I frowned. “Don’t call me Joe. I’m not a dude.”
Seth ignored that. “Anyway, I was raised believing I was the only Apollyon. Until I was brought to Deity Island—a small island off the coast of North Carolina. Then I met the other and… Well, everything sort of went downhill from there. The gods knew that I wasn’t supposed to be the Apollyon, and they knew one of their own was seeking to betray them. Turns out that Ares, who made sure I came into existence, wanted to take over the world, bring it back to the glory days where gods ruled not just Olympus but also over the mortal realm.”
Surprise shuttled through me. Ares was real? Goodness.
“The gods took precautions when I was born. They knew they needed a backup plan in case one of the Apollyons became the God Killer, so they created twelve demigods, bound their powers, and left them alone. You’re one of them.”
My head was spinning again. “So, I’m virtually Plan B?”
“Actually, you’re virtually Plan C.”
Well, damn. My birth was Plan C?
“We fought Ares a year ago. One of the ways we battled him was by releasing one of the Titans from Tartarus,” he explained, and all I could think was holy crap, Tartarus is real? What about the guy who ferried the boat? “It was a crap plan from the get-go. Perses ended up freeing more Titans after we defeated Ares, because all the gods were weakened when we took Ares out. Due to some kind of cosmic bullshit, only the demigods can put them back in their place. So Plan C is being put into play.”
“Um, I’m… I’m supposed to do what? Send a Titan back to hell?”
“Tartarus isn’t hell. It’s a mixture of good, bad, and something in-between. And yes. Once the six remaining demigods are together, your powers will unbind.”
“Wait. Remaining six? I thought there were twelve?”
“There were twelve. Ares took out some of them.” He placed his hand over mine, causing me to jump. A slight, knowing grin appeared on his lips as he easily pried one of my hands free from the blanket. His hand slid off mine, leaving a shiver in its wake as he moved onto my other hand. “There are six, but it appears the Titans got to two of them. They aren’t dead. Not yet.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but I asked the question. “What do the Titans want from them?”
His lashes lowered, shielding his gaze. “The Titans are weak, and they can feed off of gods and demigods to regain their strength.”
“Feed? Oh my God.”
He cocked his head to the side and lifted his lashes. “They can drain the demigods of their aether, which is what makes our blood different from mortals’. Gods have the most aether, followed by demigods, the Apollyon, pures, and then halfs.”
Now that my hands weren’t clenching anything and he was still holding onto one of them, I didn’t know what to do with them. “That’s a lot to deal with.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve got to deal with this.”
“I am,” I replied. “I’m trying.”
His hand slid up to my wrist and the simple caress sent a ripple of warmth along my arm. “I’m not sure if you are, or if you still think you’re hallucinating pink elephants. Well, in your case, it would be a pink Pegasus. And yes, Pegasus is real. I’ve never seen it personally, but it’s around.”
“I shouldn’t have told you that,” I retorted. His thumb smoothed over the inside of my wrist. “And can you stop touching me?”
His grin spread as he slowly slipped his hand away from my wrist. A heartbeat passed, and then he leaned in. I inhaled sharply. His scent…there was something intoxicating about it. He was close, so close that if I shifted an inch forward, our noses would be touching. That wouldn’t be the only thing touching, either.
“I need to make sure you understand everything I said to you,” he said, his bright gaze locking onto mine. “Because they know you’re here. That’s why the shades are here—why one of them was in your room.”
“He was another student. I think he…he lived on the seventh floor.”
“He’s nothing now.”
I flinched, my stomach unsettled.
A muscle thrummed along his jaw. “That was a bit insensitive of me.” There was a brief pause, the next words sounding almost forced out of him. “Was he your friend?”
“I didn’t know him well, but that doesn’t matter. He was a living, breathing person and now…” And like he’d said, now he was nothing. “This can’t be good. None of this.”
He shook his head and his hair slipped over his cheeks. The movement brought him even closer. “No, Josie, none of it is good, and there’s more I need to tell you.”
“There’s more? How could there possibly be more? Or are Transformers real, too? Or aliens? What about fairies and vampires and—”
“Josie,” he murmured.
“What?” I wanted to throw my hands up, but I’d end up hitting him if I did. “I didn’t believe gods existed and they do, so why not the other stuff?”
He cocked a brow. “Your father fears that Hyperion is going to come directly for you. He’s a Titan your father entombed.”
My stomach twisted. “Isn’t that why the…the shade was here?”
Shaking his head, he met my gaze. “The shade could’ve been scouting for any Titan. After all, they’re going to be looking for any demigod to snack on.” When I winced, his expression remained impassive. “But Hyperion has a revenge hard-on for Apollo and there’s a chance he’s going to take that out on you. You don’t want that.”
“No,” I agreed, and my head was starting to spin again. The walls of the room were getting closer. “What does this mean?”
“It means that your life changes right now. You have to leave here, and that’s where I come in. My job is to get you to the Covenant, which is a stronghold in South Dakota, where Apollo believes you will be safe.”
The twisting motion stopped, because my stomach bottomed out. “South Dakota? I’m not even sure I can point out where South Dakota is on a map.”
The slight curve of his lips appeared again. “It’s between nothing-there-interests-me and land-of-the-great-nothing.”
A surprised giggle escaped me. Seth…he could be funny, but I clamped my mouth shut, because I was afraid that if I started laughing, it would become that crazy kind, and then I wouldn’t be able to stop.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to let everything soak in, but my brain felt like an overflowing bathtub. A bit of fear trickled into my blood like a small, icy stream. I cut it off before I slipped into the kind of panic that left people rocking in the corner. I had to be smart about this, because the last thing I wanted was to end up dead. “So, I can’t stay here and my life as I know it is virtually over.”
“Or your life is finally starting,” he suggested. “You could look at it that way.”
I wanted to lean back, but I was already pressed against the headboard. There was nowhere to go. “I need a shower,” I blurted out.
His brows knitted. “You need to shower?”
“Yeah. Yes. I need to shower. It helps clear my head,” I went on, the words coming out in an anxious rush. “And I really need to get my head clear, because this is a lot. So I need to shower. Lots of steam. It helps me think.”
For a moment I thought he was going to tell me no, but then he pulled back and pushed off the bed. Suddenly feeling chilled, I watched him back away from the bed, but I could finally breathe with the space. “There’s a Jacuzzi tub in there.”
I hesitated for a moment, and then I tossed off the covers. Springing from the bed, I headed straight for the bathroom door, my head full of so much I thought it would explode.
“Joe.”
Clenching my hands, I faced him. “Don’t call me Joe, Sethie “Sethie?” A laugh burst from him.
I folded my arms across my chest, ignoring the fact that he really did have a nice laugh even if he wasn’t human. Well, if I believed him, I wasn’t completely human, either. “What?”
His bare chest rose, and I forced my gaze back to his face. “I…” He shook his head. “Nothing. I’ll be waiting. Don’t take forever.”
I stared as he turned to a bag resting on a large chair, and I hoped he had a damn shirt to pull out of it. Turning back to the bathroom bigger than my dorm room, I pulled the door shut behind me and all but collapsed against it.
Closing my eyes, I listened to the absolute silence of the hotel room. If he was moving around out there, he was part ghost. So much information rolled around in my thoughts. Part of me wanted to deny everything, but he…he had to be telling me the truth, and that caused little darts of panic to shoot through me. My body trembled. Demigods. Gods. Apollyon. Titans. Even Pegasus. All of it was real, and I was one of them? And all of this… It felt too real to not be.
I opened my eyes and stared at the huge tub.
I seriously hoped Seth found a shirt.