The Return
Page 100

I opened my mouth, but his hand closed over my lips. “No. I don’t want you to answer.” His smile was creepier than his eyes. “I hate waiting. And I had to wait far too long to get my hands back on you.”
A second later I was on my feet. He crowded toward me, forcing me to limp backwards.
“Did you also know that the gods watch over the Covenants? They would’ve seen my friends causing a little havoc.” He kept coming, and I forced my body to move. “And we’re not very far from the campus.”
I darted to the side, keeping him in front of me as I tried to pull together the training Seth had given me.
“They will find us. And they will come.” He turned to me slowly. “Your father will come.”
I choked out a laugh as I searched the room for a weapon. There were dusty chairs and an old table with a lamp. I started toward it, not sure if I could really use it against him, but I had to get out of there. I had to get Erin and get out of there. “No, he won’t.”
Hyperion dipped his chin. “Oh, he will.”
Twisting at the waist, I reached for the lamp. My fingers brushed over the metal base as I was jerked back and was pressed into the wall with one hand in the center of my chest. Before I could react, he spoke in a language that burned my ears, and then it happened. Fire ripped through me. Not a spark. Not an ember. A full wildfire erupted. My last thought, before the pain took over, was that I’d promised Seth I’d be there when he returned. I’d promised him.
There was no way I could shake the feeling that history was repeating itself in the worst kind of way.
Marcus stood in front of me, trying to talk me down, to wait, just like he had when Alex had gone missing all that time ago, when she’d left the Covenant to find her mother, but he had been talking Aiden down then.
Big difference here was that, with Alex, I had been able to feel her. I’d been able to track her down, but with Josie I felt nothing.
“Wait,” Marcus said carefully, glancing over to where Artemis stood as still as one of the statues in front of the window. “You run out there, you have no idea where to even begin to look for her. Let Artemis do her thing.”
Once we discovered that Josie had been taken, Artemis had popped up and summoned some giant fucking golden hawk that was out there now, scouring the mountain.
And I was in here, standing around with my dick in my hand. Night had fallen and Josie, she was…
Turning away from Marcus, I shoved my hand through my hair. Luke was in the corner, dabbing some shit on Deacon’s skull. The pure hadn’t really spoken much since everything had gone down.
The door to Marcus’s office opened. Two Sentinels stepped aside as Solos strode in. “All of the shades have been removed from the campus. Hades and his…uh, dog took care of it, and I think…I need to go vomit now.”
Marcus sighed as he paced the length of the room. I knew he wanted to talk about how screwed up everything was, about how he needed to protect the whole campus, but he got one good look at my face and apparently decided he valued his life.
At the window, Artemis suddenly turned, and holy shit, her eyes were all birdlike, bright yellow with large pupils. “I’ve found them.”
“Where?”
Her head tilted to the side. “They are about thirty miles from here, still in the Black Hills. In a cabin. There are five Sentinels guarding it.” She blinked and her eyes were all-white, which somehow, was an improvement. “It must be a trap. They did not go far.”
“I don’t care. Can you poof me there like Apollo does when he’s bored?”
Artemis arched a brow.
“Seth,” Marcus moved toward me, but drew up short. “If it’s a trap, you should stop—”
“I don’t care.” I focused on the goddess. “Can you do it?” Marcus tried again. “Seth—”
“I was supposed to protect her!” I snapped, whirling on the
Dean. The glyphs reacted to my anger, swirling across my skin.
Paintings on the wall rattled and the room tinted amber. “I was supposed to keep her safe.”
He raced his hands passively. “I know it was a job, but—” “It wasn’t just a job to me,” I seethed, and Marcus’s eyes widened in surprise. “Going out there and defending the Covenant was a job—one I should’ve walked away from, but because I did my duty, I failed her, and she is anything but a job to me.”
“I will take you,” Artemis said calmly.
I started to say “hell yeah,” but she popped out from where she stood in front of the window, appeared in front of me, then placed a hand on my shoulder. A split second later we were in the woods, under a starry night, breathing in cold wind.
“Gods,” I murmured, trying to gather my bearings.
Artemis stepped back. “This is as far as I can take you. A Titan awaits you and…I will fall to him.”
Well, wasn’t that reassuring as fuck?
“Just beyond the stand of trees, he awaits.” Her form shimmered, fading out. “Good luck, Apollyon.”
And with that, the goddess of the hunt and see-through clothing was gone.
I had no idea why Artemis was choosing to help me. Yeah, Josie was important to the gods, but they rarely stepped in when needed, usually only after their help would’ve been handy. But I wasn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth. And I also knew I was walking in to face off with a Titan.
But I was going to walk back out with Josie, even if it killed me.