Aiden swore under his breath.
Facing him, I held the bottle. “This is the Elixir, isn’t it?”
His hand clenched at his side. “It is.”
I glanced down at the water bottle. Two fears in life: losing myself to Seth and losing myself to the Elixir. Both had happened, and somehow I’d come back out of those rabbit holes. But holding it in my hands, I couldn’t deny the raw taste of fear building in the back of my throat.
It was like holding a bomb—a bomb designed to decay my mind.
Aiden looked like he wanted to rip it from my hands, and I gave a weak smile. “Should we keep it?”
“What?” Tension rolled off him, and something else. Disgust? Bits and pieces of memories of when I’d been under the Elixir weren’t pretty.
“What if we need it again?” I asked, fighting that cold lump in my throat. “Isn’t that why you… you all were keeping it?”
“No. I’d placed it there and forgot about it.” Then he did take it out of my hands. Moving stiffly, he brought it back to the sink and unscrewed the lid.
“Aiden?”
Without saying a word, he dumped what was left of the Elixir. Sweetness filled the air, rinsed away when he turned on the tap. I hoped he wasn’t making a mistake.
I placed my hand on his arm.
Muscles tensed as he stepped into me, placing the tips of his fingers on my chin, but before he could do anything, someone cleared their throat behind us. I turned, spying Solos in the doorway.
“Just making sure you two are okay,” he said, a single eyebrow arched.
A rush of shame and guilt smacked into my stomach. “I’m not going to kill him and stash his body in the fridge.”
“That’s good to know,” Aiden muttered.
“One can never be too safe.” Solos pivoted. “Chop, chop, kids; people are getting antsy.”
I sighed. “Gods, I kind of miss Apollo. At least he didn’t think I wanted to kill you.”
“Yeah, well, about that…”
I faced Aiden slowly, remembering that Aiden had somehow banned Apollo. “What did you do? You banned him, right? How? Why?”
His brows arched. “I’m not sure you really want to know what provoked that.”
Crossing my arms, I waited.
Aiden cocked his head to the side, jaw clenching. “Apollo wasn’t completely honest about a lot of things, namely how an Apollyon can be killed.”
I had a real bad feeling about this.
“Apollo can kill you, Alex. He was planning to if I took you off the Elixir and you connected with Seth again. And whoever is responsible for Seth can do him in, but it seems like that god may be working with them.” He paused, grimacing. “So, I banned Apollo from the house.”
My stomach lurched. Yeah, maybe I should’ve waited on that explanation until after my food had settled.
CHAPTER 10
After I forced Aiden to drop that little bomb, we went into the large sitting room. I was numb. Apollo could kill me? Apollo had wanted to kill me? Then why had he shown up and put a smackdown on Thanatos? Gods, why was I trying to be logical about this? Apollo was a god. Who knew?
I sat beside Deacon and decided to push the Apollo issue aside for right now. “Okay, can I start small? What is today’s date?”
Marcus leaned against a desk. I realized then he was in jeans and I couldn’t think of a time when I’d ever seen him so casual. “Today is April 5th.”
Blinking a couple of times, I sat back. A month… I’d basically lost an entire month. Gods, what was going on in the world outside this cabin? I cleared my throat. “And where am I? If it makes you feel better, you can just tell me the state.”
“Apple River,” Aiden said, keeping watch by the large picture window.
I folded my arms, which kind of hurt. “Okay, I know you have to be making that name up.”
A slight smile formed on Aiden’s lips. “It’s real. You’re in Illinois.”
“Illinois?” My brain was stuck on the name Apple River being real.
“And it’s about as empty and boring as it sounds,” Deacon said, tipping his head at Luke. “And really backwoods. I went out once. Scary. Lumberjacks, enough said.”
Solos scuffed. “This is my father’s hunting cabin—one of many—and it’s not that scary.”
I nodded slowly. “Okay. So the gods? How many of them are ticked off right now?”
“All of them.” Marcus laughed, swishing the contents of his glass. The smile quickly left his face. “All of them, Alexandria.”
“We haven’t seen many of the gods, but Hephaestus reinforced the bars,” Lea said, studying her nails. “He was kind of scary.”
I guessed I’d been out of it when he’d showed. “I can’t believe Apollo hit me with a god bolt.”
“I can’t believe Aiden punched him,” Marcus said, downing the rest of his wine.
“What?” My mouth dropped open. “You did not.”
The half-grin spread until a dimple appeared in his left cheek. “I did.”
“All those times you yelled at me for hitting people, and you hit a god?” I couldn’t believe it.
That half-grin turned into a full smile. “This was a different situation.”
Oh. Okay. Shaking my head, I moved on. “All right, have there been any more attacks like… like what happened to the Covenant?”
Laadan stared at me. “He… he didn’t tell you?”
I figured by “he” she meant Seth. “I’m not sure. He kept me out of a lot of stuff.”
“Except for telling you that they were working with daimons,” she said, and I nodded. She glanced at Marcus and sighed. “A lot has been happening out there, dear. And very little of it is good.”
Steeling myself for the worst, I wrapped my fingers around the crystal rose. “Tell me.”
“We really don’t have to tell you.” Lea picked up a slim remote control and twisted, pointing it at a flatscreen on the wall. “We can just show you.”
Lea picked one of the nationwide news stations. I didn’t think there’d be anything happening right this instant, but apparently so much had happened, it was always on the news.
An image of destroyed buildings and toppled cars streamed over the screen. It was Los Angeles. Three days ago, there had been a catastrophic earthquake, a magnitude 7.0. A day later, another had hit the Indian Ocean, triggering a destructive tsunami that had wiped out an entire island.
And there was more.
Devastating wildfires plagued the Midwest and portions of South Dakota—near the University. I figured Hephaestus’ automatons had something to do with that, considering they breathed balls of fire or whatever. There were various skirmishes in the Middle East. Several countries were on the brink of war.
Scrolling along the bottom of the screen was a breaking news announcement—seismic activity had begun below Mount St. Helens. Fears of a full volcanic eruption had people fleeing nearby towns.
Holy baby daimons…
The news anchor was interviewing a doomsday fanatic.
I sat back, soaking it in, horrified by what was happening. All of this because of Seth—and me—and there were so many innocent lives that had been lost, so many more that hung in the balance. There was a good chance I was going to hurl noodles all over the floor.
Lea turned the TV off.
“The gods are responsible for all of that?” I asked.
Laadan nodded.
Man, the gods were pissed.
“There is more,” she said gently, and a mad laugh bubbled up in my throat. How could there be more? “So many Sentinels have been killed by Lucian’s… by his army. And many pure-bloods have simply disappeared. Those who have reached the Covenants are holding strong, but no one is safe. Then there are the occurrences with mortals that look like wild animal attacks, but we believe them to be the work of the daimons. It appears like they are trying to provoke the gods.”