The Return

Cutting around a cluster of funky-smelling bushes, I hopped up on the veranda along the side of the library. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw that someone was leaning against the exterior wall, someone tall, and as both my feet hit the stone walkway, the person pushed off the wall.

“Josephine.”

My breath caught at the sound of the voice I couldn’t easily forget and I spun around.

It was him—the Crazy Hot Guy who lurked in stairwells. Even in the dim overhead lighting and the rapidly increasing darkness, there was no way I wouldn’t recognize him. Dumbly, all I could think was he knew how to make a pair of distressed denim jeans look like a work of art on long legs, because you know, that was an important observation. He also was wearing a henley again, the sleeves pushed up to the elbows, but it was black this time. Yet another helpful, essential observation.

My gaze trekked up his body, and I felt a little dizzy. My memory had not done that face justice. Every angle and plane, every square inch of his face, was something an artist would crave to sketch or paint. His beauty…the longer I stared at him, the only word that came to mind was “unearthly.”

“We didn’t get off to a good start yesterday.” Crazy Hot Guy shoved his hand out, extending long fingers. “My name is Seth.”

I stared at his hand, and then I stared at his face some more.

One golden eyebrow arched. “This is the part where you shake my hand and say, ‘Hi, Seth, it’s so nice to meet you outside of a stairwell.’” There was a teasing, cajoling tone to his voice that left me unsettled as he lowered his hand to his side. “Or not.”

My heart jumped a little as I started backing away. “I’m sorry, but I’m running late and I…I really don’t know you.”

“We’ve actually met. In the stairwell. Yesterday.”

“That doesn’t count.” I took another step back.

“It does to me.” He tilted his head to the side. A strand of blond hair slipped free, kissing the curve of his high cheekbone. “We need to talk.”

“I don’t even know who you are, other than being the crazy hot guy from the stairwell. There’s nothing to talk about.”

Seth’s one-sided grin went up another notch. “You think I’m hot.”

My cheeks heated. I had said that, because I was an idiot and tended to babble when I was nervous. “I also said you were crazy.”

“I have subjective hearing, but you and I do need to talk, Josephine.”

“Josie,” I corrected absently.

“How about I call you Joe?”

My brows knitted. “What? Don’t call me Joe.” I shook my head. “Why am I even standing here, talking to you? I have to—”

“Hey, Josie, I’ve been looking for you. What are you…?”

I turned toward the sound of Jesse’s voice. He was standing behind me, his textbook dangling from his fingertips. He wasn’t looking at me. He wasn’t talking.

Confused, I glanced over at Seth. His profile was to me and he was staring at Jesse. My gaze darted back to him, and he was just standing there, arms hanging limply at his sides.

“Go away,” Seth said, his voice low.

Jesse blinked slowly, his lips forming a word that never came out, and then he pivoted around, stiffly walking off. What in the holy hell?

My mouth dropped open as my heart kicked in my chest. Jesse seriously had just turned and walked away, leaving me with Crazy Hot Guy! I spun back to Seth, and he was closer now, maybe a foot away.

He winked at me.

Whoa. Most guys looked like total douche-wads when they winked, or a caricature of a guy who belonged on a cheesy sitcom. Basically, guys winking was just something awkward that shouldn’t be done, like ever. He, however, looked damn sexy and confident. But, more importantly, hot winking aside, something wasn’t right. Tiny goosebumps formed on my skin.

“I hate interruptions.” He dipped his chin in a way that made him come off ridiculously angelic. “So, Josie…?” His gaze slowly traveled over my face, his stare so intense it felt like a caress. He reached out, lifting a strand of my hair.

I locked up. Every muscle. Every cell. I didn’t even breathe. This was weird, really freaking weird.

He twisted the strand around three of his fingers. “You have interesting hair. Blonde. Brown. A gold color. Some strands so pale, they could be white. All mixed together. Never seen anything like that, and I’ve seen a lot of things.”

My eyes widened. Was he…feeling up my hair? Was that what he wanted to talk about? My gaze darted from where he held my hair to his face. Our eyes locked, and my heart dropped somewhere into my belly. His eyes…that tawny color was unreal, but I suddenly doubted my assumption from yesterday that they were contacts.

Instinct roared through me, demanding that I remove myself from this situation, pronto. The feeling I got sometimes for no reason, the sensation of being watched, had nothing on what I was feeling now. Pressure clamped down on my chest. A series of shivers slithered down my spine like icy eels. I snatched my hair free and turned, not even bothering to say anything to— Holy Christ, he was in front of me.

I stumbled back, gaping at him. How did he get in front of me when he was on the other side of me?

“I believe you are making a habit of running away from me.” He was grinning, but the action didn’t reach his eyes. Not only were they an extraordinarily weird color, they were now as cold as the first snowfall.

Fear trickled over my skin, which caused a different kind of emotion to punch loose—anger. I latched onto it as my hand tightened around my bag. “Are you a stalker or something?”

“I’ve been called that a time or two, oddly enough.”

My jaw unhinged.

“And it’s funny, considering who the last person was to ask me that.” His arresting features tensed. “A relative of yours. A cousin, I guess.” His lips pursed thoughtfully. “Or maybe a sister? Honestly, I have no idea how that works out, but it’s about a thousand different kinds of disturbing.”

“I don’t have a sister. I don’t even have any cousins.” Mom was an only child. “You don’t—” My words ended as a sharp squeak. One moment he was standing several feet away from me, and then he was right in front of me. I hadn’t even seen him move. I jerked, pressing my back against the wall of the library. My bag slid off my shoulder, landing next to my feet. “Holy crap, you can move.”

“I can do a lot of things.” Angling his body, he pressed one palm against the wall beside my head. Good God, he was tall. “Some of them fast. Some of them real slow.”

My mouth opened. “Was that a s-sexual innuendo?”

His lips twitched. “Something along those lines.”

The heat was back in my face and throat, despite the chill bleeding from the wall through my lightweight sweater. “Well, it was a crappy one.”

“I can do better,” he offered, and those golden eyes finally lightened.

I inhaled sharply, which was a mistake, because his scent invaded my senses. It was wild—a mix of the outdoors and something heavy, sultry. “That won’t be necessary. Thanks.”

He chuckled and the sound was deep, masculine, and would’ve been nice if he hadn’t been a stalker. “Okay. We are getting off to another bad start. I have that effect on people.”

“I can imagine.” I twisted to slide out through the opening, but as soon as my body twisted, his other hand landed on the wall, caging me in. My gaze swung back to him. “This isn’t cool,” I said, my voice scratchy, barely above a whisper.

“I know.” His tawny gaze latched onto mine. “I also have a problem with personal space. I don’t really believe in it.”

“Knowing is half the battle, I guess.” My heart rate had picked up. “Step back.”

He shook his head slowly.

I drew in a deep breath as I raised my hand to push him back, but his shot out and his fingers curled around my forearm again. I gasped at how quick his reflexes were and how warm his hand was.

“Please, gods, tell me you don’t have a hitting problem, too,” he said. I snapped my mouth shut. Gods? As in plural? His gaze dropped to the arm he held between us. His lips parted. “You’re bruised.”

What? My gaze followed his and I really couldn’t see anything, but I realized he was holding onto the same arm he’d gripped yesterday. There were marks there, his fingerprints, but I could barely see them in the dim light. “How do you see them?”

“I did that.” Emotion churned in his eyes as his gaze flicked back to mine. “I’m sorry.”

Before I could respond, he lifted my arm and pressed his lips against the skin of my inner wrist. A soft exhale crashed out of me. My entire arm tingled, buzzed even after he lifted his mouth from my skin. He slid his hand up my arm, stopping just shy of closing around my wrist. He smoothed his thumb over the area where his lips had just been.

The breath in my chest quickened. “What…what are you doing?”

An eyebrow rose as he spoke. “I’m going to handle this like a Band-Aid being pulled off, try to make it as quick and painless as possible.”

I tensed. That didn’t sound good.

“Do you know anything about the Greek gods?”

Okay. That wasn’t a question I was planning to have to answer today. And I really shouldn’t have needed to answer it. I needed to be plotting ways to get myself out of this situation, but he was still gliding his thumb in a slow circle.

“Josie?”

“Yes. I know what the Greek gods are.” I wet my lips, and the hue of his eyes seemed to have brightened when his gaze dropped to my mouth. Oh holy smokes, everything about this guy was potent and dangerous and absolutely crazy. “Can you let me go and back off now?”

“Not yet,” he said. “I’m sure you know some of the more famous legends then? About the gods? But what you probably don’t know is that, a long time ago, the gods got it on with mortals.”

“Uh…”

“And when they produced happy, bouncing babies, those kids were called demigods. When they got together with each other, their kids were called pure-bloods. Then some of those pure-bloods got a little frisky with mortals, and they created half-bloods,” he went on. “And sometimes, not always, and who knows how or why, when a pure and a half got together, they created an Apollyon.”

“Okaaaay.” I drew the word out.

That playful but edgy half-grin appeared on his lips again. “I’m an Apollyon.”

I opened my mouth, closed it, and then reopened it again. “You’re…a polly-yon?”

“Apollyon.” Seth, or whatever he was calling himself, corrected. “And you, Josie, are something that hasn’t been seen for a long time.”

“I am?” I squeaked.

“Yep.” He leaned in and there was only a hairsbreadth between us. The entire front of my body warmed with acute awareness. “You’re a demigod.”

I stared at him, thinking I surely heard him wrong, but as he continued to stare right back at me, waiting for a response, I realized I’d heard him clearly enough. “I’m a demigod?”

He nodded.

The laugh burst out of me, and he drew back maybe an inch, cocking his head to the side as he dropped my arm. A tautness crept across his face. “Okay. Did someone put you up to this? I mean, someone had to have—”

“Someone did put me up to this, but not the way you think,” he cut in, his expression relaxing. “It was your father.”

“My father?” I laughed again, but the sound was rough. Absentee Dad? Oh, this was fabulous.

“Yeah, your daddy. And your daddy is one of the biggest pains in my ass—in probably a lot of people’s asses. He’s Apollo, also known as the sun god, and he’s a major dick.”

“Apollo?” Another wheezing laugh escaped me.

His eyes narrowed. “The gods are real, Josie. And there’s a whole world living right among the mortals, moving in and out of what you think is ‘normal’ every day.”

All the humor dried up inside me. “You’re saying I’m a demigod? You’re a Pollyanna or something, and my dad is

Apollo?”

“Apollyon,” he corrected drolly. “And now you and I have a six-and-a-half-foot-and then some tall, asshole god in common.”

I continued to stare at him until I finally found words. “You’re being serious.”

“As serious as the Titans busting loose from Tartarus—which is also a real place—and gunning for your sweet ass.”

My mind got hung up somewhere between Titans and my sweet ass. I couldn’t believe this conversation was actually happening. “You’re…you’re mentally unstable.”

He leaned in again, so close I could feel his breath on my cheek, and boy, did that do a variety of things to me. “I wish I were. It would make things so much more fun. Sadly, I’m not. At least, not yet. And I know this is a lot to swallow, and it would be great to give you time for a learning curve, but I have a feeling we aren’t going to have that luxury.”

This was so not normal. I squeezed my eyes shut, and when I reopened them, Seth was still there. My palms were getting clammy, and in the back of my head, a horrible little voice had picked up in the background. You vegone off the deep end. This-is it. You‘re totally crazy. “Is this real?”

His brows knitted. “This is real.”

It couldn’t be. There was no way any of this was real. I dragged in a breath, but it got stuck, and I looked around wildly as a flutter of panic began in my chest. We were outside, but there were invisible walls closing in. Schizophrenia—one of the main symptoms was hallucinations—seeing things that weren’t there. I could’ve totally conjured up a hot guy who thought he was a polly-poo. “I need air.”

He was frowning. “You have air. You’re—”

“No!” My voice exploded harshly. “I need air. Space. I need space!”

For a moment, he didn’t move, and the flutter of panic in my chest turned into a freaking bird of prey, clawing at me from the inside. He must’ve read something in my expression, because he actually backed off.

Flying off the wall, I took a step to my left and tripped over my forgotten bag. I wheeled around, my foot getting tangled up in the strap. Seth shot forward, catching my arm before I turned into a flailing Muppet.

“Hold on,” he said gruffly, bending over. Within a second, he had my bag detached from my foot. “There you go.”

The moment I was free, I yanked on my arm and he let go. I started backing up, trying to get my throat and chest to unconstrict. “This isn’t real.”

This whole thing was a hallucination. My head had drummed up this Seth. Maybe Jesse hadn’t even been meeting me in the library. Maybe none of this was real. I knew—I knew— it was possible. I’d witnessed week-long episodes where Mom thought we were in NYC or in China, even though we hadn’t left the house. Or when she would talk to people who weren’t there, hold entire conversations with them.

Holding my bag in his hand, he straightened. “Josie—”

I spun around and ran. I ran faster than I ever had before, maybe even faster than Erin could run, and I didn’t look back to see if the apolloanna gave chase. Muscles strained and my arms pumped. People I passed were blurs. I thought I heard someone shout my name. I didn’t stop running when I hit the steps leading to my dorm or when I barreled past the occupied couches in the lobby. I only skidded to a stop once I’d slammed my hand on the elevator button.

I was going crazy. My brain had just shit the bed on me.





CHAPTER

6

YOU HAVE interesting hair?

Had I seriously said that? Yeah, I had, and if I had time, I’d punch myself in the nuts, but alas, my show-and-tell with the girl had gone about as well as walking into Hades’s palace with slabs of meat hanging around my neck while calling for his “puppies” to come out and play.

Perhaps I could’ve handled it better. Then again, how did one gently break that kind of news? Over tea and crumpets? My stomach grumbled. Gods, I was hungry.

With Josie’s book bag in my hand, I stepped off the porch circling the library and cut across the lawn. I knew where her dorm was, which floor she was on and what room was hers. I could give her some time to digest the information, but I’d seen the panic in her blue eyes—so strong and raw I could taste it. Giving her time would backfire. She’d use those hours to further convince herself that none of this was real.

My hand tightened around the strap. Too bad I couldn’t bop her on the head or something, transferring the truth and the knowledge of our world to her. A nifty-ass trick like that would come in handy right about now.