh and muscle remained. Even the eyelids and eyeballs were removed.
My stomach turned. “Good gods…”
Olivia rose, smoothing her hands along her thighs. That’s when I saw the other Sentinel on the ground, knees bent and hands clenching over her stomach. Blood streamed across them. Deep, vengeful cuts tore through her cheeks. Her left eye was a bloody mess. Moaning softly, she was trying to stay still as another woman wrapped white gauze around her face, covering her destroyed eye.
“They were out doing rounds, down by the burnt-out cars. They’re saying they came out of nowhere,” Olivia told me in a hushed voice. “She almost got taken out by them pulling him back to the gate.”
I tore my gaze from the body. “What came out of nowhere?”
Olivia opened her mouth, but the eeriest high-pitched squawk I’d ever heard cut her off. It was a constant crescendo of harsh screeching.
Several shots boomed and my chin jerked up. Beyond the wall, a dark cloud zoomed across the horizon, heading straight for us. Except it wasn’t a cloud.
I took a step back, my hands going to the daggers.
The cloud arced up and shattered into hundreds of mother-freaking crows.
My jaw dropped open. “Holy crows…”
“There’s a couple of eagles mixed in there,” Luke commented.
“And a few hawks,” Aiden added.
I rolled my eyes. “Okay. Holy birds of prey! Is that better?”
“Much,” Aiden murmured.
The birds blanketed the sky, so thick they eclipsed the sun for a moment. I’d never seen anything like it. They swirled overhead, a dark, ever-expanding funnel. They changed course suddenly, flying down toward us like little, winged torpedoes with sharp claws and beaks. I thought of the flayed body and almost hurled.
“They’re possessed!” shouted a Guard. Dirt streaked his white uniform.
I wanted to thank the guy for the obvious. I wasn’t an animal specialist, but I knew birds didn’t go psychotic for no reason, which meant there had to be daimons nearby…either them or a god. A god could influence our feathered friends. But my smartass response died on my tongue when the birds from hell swooped.
They were on us in seconds.
Dipping down, Olivia shrieked as she batted one away. “Ah! Birds! Why did it have to be birds?”
I smacked one before it got its gross little claws in my already jacked-up hair. How in the hell were we supposed to fight a swarm of birds? Talons grazed the back of my hands, and the pain was sharp and quick.
Solos spun around, his arm arcing gracefully. A dagger flew across the space, tip over handle, and embedded deep into the back of an eagle that had attached to a Guard’s shoulder.
Well, that was one way—a little time-consuming, but effective. However, I had a better idea. Waving my arms like a deranged crossing guard, I darted toward Aiden. He’d grabbed a hawk off a fallen Sentinel. Tiny red scratches bled on his cheeks.
“Fire!” I yelled. “Light the sky up!”
Luke was swinging at the sky with his blades like a cracked-out chef. “Olivia and I will cover you two!”
Sheathing the daggers, Aiden raised his hands, brows lowered in concentration and the line of his jaw tightened. Sparks flew from his fingers, and a second later, his hands were on fire. I reached over, wrapping my hands around his wrist. I took a deep breath, ignoring the wings that came awfully close to my cheek and the willies the feeling gave me.
Closing my eyes, I used the air element and pictured the flames moving up in a steady stream and then spreading like a ceiling of fire. Aiden could get the fire into the sky, but not as quickly and at the magnitude he could with my help.
“That’s it,” Aiden said, his skin hot under my fingers.
I opened my eyes. For a moment, I was awed. Using the elements was still new to me. Fire, a vibrant shade of blood-red, pulsed over Aiden’s hand and exploded outward in a massive ball. Wind blew my hair back from my face as the inferno licked into the air, rolling toward the wall and back to the campus, consuming the birds in its path. The blaze wasn’t natural, but a product of the aether that Aiden carried inside him. It ate the crows up, leaving nothing by a fine sprinkling of dust behind.
When most of the birds were destroyed and only a few were left to dive-bomb us, Aiden closed his hands into fists and I let go of his wrists. Only then did I see the faintly glowing glyphs on my hands. No one but Seth could see them, but they still made me feel a little weird when they came out to say hello.
“That was so Resident Evil,” said Luke, his eyes wide. “Awesome.”
I cracked a grin, a little breathless. “It was kind of Alice awesome, wasn’t it?”
Luke started to nod but stilled when a Guard flew past us, arms flailing as he tried to get one of the remaining birds off his back. He frowned. “I’ll never look at a bird the same way again.”
Shooting him a look, Aiden stepped forward, snatching what I guessed was a hawk off the back of the yelping Guard. The hawk twisted in his grasp, and I got a good look at its face. The thing’s eyes were all black—no pupils or irises, just like a daimon’s.
I turned away from the sickening crack that followed. Once the animals were that far under the control of a daimon or god, there was just no undoing it.
Several Sentinels staggered to their feet, battered and cut, but no one had gotten it as bad as the two who’d been by the burnt-out cars on the access road and were most likely blindsided by the birds.
A shiver snaked its way down my spine, and my hands automatically went to the daggers on my thighs. Tiny hairs rose on my body. All around me, halfs and pures reacted to the peculiar tension seeping into our skin. My glyphs swirled, changing patterns and forming new ones.
“They’re coming!” yelled a Guard near the top of the wall. His white robes flapped like wings in the wind.
I was kind of expecting a griffon to come out of nowhere, but that’s not what slammed into the iron gate with enough force that it rattled the massive structure and split open the skin of the assailant.
It was a daimon.
Face as white as the Guards’ robes and veins as thick as black snakes, the daimon backed up and charged the gate again.
Wiping blood off her hand, Olivia shook her head. “What is it doing?”
“Other than rearranging its face?” I flinched as it slammed the gate once more. “Maybe it’s really hungry.”
Daimons were pure-bloods that had become addicted to the aether in the blood of pures, and only within the last year we’d learned they could also turn halfs. They were what originated the whole vampire myth without the hotness. It started eons ago—something Dionysus had done, most likely when he’d been bored.
Most of our problems stemmed from the gods’ boredom.
Another daimon joined in, then another, and another. Each time they whacked into the gate, I flinched. Their exposed flesh was mangled and bloody.
Solos was at the gate, able to pick off two of them by shoving daggers through the gaps. Daimons were highly allergic to titanium. It cut through their flesh as though it were water. They burst into shimmering blue clouds, one after another, but more joined in, bouncing off the gate. My gaze went to the sides. The hinges were weakening.
I moved, seeing dozens and dozens of daimons behind the ones at the gate. Aiden summoned fire, catching several of them ablaze, but they kept coming at the gate until the fire consumed them.
This was so not good.
But a frightening realization occurred. When I’d been all Team Seth after I’d Awakened, I’d learned he and Lucian were working with daimons, feeding the monsters pures who weren’t siding with them. The daimons could be here because of Ares, or they could be here because Seth was coming. Either way, it was unlikely that this many would just show up in the middle of nowhere, like it had been during the Council meeting in the Catskills.
“We have to do something.” Luke unhooked his daggers, eyes narrowing as he turned to me. “Can you do your Apollyon thing? Like you did with the automatons?”
Figuring I should do the same as Luke, I unsheathed my daggers. My hands shook, and I hoped no one noticed. “I can’t promise I won’t take the gate out in the process. Maybe if I could get outside, slip up behind them.”
“Not happening.” Aiden stalked forward. “They’d be on you in seconds.”
With all the aether in my veins, it would be like ringing the dinner bell, but if I did get out there, I could do something. I could end this before it got out of hand. My mouth stayed closed, though, which was so unlike me that I wasn’t sure I was me anymore. A week ago, I would’ve been scaling those damn walls.
Sentinels don’t show fear.
All I knew right then was fear.
More slammed into the gate, causing the center to bulge dangerously.
“Open the gate!” shouted Aiden, grabbing a shoulder of a Guard. “If they break the gate, then we will have an open wound to protect.”
“That’s insane!” argued the Guard. “If they get past us—”
“They won’t get past us. Have half of us form a line several yards back,” Aiden ordered. “The rest of us will stay here.”
Luke shook his head and muttered, “That would be the oh-shit line.”
Beside him, Olivia snorted. Her fingers opened and closed around the handles of the daggers. “You know, this isn’t too bad.”
“It’s not?” I asked.
She shook her head. “This could’ve happened during the funerals.”
The gate rattled like dry, angry bones once more, and then the Guard sprang into action, shouting orders. Letting the daimons in sounded crazy, but Aiden was right. Even if we stopped this attack, we would be vulnerable with a giant hole where the gate should’ve been.
Half the Sentinels and all the Guards moved back, forming the ohshit line. Olivia and Luke remained by the gate, ready for battle. I forced my lungs to inflate as two Sentinels volunteered for the near-suicidal mission of opening the gate.
Aiden stalked to my side, lowering his head and speaking low enough for only me to hear. “This is about to get crazy. I know you don’t want to hear this, but you should go back to the common area. Find your uncle and—”
“I can do this,” I said, and then repeated it in my head about five times. “And you guys need my help. I can do my Apollyon mojo without worrying about the gate.”
His eyes turned into a dark, tumultuous gray. “Alex, I really—”
“Too late,” I interrupted as the Sentinels threw open the gates.
Aiden whirled, and before I could take another breath, the daimons were inside the gate, swallowing the two Sentinels in a massive wave. He cursed and glanced back at me. I didn’t need him distracted. Daimons couldn’t kill me, but they could kill him.
“I’m okay.” I tightened my grasp on the blades. “Go do your thing.”
He appeared to want to protest more, but there really was no time. Dipping down at the last possible second, he caught a daimon in the stomach with his shoulder. The force of the blow flipped the daimon over onto his back. Aiden spun, thrusting the dagger deep into the daimon’s chest. Within seconds, it was nothing more than a shimmery pile of dust. Aiden whirled, shoulders taut and mouth pressed into a slash of a line. He took out another daimon and then another. If Leon/Apollo had been here, they would have been keeping count.
I turned at the sound of pounding feet. A daimon was gunning for me, eyes as black as midnight oil and skin leeched of color. My muscles tensed the way they did in the seconds before engaging in battle, but it was different this time. They locked up completely. My mouth dried. My heart went straight into cardiac territory. It was like when I’d seen my mom in that alley back on the island. I was immobile.
You can’t fight. You can’t do this anymore. You’re broken.
My internal voice was such a shit-stirrer. I was frozen. Around me, the sounds of metal clattering and grunts of those fighting amplified until it was all I heard.
The daimon drew to a halt, sniffing the air, and then its mouth dropped open, revealing a row of shark-like teeth. It howled.
My mind…something was wrong with it. I knew it was a daimon before me, and I knew I didn’t even have to use my daggers. I could use fire or wind. I could tap into akasha, the fifth and final power that only that gods and the Apollyon could wield, but I didn’t see the daimon. In its place, I saw one pissed off, seven-foot god. I saw Ares.
My breath burst from me in short pants. I took a step back, swallowing down the rise of bile. “No.”
The daimon slammed into me, knocking me flat onto my back. The daggers flew from my hands, skidding along the dry dirt, kicking up plumes of dust.
“I gave you the easy way out,” Ares said, digging his fingers into my shoulders. “But you chose this, and everyone you love will die because of it.”
Someone shouted my name, and the image of Ares blurred around the edges. Ropey black veins bled through in his cheeks. Jagged teeth appeared behind a cruel mouth. A powerful shudder worked its way down my body, and the glyphs on my skin started to go crazy, like there was a god…
A flash of white light blinded me, and then the daimon exploded into cloud of blue dust. A silver arrow plopped down on my chest.
“What the…?” I picked it up, squeaking as it stung my fingers.
“I’ll be needing that,” came a soft, musical voice I’d heard only once before. The arrow was plucked from my fingers. “Thank you!”
I looked up and discovered why my glyphs were doing a cracked-out version of the electric slide on my skin.
Decked out in her bubble-gum-pink camo, she stood above me, silver bow propped against a shapely hip. Her red hair was pulled up in a ponytail, but the long, curly mass fell to her waist. Static crackled from her all-white eyes. “Are you trying to get a tan?”
Sort of stupefied by her appearance, I pushed myself to my feet.
“What are you doing here? Is Apollo—?”
“My brother is currently getting chained to some rock by our father because of Ares.” She loaded another arrow. “Zeus is mighty upset, and of course is blaming Apollo for the mess. Like how was he supposed to know what Ares was up to?” She let go of the arrow, and it zinged past my head. A fleshy grunt told me she had hit her mark. “It’s not our fault Ares got hit with the crazy stick about a hundred times.”
Another arrow flew from her nimble fingers. This time it blew past my head, and I was pretty sure I was centimeters from having my ear pierced.
“And you need to buck up, buttercup,” she said, her full lips tipping up into a megawatt smile. “Loverboy is about to be taken down for the count.”
“What the—?” Her words sank through, and I spun around. My heart dropped.
Aiden was surrounded, two daimons at his back and two at his front. No other Sentinels were around. The daimons were going straight to the pures because they, like Artemis and me, were chock-full of aether. This was good for the halfs, since it gave them the advantage. But not Aiden. Blood trickled from the side of his throat. A female daimon in front of him had blood on her pink, chapped lips.
He’d been tagged.
Aiden had been tagged.
Oh, that flipped my bitch switch from meh to pure “I’m going to cut a bitch” rage.
Whatever funk had invaded my system was overshadowed by my fear for him. Forgetting Artemis and her sudden, unexpected, and really bizarre appearance, I launched forward. My muscles and body knew what to do. Brain clicked off. Instinct kicked in. Finally.
I came up behind the two daimons and slammed my dagger into one of them. The other sensed my aethery goodness and whirled on me.
It screeched. “Apollyon—”
“Shut up,” I said, dipping down as it swung on me. I sprung up, kicking and swiping the legs out from underneath him. “I know I smell good. I’m sure I taste good, too.”
Thrusting the dagger down, I took the daimon out, and then popped up. Slipping under Aiden’s arm, I went straight for the female with his blood on her ugly face. Flipping the blade back, I swung my arm, catching the female daimon in the jaw. Her head smacked back, and the pleasure I felt would worry therapists across the nation.
“Damn,” Aiden said under his breath, and then took down the other daimon.
The female daimon charged me, practically impaling herself on my dagger. Blue dust blew into my face. “Gross.”
Artemis was making short work of the daimons and looking disgustingly beautiful doing so. With her cheeks slightly flushed and her lower lip sucked between her teeth, she darted around, popping the daimons off one after another. And once the Sentinels began to realize that a god was in the mix, everyone pretty much stopped what they were doing.
The legion of daimons wasn’t going to kill us. Nope. Artemis was here.
She sprang onto a tree trunk, spinning like a ballet dancer. Sun glinted off her silver bow. Three arrows flew from her bow, zipping between Sentinels and smacking into daimons.
Holy Hades’ butt crack…
I did not want to piss Artemis off.
Within a minute, over a dozen daimons were nothing but shimmery blue piles of dust, and Artemis hadn’t even broken a sweat. Not a strand of hair was out of place. Slipping the bow into the harness strapped across her back, she winked at Solos before blinking out and reappearing like right in my face.
“Good gods,” I gasped, taking a step back. “Was that necessary?”
She cocked her head to the side. “Ares is playing dirty. These,” she waved her around, “are from him. He led them here, and more will come. The First is on the move.”
“Seth?” Aiden swiped his hand over his neck. “He’s coming here?”
Artemis’ creepy god eyes shot all kinds of static when she looked at him. A fine shimmer surrounded her, like she’d been dipped in glitter, and then the camo get-up disappeared.
My eyes widened.
A true goddess stood before us, dressed in white, nearly transparent linen that hugged her curves and revealed more skin than a thong. A silver band covered her upper arm. A moon hung from it, shining as if it had been dipped in light.
Her lips curled in a smooth, seductive smile. “Hey there, how about you ditch the little Apollyon over there and get with—”
“Hey.” I folded my arms, trying to keep my own eyes on her face. “Aren’t you supposed to be a virgin goddess?”
A soft, tinkling laugh came from her. “Honey, have you ever heard of kiss and don’t tell?”
“Have you ever heard of a bra?” I demanded. “Because I can see your…you know. Everything.”
Aiden cleared his throat as he averted his gaze, brows raised. Artemis laughed again as she turned her attention to me. “I will aid you when I can, as will the others, until Apollo can return to your side. We cannot allow Ares to continue. You must transfer the power of the First to you.”
How she went from hitting on my boyfriend to all serious wardeath-blah talk was beyond me. “It’s at the top of my to-do list, along with—hey!” I leaned back from her suddenly outstretched hand. Her fingers grazed my cheek. “Stop it!” I jumped back as she went to touch me again. “Man, you gods are so weird.”
Artemis wrinkled her nose at me. “There is something wrong with you.”
“Uh…” That didn’t seem very polite. I glanced at Aiden. He was staring at Artemis, but not in the way every other guy except Luke was staring at her. Correction. Even Luke was checking her out. “Care to explain?” I asked.
Her eyes narrowed, and then her hand snaked out again. I forced myself to stand still and let her feel me up, because seriously, she didn’t appear like she was going to stop until she did. She cupped my cheek and placed her other hand below my breasts, between my ribs.
“Um…” I was really starting to feel a bit wigged out. “I really hope this has a point, because half the guys are staring at us like they’re hoping we’re going to make out.”
Aiden coughed.
The goddess’s lashes swept up. “There’s something inside you.”
“Well, I do have organs and…” I trailed off, remembering how Apollo’s son had said the same thing. Concern swelled. “Like something that doesn’t belong there?”
“I don’t know.” She removed her hands—thank the gods. “You should do something with your hair.”
And then she blinked out of existence. Really gone this time, because the marks of the Apollyon calmed down. I reached up, self-consciously patting the jagged ends of my hair as I glanced at Aiden. He stared at me, looking like someone had punched him in the gonads. He opened his mouth to say something, and then he pivoted on his heel.
Having no idea what that was about, I took in the carnage of battle. Blood pooled over sparse grass and bodies littered the ground, some dying and others already dead. There would be more funerals. I saw that my friends still stood. Somehow, the relief of not facing another day without any of them was just a drop in the bucket of suckage.
Fighting was a desire and need that had been bred into me, as it was into all halfs who didn’t go into servitude. Except somewhere between when Poseidon destroyed the Covenant on Deity Island and I woke up after Apollo returned me from Olympus, fighting had lost its appeal.
An entire life of this?
I thought about when I told Aiden I wasn’t sure I wanted do this anymore, but that was back before Ares. Everything was different now.
My gaze found Aiden.
He was kneeling beside a fallen Sentinel, one who couldn’t be much older than me. The wind picked up strands of Aiden’s hair, tossing them off his forehead. He looked up, his somber gaze meeting mine, and I thought I saw the same weariness in his stare.
We both were so…so over this.