Chapter 17
PEOPLE MOVED AROUND ME. I COULDN’T SEE THEM, but I could hear their feet smacking on the tile, their voices hushed. Someone hovered near the bed. Their breathing was even and steady, lulling. I caught the scent of burning leaves and sea salt.
A door opened, and the person beside my bed shifted.
I faded out after that, slipping back into the pleasant haze. When I opened my eyes finally, they felt like they’d been sewn shut, and it took a few tries to get my vision to work. White walls surrounded me—plain and boring white walls. I recognized the med room. There were no windows, so I had no idea if it was night or day. There were faint memories of Linard and pain, then a flash of light and a feeling of falling. After that, things were hazy. I remembered a musty smell and there was more, but it seemed to exist just on the fringe of my thoughts.
My mouth felt as dry as cloth, my limbs wooden. A dull ache throbbed in my sternum. I drew in a deep breath and winced.
“Alex?” There was movement on the other side of my bed, and then Aiden came into view. Dark shadows bloomed under his eyes. His hair was a mess, falling every which way. He sat on the bed, careful not to move me. “Gods Alex, I… I never thought…”
I frowned and reached over to take his hand, but the motion pulled at my stomach. Tender skin stretched, sparking a sharp sting. I gasped.
“Alex, don’t move around too much.” Aiden placed his hand on mine. “He patched you up, but you need to take it easy.”
I stared at Aiden, and when I spoke, my throat felt raw. “Linard stabbed me, didn’t he? With damn Titan blood?”
Aiden’s eyes flashed to a dark, thunderous gray. He nodded.
“Rat bastard,” I croaked.
His lip twitched at what I said. “Alex, I’m… I’m so sorry. This shouldn’t have happened. I was there to make sure you remained safe and—”
“Stop. This wasn’t your fault. And obviously I’m okay for the most part. I just didn’t expect Linard—Romvi, yes. But Linard?” I started to move, but Aiden was faster, gently pushing my shoulders down. “What? I can sit up.”
“Alex, you need to lie still.” Exasperated, he shook his head. “Here, drink this.” He held a cup in front of my face.
I took the straw, glaring at him over the rim of the cup. The peppermint-flavored water did feel absolutely divine, easing the soreness in my throat.
Aiden stared back at me, drinking me in as if he’d never expected to see me again. An image of him leaning over me, stricken and pleading, flashed through me. An array of emotions flickered over his face now: amusement, weariness, but most of all, relief.
He pulled the cup away from me. “Easy.”
I pushed the covers down, surprised to find that I wore a clean shirt and the gray sweats that the Covenant usually handed out. Ignoring the twinge of pain, I pulled up the hem of my shirt. “Oh crap.”
“It’s not as bad—”
My hands trembled. “Really? Because I think this would make your James Bond proud.” The angry red line was two inches long and at least an inch wide. The skin around the mark was pink and puckered. “Linard tried to gut me.”
Aiden took my hands and pried them away from my shirt. Then he pulled it down and fixed the blankets around me carefully. It never failed to amaze me how… careful and gentle Aiden was with me even though he knew I was tough to the core. It made me feel feminine, small, and cherished. Protected. Cared for.
For someone like me who was born and trained to fight, his gentle handling undid me.
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “He did.”
I stared at Aiden, sort of in awe. “I’m like a cat. I swear I have nine lives.”
“Alex.” He looked up, meeting my eyes. “You used all those lives, and then some.”
“Well…” The musty scent came back to me.
Aiden cupped my cheek, and warmth sped through me. His thumb smoothed over my jaw. “Alex, you… you died. You died in my arms.”
I opened my mouth, but closed it. The bright light and the sensation of falling hadn’t been a weird dream and there was more… I knew it.
His hand trembled against my cheek. “You bled out so quickly. There wasn’t enough time.”
“I… I don’t understand. If I died, then how am I here?”
Aiden glanced at the closed door and exhaled slowly. “Well, this is where things kind of get strange, Alex.”
I swallowed. “How strange?”
A brief smile appeared. “There was a flash of light—”
“I remember that.”
“Do you remember anything after that?”
“Falling—I remember falling and…” I scrunched up my face. “I can’t remember.”
“It’s okay. Maybe you should get some rest. We can talk about this later.”
“No. I want to know now.” I met his gaze. “Come on, this sounds like it’s going to be interesting.”
Aiden laughed, dropping his hand. “Honestly, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it.”
I started to roll onto my side, but remembered the whole no moving thing. Staying still was going to be a challenge. “The anticipation is killing me.”
He inched closer, his hip bushing my thigh. “After the flash of light, there was Leon crouching over us. At first, I thought he’d just gotten to the room, but he… he didn’t look right. He reached for you, and I thought he was going to check your pulse, but he put his hand on your chest instead.”
My brows lifted. “You let Leon cop a feel?”
Aiden looked like he wanted to laugh again, but shook his head. “No, Alex. He said that your soul was still in your body.”
“Uh.”
“Yeah,” he replied. “Then he told me I needed to get you to the med clinic and make sure the doctors started surgery to stop the bleeding, that we weren’t too late. I didn’t understand, because you… you were dead, but then I saw his eyes.”
“All-white eyes,” I whispered, remembering a brief glimpse of them.
“Leon’s a god.”
I stared at Aiden, unable to come up with any response to that. My brain pretty much shut down with that little piece of information.
“I know.” He leaned over me, smoothing my hair back with one large hand. “Everyone pretty much had the same expression when I brought you in here. Marcus had arrived then… and the doctors were trying to get me to leave. Some were closing off the wound. Others were just standing there. It was chaos. You had to have been…. gone a couple of minutes—the time it took me to get you from your dorm to the med clinic, and freaking Leon just popped into the med room. Everyone froze. He walked up to you, put his hand on you again, and told you to breathe.”
Breathe, Alexandria. Breathe.
“And you breathed,” Aiden said, his voice hoarse as he cradled my cheek. “You opened your eyes and whispered something before going unconscious.”
I was still stuck on the whole god part. “Leon’s a… god?’
He nodded.
“Well,” I said slowly, “holy daimon butt.”
Aiden laughed—really laughed. It was deep and rich, full of relief. “You… you have no idea…” Averting his eyes, he ran a hand through his hair. “Never mind.”
“What?”
Jaw tensed, he shook his head.
I reached up and the moment my hand touched his, he threaded his fingers through mine and looked at me. “I’m okay,” I whispered.
Aiden stared at me for what seemed like eternity. “I thought you were gone—you were gone, Alex. You had died, and I was… I was holding you and there was nothing I could do. I never felt pain like that. His breath caught. “Not since I lost my parents, Alex. I never want to feel that again—not with you.”
Tears rushed to my eyes. I didn’t know what to say. My mind was still reeling from everything—total brain overload. And he was holding my hand, which was not the most shocking event of the day by any means, but it affected me just the same. I’d died. And a god who was apparently a Sentinel here had brought me back, and all that jazz. But it was the way Aiden was staring at me, like he’d never expected to talk to me again, see my smile, or hear my voice. He looked like a man who had stood at the edge of despair and had been pulled back at the very last second, but was still feeling all those terrible emotions, still not quite believing that he hadn’t lost something—that I was still here.
I realized something so important, so powerful then.
Aiden could tell me he didn’t feel the same way I did. He could fight what lay between us night and day. He could speak only in lies from here on out. It didn’t matter.
I would always, always know differently.
Even if space separated us, or a dozen rules were imposed to keep us apart, and we could never be together, I would always know.
And gods, I loved him—loved him so much. It would never change. There were so many things I was unsure of, especially right now, but that I knew. Before I could stop it, a single tear escaped, running down my cheek. I squeezed my eyes shut.
He drew in another breath, this one much sharper, more broken. The bed dipped as he moved, and his hand slid into my hair, where his fingers curled around the strands. His lips were warm and smooth against my cheek, kissing the tear away.
I became very still, afraid that any movement would send him away. He was like some kind of wild creature about to break.
When he spoke, his breath danced over my lips, sending shivers through me. “I can’t feel that way again. I just can’t.”
He was so close, still holding my hand tightly in his while his other slipped out of my hair and traced an invisible line over my face.
“Okay?” he said. “Because I can’t lose—” He cut off, looking toward the door. The sound of footsteps grew closer. His lips pressed into a tight line as he turned back to me. He dropped my hand and straightened. “We’ll talk more, later.”
I sat there dumbly, my heart fluttering spastically, and said the most eloquent thing I could. “Okay.”
The door opened, and Marcus walked through. His shirt was half-tucked in and his usually-pressed trousers were wrinkled. Like Aiden, he looked a mess, but relieved. He stopped beside my bed, exhaling loudly.
I cleared my throat. “You’re wrinkled.”
“You’re alive.”
Aiden stood. “That she is. I was just filling her in on everything.”
“Good. That’s good.” Marcus stared at me. “How are you feeling, Alexandria?”
“Okay, I guess, after dying and all.” I shifted, uncomfortable with the attention. “So about this Leon god thing? I don’t know of any gods named Leon. Is he like the red-headed stepchild god that no one claims?”
Aiden retreated to the corner of the room, a much more appropriate distance for a pure-blood. I immediately missed his closeness, but he kept his eyes on me. It was like he was afraid I’d disappear. “That’s because Leon isn’t his real name,” he said.
“It’s not?”
Marcus sat in Aiden’s spot. He reached out, but stopped and lowered his hand into his lap. “Do you want some water?”
“Um, sure.” Weirded out a little, I watched him refill my cup and hold it for me to drink. The alien in my uncle had obviously taken full control. Soon, it would claw its way out of his stomach and tap dance across my bed.
Aiden leaned against the wall. “Leon is Apollo.”
I choked on the water. Wheezing, I clutched my stomach with one hand and waved the other in front of my face.
“Alexandria, are you okay?” Marcus set the cup down and glanced over his shoulder at Aiden, who was already beside the bed. “Go get one of the doctors.”
“No!” Eyes watering, I dragged in air. “I’m fine. Water just went down the wrong pipe.”
“You sure?” Aiden asked, looking torn between wanting to drag a doctor in here and taking my word for it.
I nodded. “Yeah, that just surprised me. I mean, whoa. Are you guys sure? Apollo?”
Marcus watched me carefully. “Yes. He’s definitely Apollo.”
“Holy…” There weren’t enough words in the world to do that justice. “Did he explain anything?”
“No.” Marcus tucked the loose blanket back around me. “After he brought you back, he said he needed to leave and that he’d be back.”
“He kind of popped out of the room.” Aiden rubbed his eyes. “We haven’t seen him since.”
“And that was yesterday,” Marcus added.
“So I’ve been sleeping for an entire day?” My gaze darted between the two. “Have either of you slept this entire time?”
Aiden looked away, but Marcus was the one who answered. “A lot has been going on, Alex.”
“But you guys—”
“Don’t worry about us,” Marcus interrupted. “We’ll be fine.”
Not worrying about them was easier said than done. Both of them looked terrible. “Is… Linard is dead.”
“Yes,” Marcus said. “He was working with this… this Order.”
I glanced at Aiden, now remembering that sickening crunch I’d heard. If I was expecting remorse in his steady gaze, I didn’t find it. Actually, the look on his face said he’d do it again. “What about Telly?”
“He never landed in New York. Right now, we have no idea where he is. Instructor Romvi has also disappeared.” Marcus dropped his hands into his lap again. “I’ve made some calls and I have a few trusted Sentinels looking for Telly right now.”
“Trusted like Linard?” As soon as those words came out of my mouth, I wished I hadn’t said them. My cheeks started to burn. “I’m… sorry. That wasn’t right. You didn’t know.”
Marcus’ green eyes flashed. “You are right. I didn’t know. There were a lot of things I wasn’t aware of. Like the real reason you left New York and the fact that you’ve already been receiving the Apollyon marks.”
Oh, no. I didn’t dare look at Aiden.
“It wasn’t until a few nights ago that I was even aware that the Order of Thanatos could be involved,” Marcus continued, his shoulders stiffening. “If I had known the truth, this could’ve been prevented.”
I squirmed as much as I could. “I know, but if we’d involved you in what happened in New York, then you’d be at risk.”
“That doesn’t matter. I need to know when these kinds of things happen. I’m your uncle, Alexandria, and when you kill a pure-blood—”
“She did it out of self-defense,” Aiden said.
“And you compelled two pure-bloods to protect her.” Marcus shot a glare over his shoulder at Aiden. “I get that, but that doesn’t change the fact that I needed to know. All of this created a perfect storm for something like this to happen.”
“You’re not… mad at Aiden? You aren’t going to turn him in?”
“Sometimes I doubt his critical thinking abilities, but I understand why he did it.” Marcus sighed. “The law requires that I do, Alexandria. It even requires that I turn you in, and by not doing so, I’ll face charges of treason. Just as Aiden will face charges of treason if anyone discovers what he did.”
Treason equaled death for them. I swallowed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I dragged all of you into this.”
Aiden softened. “Alex, don’t apologize. This isn’t your fault.”
“It’s not. You can’t help… what you are. And all of this is because of what you are.” Marcus’ lips curved into a half smile. “I don’t agree with a lot of the decisions you’ve made or the fact that both of you have kept very important things from me, but I cannot blame Aiden for doing what I would’ve done in the same situation. I’m your uncle, Alexandria, and I will be tough on you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care for you.”
Stunned into silence, I stared at him. Could I’ve totally misinterpreted everything about this man? Because I seriously would’ve bet my life that he couldn’t stand me. But had it just been his version of… tough love? Blinking back tears, I suddenly wanted to hug him.
The look on Marcus’ face told me he probably wouldn’t be comfortable with that.
Okay. We definitely weren’t on hugging terms yet, but this… this was good. I cleared my throat. “So… wow. Leon is Apollo.”
Aiden grinned.
Grinning back at him, I suddenly felt panicked and it took me a second to realize why. “Oh, my gods.” I started to sit up, but Marcus stopped me. “I need to call Seth. If he suspects anything, he’ll go crazy. You don’t even know.”
Aiden’s grin faded. “If he’d known—felt it through your bond, then he’d have already gone crazy. He doesn’t know.”
He had a point, but I still needed to talk to him.
“We think it’s best that he doesn’t know, not until he is here with you,” Marcus said. “Right now, we cannot afford for him to lose it. And he did call for you last night. Aiden told him you were sleeping.”
Aiden rolled his eyes. “After he complained about me answering the phone that he gave you, he hung up. If he felt anything, he doesn’t know why.”
Sounded like Seth. Relieved, I settled back down. “Can someone grab my phone, though? If he doesn’t hear from me, he’ll suspect something and blow someone up.”
“That can be arranged.”
“I’ll get it,” Aiden said, sighing.
“Good. And while you go get it, why don’t you take a shower and get some rest. You haven’t slept since yesterday morning,” Marcus said. “Lucian’s Guards are outside the door. No one will get past them.”
The only reason I trusted Lucian’s Guards was the fact that there was only one person who wanted me to Awaken more than Seth, and that was Lucian. “Does Lucian know what happened?”
Marcus stood. “Yes, but he agreed that it would be wise to keep Seth in the dark for a little while.”
“And you trust Lucian?”
“I trust that he understands that we cannot afford any acts of retaliation from Seth. Other than that, not particularly, but he needed to know about Telly. He has some of his people looking for the Head Minister,” He paused, running a hand down the side of his face. “Don’t worry about things like that right now. Get some rest. I’ll be back later.”
There were still a lot of questions, like who were the Sentinels that Marcus trusted? And how in the world could we keep a secret like this from Seth? But I was tired and I could tell that both of them were, too.
Aiden lingered after Marcus left. He came to my bedside, his silvery gaze drifting over me.
“You haven’t left this room, have you?” I asked.
Instead of answering, he bent and placed his lips against my forehead. “I’ll be back shortly,” he promised. “Just try to get some rest and don’t get out of the bed until someone is with you.”
“But I’m not tired, not really.”
Aiden laughed softly as he pulled back. “Alex, you may feel fine, but you lost a lot of blood and you just had surgery.”
And I’d died, but I figured there was no point in adding that. I didn’t want Aiden to worry any more than he did, especially when he looked so exhausted. “All right.”
He moved away from the bed and stopped at the door. Looking back at me, he smiled. “I won’t be gone long.”
I eased onto my side carefully. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know. Neither am I.”