Аполлион

But it was a battle I wasn’t winning anytime soon, so I snuggled into the passenger seat and tried to get some sleep. The only problem was that my brain would not shut down. Ever since I’d stood in the war room, something had nagged at me. What Persephone had said, the sheared ponytails on the wall—all of it seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place how or why. And it was more than that. Solaris’ parting words were unsettling and they poked around in my head.

What I could never figure out was why Apollo had kept me alive once Seth had gone all crazy-pants on the Council. Or why Artemis had stopped Hades from taking me into the Underworld. The gods—or at least all of them except one—feared the transfer of power, because when that happened there’d be no stopping Seth. Taking me out of the picture before I’d Awakened, or putting me out of commission afterward, made sense.

Keeping me alive didn’t.

But I remembered what Artemis had said in that convenience store as she’d faced down Hades. Prophecies could change, and it didn’t take a leap of logic to know that, if I became the God Killer, the prophecy would change.

Unease blossomed in my chest. Had Apollo and the others known that this was possible? Then I felt dumb for even questioning that. The oracles belonged to Apollo, and even though he didn’t know all of their visions, the portion of what the oracle had told Solaris could’ve been shared with Apollo. Which made sense since Apollo had been oh-so supportive of me going down to see Solaris.

Part of me was naïve enough to hope that wasn’t the case, because that meant Apollo had some explaining to do. The other part was more analytical about it, more reasonable. Apollo had said before that they needed to stop the god who was obviously working with Lucian. And how else would they stop him?

They needed the God Killer.

The real kicker of this whole crappy situation was that Lucian controlled Seth, and this god—whoever it was—controlled Lucian, and therefore he/she controlled Seth and all of those who were following Lucian. So if Seth succeeded and transferred my power to him, this god would then control the God Killer. Risky, because Seth could always turn on him, but in the end, once the god had Seth do what he wanted, I was sure he’d be creative enough to somehow keep him under control. Possibly that meant keeping a member of the Order stowed away, safe and sound.

My muscles tightened in reflex as I worked this out. None of it looked good. And Seth was being manipulated from every which direction and he had no idea. Hell, he refused to even think that was the case.

As the miles between Kansas and Illinois disappeared, I couldn’t shake what Solaris has said about the gods using me, and what it would mean. Neither could I let go of the feeling that, by learning how to transfer the power to me, I had sealed my own fate.

The sudden weight of Aiden’s hand on my knee drew my attention to him. His eyes were on the dark highway. “You’re not sleeping.”

I smiled as I placed my hand over his. “How did you know?”

“I just do.” He sent me a brief grin. “What are you thinking about?”

Everything was on the tip of my tongue—my suspicions, my concerns about what Solaris had said, and what I now knew Apollo was hiding—but when Aiden glanced at me again, I found I couldn’t tell him.

He hadn’t heard what Solaris had said, and I didn’t want to burden him with this on top of everything else. If my suspicions were correct, if everything was leading to one thing…

Taking a deep breath, I focused on the white lines parting the darkness. “I was just thinking about how I’m supposed to get close enough to Seth to transfer his power to me. Seems impossible, right?”

“I don’t like it, Alex. I’m going to be honest; I think it’s insane. To me, it’s like sneaking up on a cobra. It’s not going to work.”

“I know, but what choice do we have? Besides, we don’t just have to figure out how to get close enough to him. There’re all the Sentinels and Guards who are backing him.”

Aiden squeezed my hand. “We’re going to need an army.”

Slowly, I looked at him. “And where are we going to dig up one of them?”

“Good question.” He barked out a short laugh. “What we need to find out is exactly how many Lucian has backing him—”

“I can always ask Dionysus to do some scouting,” Apollo’s voice boomed from the backseat.

Shrieking, I sprang forward, knocking my knees off the dashboard. Aiden’s hand jerked on the steering wheel, swerving the Hummer into the left lane, which was thankfully empty.

Aiden cursed under his breath. “You need a freaking bell.”

I twisted around in the seat, ready to knock the grin off the god’s face. I was already pretty pissed off at him without him giving us a heart attack. “You could’ve caused an accident!”

Apollo leaned forward, resting his arms on the back of our seats. “But you didn’t. Aiden has the reflexes of a hellhound.”

Making a face, I shook my head. “How did you just… pop in here?”