fire, melting the links in the chain she had obviously been too weak to break herself. I freed the furie, and leaned down, whispering, “Get out of here now, Erin.”
I didn’t wait to see if she listened or if she responded. If she was smart, she would get out. I went down the hall, toward the dimly lit room, unable to mentally prepare myself for what I could see.
If Josie was… If she was hurt…
I stepped into the room, my gaze immediately moving to the chair in the corner. My heart stuttered, and I suddenly thought back to after the fight with Ares, to when I’d held Alex in my arms, up to the moment she’d simply turned to nothing.
Hyperion sat in an old armchair, and he faced the door. He was waiting. In his lap, draped over the arms of the chair, was Josie, her face leached of color. I could barely see her chest move under the thermal she wore.
“I was hungry,” he said, placing a large hand on her stomach. “I’m sure you know, Apollyon, that demigods have such an interesting value to us. This one in particular.”
Rage I have never ever known erupted inside me, intense and violent. “Let her go.”
“Or what?” Hyperion replied, glancing down at her as she began to move. Her lashes fluttered open, and then her chest heaved as her gaze focused on me. She started to sit up.
“Seth,” she whispered hoarsely.
Akasha crackled over my skin, casting shadows. It took everything to not charge forward, putting her at further risk. “What do you want in return for her safety?”
Josie gasped, but Hyperion eyed me, curiosity marking his expression. “What could you possibly give me that I would want?”
“Anything,” I swore.
Hyperion stared at me for a moment and then he stood, dumping Josie at his feet. I started toward her, but he faded out and reappeared in front of me. “What I want is revenge for thousands of years of being entombed. How in the world can you give me that?”
I couldn’t.
Moving lightning quick, I slammed the Covenant dagger deep into his chest, where I assumed the bastard’s heart was, if he had one, and then I dipped low. Spinning around, I kicked out, hitting the hilt of the dagger, shoving it in deep.
Hyperion didn’t even move.
Looking down at the dagger, he looked back at me and arched a brow. “Seriously?” Fuck.
Swinging out, Hyperion threw me through a nearby chair. It collapsed under my weight. I rolled onto my side, trying to get back up.
He was on me in under a second, picking me up by the scruff of my neck and introducing his fist to my jaw, snapping my head back. He let go and I landed on my knees. I lifted my arms to block the kick, but my movements were too slow. His boot landed in my stomach, flipping me onto my back.
I caught his boot before it came down on my neck. Muscles straining, I held him off, an inch from crushing my windpipe.
“I have a secret,” Hyperion said.
Struggling to hold his foot back, I grunted out, “You envy my hair?”
He laughed coldly. “Titans can kill an Apollyon, you silly little fuck.”
Ah well, shit…
“Apollo!” Josie screamed immediately, her voice cracking. “Apollo! Please!”
Hyperion turned from me, laughing. “Yes. Call him. Call him—”
Shoving his foot to the side, I powered onto my feet and slammed my hands down on his massive shoulders, feeding akasha straight into him. The big fucker jolted as the back of his skull lit up. He let out a roar that shook the walls. Using the distraction, I gripped both sides of his head and twisted.
Cracked like a dry board.
Except when I let go, Hyperion didn’t go down. He wheeled around, his neck twisted at a painful and disturbing angle.
“Oh come the fuck on,” I said.
Hyperion struck out, his fist catching me in the chest, knocking me back into the wall. Plaster cracked and dust plumed into the air as I fell forward, breaking my fall with my forearms.
He reached down, grabbing a handful of my hair, and Josie’s screams pierced the room. “You have mettle, but I am so very tired—”
A bright light filled the room, like a burst of sun in the night. Hyperion dropped me, spinning around. As the light receded I couldn’t believe what I saw.
Apollo stood in the middle of the room, as tall and powerful as the Titan. Head thrown back, white eyes glowing and spitting tiny bits of electricity into the air, he wasn’t dressed for combat in his white linen pants, but he was there, and I couldn’t believe it.
Hyperion dematerialized and reappeared by Josie, gripping her by the throat, cutting off her next breath.
“You wanted me,” Apollo said, hands at his sides. “I’m here, but you do not have me.”
The Titan eyed the god, lips pulled back in a sneer. “That’s what you think now.”
“Paidí apó to aíma mou kai sárka mou.” Apollo’s voice traveled like thunder through the room. “I apelefthérosi dynami sas.”
Of my blood and of my flesh, I unbind thee.
My gaze riveted onto Josie, and…and nothing happened. Her dilated eyes bounced from me to her father.
“That’s all?” Hyperion laughed darkly. “Really anticlimactic, Apollo. I am almost embarrassed for you.”
He smiled coldly. “Come on, Hyperion, you know I’m flashier than that.”
Then Apollo moved, brandishing a wicked-looking dagger. He moved so quickly it was hard for even me to track. His arm cocked back and he let go of the dagger.
It flew through the air, handle over deadly end.
Hyperion let go of Josie, stepping to the side, but the…the dagger was never aimed at him. I didn’t realize until it was too late.
Shoving to my feet, I felt my stomach twist with raw terror. It rose through me like a monster snapping its massive jaws.
“No!” I shouted, stumbling forward, drawing on akasha.
But it was too late.
The blade struck true, right where Apollo had aimed.
It slammed into the center of Josie’s chest, knocking her back against the wall, and my step faltered, as if I’d taken the mortal blow myself. Pain ripped through my chest, feeling so very physical. Oh Gods, I’d been here before. With a different girl, a different situation, but I’d been here before.
History was on repeat.
It happened so fast.
I’d seen the dagger in Apollo’s hand. I saw him cock back his arm and let the dagger go, but I didn’t understand as a fiery pain knocked the air out of my lungs and pushed me back against the wall. Had Hyperion hit me?
Looking down, a strangled sound parted my lips. Apollo’s dagger was buried in my chest, to the hilt. A swath of red stained the front of my shirt. Blood?
This couldn’t be happening.
I lifted my hands, but I didn’t know what to do with them. I tried to take another breath, but it was like there was a plug in the base of my throat.
“What in the fuck?” Hyperion roared, his anger like a furnace.
My pulse pounded erratically in my ears as I lifted my chin. My gaze collided with Seth. He was staggering toward me, his face pale and amber eyes full of horror. Oh God, I thought about what had happened before. This wasn’t right. This was so wrong. How could Apollo do this to him again? How could he do this to me?
Only seconds had passed from the point of impact to when my trembling fingers curved around the handle of the dagger. I had to get it out of me. In the back of my head, I knew that was probably a bad idea, but I couldn’t breathe and I wanted it out.
My legs felt detached as I gripped the handle of the dagger. Someone—Seth?—shouted as I doubled over, my hair falling forward. I yanked—yanked hard. My body jerked as a scream tore through me. The dagger clattered off the wood floor. A buzzing, a low-level hum, filled my head like an army of a thousand pissed-off bees. Something…something was happening.
I inhaled past the sharp, tangy pain and breathed in fire. I was on fire. Worse than when I was tagged and fed on, the blaze was in my veins, infiltrating every molecule. The pain throbbed throughout me, stealing the ability to think around it, but I knew this wasn’t death.
Death could not be this painful.
A great and terrible force started at my toes, rapidly traveling up my legs, beyond my waist and to my skull. My body straightened, bowing as my head kicked back. My mouth opened but there was no sound. Air seemed to build underneath me, and I was vaguely aware of my feet no longer touching the floor. I was in the air, my arms floating out to my sides.
I could feel it.
A coil of power that had slumbered my entire life, something that had always been there but had been at rest, built inside me. It had woken up, rushing through me, filling me, and it tasted like sunlight and strength. It was so warm, so incredibly hot. I heard a thousand voices—a thousand prayers uttered throughout the many years, in many different languages.
My eyes peeled open, and I saw Hyperion.
A stranger in my body smiled.
“Damn it,” he growled, backing up.
The heat inside me exploded free, pulsing out in a giant wave from the wound in my chest. It rippled out, creating a shockwave. Furniture lifted up, toppling over. The scent of burnt ozone filled my senses. The wave streamed, like a solar flare, pulsing as it reached Hyperion. The light burst, capturing his hoarse shout and sucking it in before the wave whirled its way back, slamming into me.
I fell to the floor, landing hard on my hands and knees, jarring my bones. All the wonderful strength, the glorious warm light, was gone. It took everything to lift my head.
The room was destroyed.
Glass was blown out, the windowsills on fire. The wood floor was warped, boards completely missing in some areas. Curtains were gone. Chairs were demolished into pieces.
Hyperion was gone.
So was Apollo.
In disbelief, my eyes scanned the wreckage of the room. I cried out when I saw Seth. He was lying on his back in the center of the room. He wasn’t moving. What had I done?
I forced myself across the floor with shaking, sore arms until I reached his side, my entire body trembling and my vision full of weird black spots that danced.
“Seth?” I placed a hand on his chest.
His eyes were closed, thick lashes fanning the tops of his cheeks. When there was no response, I pulled myself closer. I needed to get us out of here, but my head felt too heavy on my neck, and the next thing I knew, my cheek was on his chest, and the last thing I heard was the steady, strong beat of his heart.
CHAPTER
32
WHEN I opened my eyes, I was staring up at fluorescent lights. For a couple of moments I didn’t move or think beyond those lights. I recognized that I was in some kind of hospital room, but there were no sounds of an IV dripping fluids or of a blood pressure machine or a heart monitor. My mouth was dry and my chest a little sore, but other than that I felt okay. No. I felt more than a little okay. I felt kind of awesome, like I could get out of this narrow bed, and I don’t know, kick some butt or something, which was strange—
Holy crap.
My chest.
Pushing up into a sitting position, I knocked down the thin blanket and found that I had on some kind of horrible bright-pink hospital gown. I yanked the collar out and gaped.
Apollo—my father—had thrown a knife at me. The knife had hit me, square between the breasts. A kill shot if I’d ever seen one, but it hadn’t killed me. It had done something else entirely, and now there were faint white marks on my chest, and those marks formed a shape.
A straight line about five inches long with two lines looping around it—at the top, the design almost looked like tiny wings.
Smacking my gown back in place, I squeezed my eyes shut. Okay. “That’s not a normal scar.” “No. It’s not.”
A shriek erupted out of me at the sound of Apollo’s voice. My head whipped to the side. He sat in a chair next to my bed, one leg hooked over the other, and there was no way he’d been sitting there a few seconds ago.
At least I hoped he’d hadn’t been when I’d been checking out my boobs.
“It is my mark. One of them,” he said, smiling slightly. “Kind of like a rite of passage.”
I stared at him for a moment, and then I exploded. “You threw a knife at me!”
“I did,” he replied calmly.
“You hit me with the knife!”
“I did.” He leaned forward, dropping his foot onto the floor. “As I told Seth, unbinding you myself would not be easy. I wish I hadn’t had to do it that way. The last thing I wanted was to cause you pain. I didn’t enjoy any part of that—well, besides the look on Hyperion’s face—but the only way for me to finish unbinding you was to pass you through a mortal death.”
My head got tangled up on that, but there was something else important he’d said. “Seth. Where is Seth?”
Apollo stared at me with eyes that matched my own, and when he didn’t respond, I tossed back the thin blanket. “Where is he?” I demanded, my heart rate picking up. I remembered seeing him down on the floor. I remembered crawling to him. Knots twisted up my stomach, and I tasted fear once more in the back of my mouth. “Apollo.” My voice cracked.
He closed his eyes briefly. “He’s in the very next room, sleeping. He is fine, my daughter.” When I started to swing my legs off the bed, he raised a hand. “I know you are eager to see that for yourself, but trust in me, he is okay. He is the Apollyon. You will not be able to kill him.”
Relief loosened my shoulders. “Thank God.”
The look on his face said he felt differently. “I hope one day that relief never turns to dread.”
Staring at him, it felt like someone had reached around my neck and squeezed, much like Hyperion had. I swallowed— swallowed hard, but I held myself back and pushed that feeling away. I knew everything about Seth. It wasn’t surprising that Apollo would have some…misgivings. Several seconds passed. “What about Erin? She was hurt very badly. He…”
“Seth freed her. She’s in Olympus. Healing.”
I closed my eyes, but was unable to un-see the condition she’d been in, the damage Hyperion had done to her. “Will I see her again? Soon?”
“Yes.”
That was a relief—kind of. I hurt for her, and I needed to see her with my own eyes to believe that she was okay.
“Daughter…”
I opened my eyes, focusing. “I’m a…a demigod now?” “You know the answer to that.”
Of course I did. People didn’t levitate off the ground and have solar flares erupt from them if they were mortal.
“Your powers are not complete,” he continued. “Hyperion is not entombed. You basically put him in a time-out. When he comes back, he’s going to be very, very upset.”
For some reason, I got stuck on what was probably the least important part of all of this. “I’m not going to age anymore, am I?”
His golden brows furrowed.
“Sorry,” I sighed. “It’s just that’s kind of a… It’s a big deal.”
“It is.”
“Mortal death. So I…I died?” My voice pitched on the last word.
“Yes. And no. Your mortal self passed on. You are a demigod, now immortal in most ways. You still can perish, but it will not be easy. Human illness will no longer touch you. Mortal wounds will not kill you.”
I slowly shook my head. I had no idea what to say to that. I felt the same, only a little different, so it was hard to fully grasp what had happened to me. Part of me wanted to, I don’t know, jump out of a window and see if I’d land on my feet.