Our love had never been easy.
As a pure-blood, he was untouchable to me even though I was the Apollyon, and even now he risked everything to be with me. He was my strength when I needed him to be, my friend when I needed someone to talk me down, my equal in a world where by law I would always be less than him, and honest to gods, he was the love of my life.
And he would wait forever for me, just as I would wait forever and a day for him.
Except forever will probably end up being fairly short, whispered an insidious voice, and it was right. Even if I managed to get past all the obstacles between me and Seth, and transfer his power to me, there was no doubt in mind that, even as a God Killer, I was going to have problems fighting Ares. And if, by some miracle, I survived that, there was a really good chance the other gods would kill me.
So why even bother?
Aiden and I could run away together, live as long as we could and be happy. He’d do it if I asked. I knew he would. We could hide until we couldn’t hide anymore, but we’d be together, and we’d be alive. And for a little while, there’d be no more pain and no more death to deal with.
A huge part of me, especially that dark, cold place that had been born when Ares held me down, agreed wholeheartedly with that plan. Run away. Nothing seemed smarter or simpler to do.
But I couldn’t, because there was too much that had to be done. People relied on me, and the world would descend into absolute chaos if Ares wasn’t stopped.
I held onto that needle-thin thread of duty with my life and spoke. “Hey.”
His lashes fluttered opened, revealing silvery eyes that never failed to make the muscles in my stomach tighten and my heart do a little pitter-patter.
Our gazes met.
Aiden jerked up, his face paling by several degrees, making the bruises along his jaw and left eye stand out in stark contrast.
Fear exploded in my stomach, which was kind of strange since terror typically wasn’t my first reaction to sudden movements, but I scrambled against the headboard. My breath stalled out as my body protested the sudden movement.
“What?” I croaked. “What’s wrong?”
Aiden stared at me with wide eyes. Color hadn’t returned to his face. He was as pale as a daimon, and while disbelief shattered his gaze, pain churned in them.
He reached out but stopped short of touching me. “Your eyes…”
“What?” My heart beat so quickly I was sure it would jump out of my chest and do a little jig on the bed between us. “I opened them. I heard you asking me to.”
Aiden winced. “Alex…”
Now I was really starting to freak out. Why was he reacting this way? Had Ares rearranged my face so badly that my eyes were on my chin or something?
He glanced toward the door and then back to me, his face going stoic, but he could never hide his feelings from me. I could read everything in his eyes. There was so much pain in them that it broke my heart, but I didn’t understand why.
“What are you feeling?” he asked.
Uh, what was I not feeling? “I’m…I’m going to go with confusion. Aiden, tell me. What’s going on?”
He stared at me so long I started to feel a wee bit self-conscious. Several seconds passed, and then I really became convinced that my eyes were on my chin, but then it made sense. Panic unfurled in the pit of my stomach and spread like a virus.
Springing from the bed, I hit the floor. Hot slices of pain ricocheted up my still-healing bones. I stumbled to the side, catching myself on the wall.
In a heartbeat, Aiden was off the bed and beside me. “Alex, are you—”
“I’m okay.” I bit back a moan.
Aiden reached out, but I pushed away from the wall before he could touch me. Each step hurt like Tartarus. Sweat dotted my forehead, and my legs shook with the effort to make it to the bathroom that joined the two suites together.
“I have to see,” I gasped out.
“Maybe you should sit down,” he suggested, close behind.
I couldn’t. I knew what Aiden was thinking. I was connected with Seth, and maybe he even thought this was a trick of some sort and was waiting for me to break free and pull out Deacon’s ribcage, but Seth was quiet on the other end of the cord.
Reaching around me, Aiden pushed the bathroom door open, and I all but fell inside. Light flooded the small but efficient washroom when he found the switch on the wall. My reflection formed in the mirror.
I gasped.
This couldn’t be me.
No way.
Uh-uh, it wasn’t, and I refused to believe it, but the damn reflection remained the same. I had changed. Dramatically. The pressure in my chest returned and doubled as I gripped the edge of the sink.
My hair hung an inch or two past my shoulders now, the edges ragged and uneven from the dagger Ares had used. I picked up a strand, wincing as I discovered it was a good deal shorter than the rest. Did the rest of my hair hang in Hades’ war room now?
My skin was pale, as if I’d been sick for months and hadn’t seen the sun. But it wasn’t even that. Hell, it wasn’t even the fact that, yes, my eyes were amber-colored. Identical to Seth’s in clarity and shininess, they were like two topaz gemstones. And they were glowing, like you could see me in the dark kind of creepy glowing, and I got why that set Aiden on edge. Great, I had glowing, honeycomb eyes. Big freaking deal.
It was my face I couldn’t get over.
I was as shallow as any other eighteen-year-old girl, so yeah, this… this was major.
Across my cheekbones and nose, faint pink lines crisscrossed over my skin. My forehead was the same. A web-like network of scars covered my face. Only one side of my jaw, where Aiden had been touching me earlier, had escaped the…well, the deformity.
Dazed by what I was seeing, I slowly lifted my arm and ran my fingers across my cheek, confirming what I suspected. The lines were slightly raised, like stitching. Apollo and his son had healed me. The nectar was still doing its mojo in my system, but I knew these scars were proof of just how badly I’d needed the gods’ help to heal.
Like anything else, there always had to be an exchange.
When anything was gained, something had to be sacrificed. No one needed to tell me. I knew these scars would never fade.
“Oh, my gods…” I swayed.
“Alex, you should sit down.” He reached for me again.
“Don’t,” I snapped, holding a hand up between us. My eyes widened. My hand was also covered with scars. I wasn’t even sure what I was saying “don’t” to, but my mouth kept moving. “Just don’t.”
Aiden pulled back, but he didn’t leave. Leaning against the threshold of the door, he folded his muscular arms across his broad chest. His jaw set in a hard line.
The pressure moved into my throat, swelling like a balloon and then exploding like a late summer’s day thunderstorm. “What are you waiting for? Me to go all Evil Alex on you again?” I swung forward, losing my balance. “That I’m going to use—”
Aiden shot forward, catching me before I cracked my head against the wall. “Dammit Alex, you need to be careful and sit down.”
I wrenched free, stumbled back a step, and plopped down on the closed toilet. Air punched out of me. Dear gods, it felt like my tailbone had been cracked. I sat there on the toilet, my butt feeling like someone had literally kicked me in it. Aiden stared at me with warring levels of hope and distrust in the eyes I loved so much. I felt about seven kinds of dejected.