“You could’ve helped him!”

“How? How was I to do that? What do you think would’ve happened if everyone realized that your father was a half-blood? Halfs and pures have mixed before and have been caught. Those children were not allowed to live.”

Sickened, I swallowed. “That’s so wrong.”

“I don’t disagree.” He reached over, running his fingers over a nearby leafy plant. “Your father didn’t seem to recognize me. Only recently did I learn from Laadan, that that must’ve been an act.”

Then it hit me—smacked me right upside my ever-loving head. The conversation that I’d overheard between him and Telly resurfaced. Marcus had been furious with Telly. “Telly wanted you to hand me over, didn’t he? He even offered you a seat on the Council.”

He looked at me sharply.

I grinned. “I overheard you guys.”

Staring at me a moment, he shook his head. “He did.”

“And you refused.”

“Yes.” His look said how could I do anything else?

Wow. Things kind of made sense now, after all this time. I reminded him of Mom and he missed her, which probably made him uncomfortable around me. And Marcus wasn’t really a people person, anyway. He hadn’t known about my father until it was too late. I believed that. And he hadn’t handed me over to Telly. I remembered how he’d picked me up and carried me after Seth had attacked the Council and I’d been sick.

How, like Aiden, he hadn’t given up on me.

Marcus… he cared about me. And that meant a lot. Beside my father, who was out of reach to me, Marcus was the last of my family—my blood.

“Thank you,” I said. And then, impulsively, even though he wasn’t a hugging man, I sprang forward before he knew what was coming and hugged him. It was quick, though—I didn’t want to freak the man out.

I settled back in my spot as he stared at me, eyes wide. Guess I had freaked him out.

“Why are you thanking me?” he asked slowly.

I shrugged.

“You are a strange girl.”

Laughing, I leaned back against the cushions on the window seat. “I bet Mom was a strange girl.”

“That she was.”

“Will you tell me what you know about my dad? I mean, if you’re not tired or anything?”

“There’re some stories I could tell you.” He mirrored my position. “And I’m not tired. Not at all.” His smile was tentative, but real, and I couldn’t think of any other time that he had smiled like that.

My lips responded in kind. “That would be really nice.”

It wasn’t until dawn came and the sun rose, chasing away the murky shadows, that I thought about how happy my mom would be, knowing that Marcus and I had sort of patched things up.

And I couldn’t help but believe that she did. And maybe she was smiling upon us now. Just like the sun filtering through the windows, warming our backs.

CHAPTER 14

Over the next three days, our little band fell into a rhythm of sorts. Things had settled down in the world. There’d been no more natural disasters, and Mount St. Helens seemed to have quieted. Apollo was still a no-show and the cabin out in the middle of nowhere had become a god-free zone. A good thing, but I figured one would just pop in, most likely in Deacon’s bed or something, where we’d least expect them. But even though there’d been no godly interference, it was like watching the countdown clock on a time bomb. We all were just waiting.

Each day had been filled with training, training, and more training. Parts were worse than any days at the Covenant, because everyone stopped and watched when it came time for me to break out the akasha.

Marcus and Solos had lined up several large rocks they’d found scattered about, and my job was to make itty, bitty pebbles out of them. And that worked—up close. Say, like a few feet away. But the further away I got, the worse my aim became.

Sweating under Aiden’s loose thermal, I grunted as I pulled from where akasha rested just below my ribcage. The power of the gods mark tingled as the fifth element crackled across my knuckles.

Under the canopy of trees, Aiden and Olivia stopped their sparring to watch.

Focusing on the element, I felt my senses sharpen. Using akasha was like being connected directly with the Earth—like run-and-hug-a-tree connected. I could feel the vibrations of the grass and soil under my feet, as well as the dozens of scents carried on the low moan of the wind, and I could feel the air gliding over my skin with ghostly fingers.

Akasha crackled over my right arm as I threw my hand out. A bolt of lightning erupted from my palm, shooting across the ten feet and smacking into the right edge of the boulder. With a loud crack, the thing splintered.

Luke darted out of the way, but he was still pelted with rubble. He doubled over, about to kiss the ground.

“Whoops.” I winced. “Sorry?”

Rubbing his back, he waved it off and limped toward where Deacon was trying to hide his laughter. “Shut up,” he grumbled.

“You should’ve known better than to be that close,” Deacon replied.

I sighed and turned to Solos. “I have terrible aim.”

Solos nodded. “It’s slightly off.”

“Slightly?” My brows lifted.

“You’re hitting the target, and I suppose that’s all that matters.”

Peeking at Aiden, I found that his attention was now on the sparring Lea and Olivia. The two girls were marvelous fighters and equally matched, and Aiden was in full Instructor mode, calling out commands in his deep, oddly musical voice. I found myself missing that one-on-one attention.

Heck, I was missing a lot of attention.

One thing had been certain over the last three days—something was definitely up with Aiden. It wasn’t that he avoided me. Every night he joined me in bed, pulled me close, and held me. Nothing progressed further than that, even though I could sense he wanted more. He just didn’t make a move, and I had no idea why. I was pretty sure the way I ended up curling all around him was evidence I was down for some happy times.

I bit my lip as I turned to the last boulder, shaking out my shoulders. There hadn’t been another nightmare of Seth, thank the gods. Part of me suspected it had something to do with the fact that I didn’t go to sleep until after Aiden did. Maybe just knowing that he was there helped, but he didn’t go to sleep until late, which usually meant it took another couple of hours for me to drift off, and when he awoke at the crack of freaking dawn, so did I. Since I was tapping into akasha daily, I was drained like a daimon victim.

But I pushed away the fatigue. Like Marcus had once said, I was a lot of things, but not stupid. I knew why Apollo wanted me working with akasha. He was preparing me to fight Seth. And I would need everything in my arsenal to avoid the power transfer that would end everything.

There was an inherent problem with training for a faceoff with Seth. How was I supposed to fight him when all it would take from him was a touch and a few whispered words in Greek?

Yeah, we were doomed to failure.

Panic hammered me in the chest as my gaze drifted over those around me. If anything went wrong, which it most likely would, all of them were at risk. Lea could end up like her sister, Olivia like Caleb, Luke and Solos like every Sentinel that had been slaughtered by Lucian and his army. Marcus could end up like my mom.

My eyes settled on Aiden.

Deacon had gotten up and was standing next to his older brother. Under the sunlight, his blond curls were a pale platinum. The brothers shared the same striking eye color, but that was all. They were like yin and yang, night and day, standing side by side.

Deacon’s hands were cupped around something, and as he lifted his head, a genuine smile spread across his lips and those gray eyes glittered. Aiden laughed at whatever Deacon had said.

They could end up like their parents.

Fear made my skin tight as it replaced the panic. I rubbed at my temple, forcing my breath to saw in and out evenly. No one was going to die. There would be no more deaths. There couldn’t be. Everyone had suffered enough already.

But there was Fate. There was no such thing as paying dues when it came to Fate. It simply did not care, or recognize past experience.

Knowing that made me want to plop down in the cold, damp grass and cry like an angry, fat baby.

“Alex?” Solos’ soft voice drew me out of my troublesome thoughts.

I nodded and focused on the last rock. What I didn’t like about using akasha was the fact that the buzzing in my head was always the strongest then, like tapping into the most powerful element somehow affected the bond. None of the Apollyons had ever thought or discussed that in the past, so I had no idea if that was true.

Calling upon akasha, I let it go. The bolt of blue lightning was incredibly intense, shattering in its power. Silence and then another loud crack followed. This time it hit the rock in the middle and the thing didn’t explode, but was reduced to a pile of dust.

Solos let out a low whistle as he stared at the dust and the scorched soil below. “Remind me to never piss you off.”

I cracked a smile as I backed off, letting the buzz of akasha settle back down. Bending at the waist, I snatched up my water. Over the rim, I watched Olivia deliver a spin kick that knocked Lea back several feet.

Aiden clapped. “Perfect, Olivia.” And then to Lea, “You hesitated. If you hadn’t, you would’ve blocked that kick.”

Nodding, Lea stood up and dusted herself off. She quickly fell back into stance and went at it again.

A low, annoying ache blossomed in my temple, making my right eye all twitchy. I tossed the bottle back down and turned to Solos. Out of rocks to destroy, I was handed off to Marcus to work on elements.

Off a little from the main group, he raised his hands. A gust of wind picked up. Branches rattled, and fresh, tiny leaves swirled in the air as the wind barreled toward me.

I raised my hands, and unlike before I’d Awakened, I met the air element with my own. His sputtered out weakly under the force of mine. Amazing how the air element had been my greatest enemy before, but now was only a mild annoyance.

Deacon and Laadan even got involved in the later part of the day. Laadan worked with the air element and Deacon set about creating small fires and controlling them. I couldn’t picture those two fighting, but at this point, everyone had become a warrior.

Aiden watched his brother with narrowed eyes and a tight jaw, so tight I wondered if he had any molars left. Finally, he left the halfs and stalked over to where Deacon had several piles of twigs burning.

“What are you doing?” Aiden demanded.

Deacon looked up from under the mop of curls. “I’m becoming a fire bug.”

The humor was lost on Aiden. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“Ah, hell, well if that’s the case, then that’s embarrassing.”

Aiden’s back went rigid. “Unless you’re practicing starting campfires, you’re wasting your time.”

“But—”

“You don’t need to do this.” Aiden waved his hand over the piles of burning twigs and the flames fizzled out. “I don’t want you involved in any of this.”