Аполлион

He was probably the only person in the world who could demand that of me and I’d listen. All too obediently, I headed around the front of the Hummer and stopped in front of him. “What?” I asked, stifling a yawn.

Aiden cupped my cheeks and tilted my head back. “You didn’t sleep at all.”

“Neither did you.”

A tired grin appeared. “I was driving.”

I placed my hands on his wrists. Our eyes locked. “I can’t believe we went to the Underworld and came back out.”

“Me, neither.” His thumbs traced along the curve of my cheekbones. “You were perfect.”

“Except for the spiders…”

His head dipped and his nose brushed mine. “I wasn’t talking about the spiders.”

“You weren’t?”

Aiden laughed and his breath was warm and tantalizing. “No. I was thinking about what came after the spiders.”

“Oh… oh!” I sucked in a sharp breath and my legs suddenly felt weak. “ That”

“Yes.” His lips brushed mine. “That.”

I started to smile, because that really had been perfect, but then Aiden kissed me and I melted into him. There was strength in that kiss, along with love and a taste of what a future would be like with him. I loved— loved—that in the midst of everything, we could still have moments like this. Where it was just us and there weren’t any walls between us. The kiss deepened, his tongue slipping past my lips, and my fingers dug into his wrists. A low, sultry growl came from Aiden, and I wanted—

“You two should really get a room,” Apollo said from out of nowhere. “My poor eyes…”

I groaned. Even in his true identity, he still had impeccable timing.

“Gods,” Aiden spat. He pulled back, casting Apollo a disgusted look over my head. “Do you get off on sneaking up on us?”

“You probably don’t want to know what I get off on.”

I made a face. “Ew.”

Aiden kissed my forehead as his hands slipped off my cheeks. Dropping an arm around my shoulders, he pulled me into the shelter of his body and I went, resting my cheek against his chest. “Did you already talk to Dionysus?”

Apollo leaned against the bumper. “Yes. He’s on it as we speak.”

“How can we trust that Dionysus isn’t the god behind this?” I smothered another yawn. “And that he won’t lie to us?”

“Dionysus cares little for war, and he doesn’t have the motivation to engineer something like this.”

“How long until he lets us know?” Aiden asked.

“We should hear from him by the end of the day.” Apollo’s gaze flickered to the deep blue sky. “It’s almost morning. You two should rest.”

Aiden glanced down at me. “Let’s head in.”

I pulled away, glancing at Apollo. “I’ll be in in a few seconds. I want to talk to Apollo.”

He hesitated, sending me a questioning look. I hated keeping him in the dark about this, but there was no other way, because if Aiden knew, he would stop it, and then the world would go to crap.

“It’s okay.” I smiled. “I’ll be right in.”

Aiden looked at Apollo and let out a low breath. “Okay. I’ll go… wake up Deacon or something.”

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate that,” I said.

A brief smile appeared. “True.”

At the sound of the front door shutting behind Aiden, I looked at Apollo and felt the mask I’d been wearing slip away.

Our gazes met and Apollo sighed. “Alexandria…”

“I knew there was something you’d been keeping from me. That there was a bigger reason to why you all would want to keep me alive when it would be so much easier to just kill me. It would fix the problem with Seth, so I just didn’t get why you’d risk it.”

He looked at a loss to what to say. Good—I’d struck a god speechless. Score one for me. I was going to go for point two. “You need the God Killer.”

A long moment passed. “We need to stop this from happening again.”

“You need me to kill the god responsible.” Anger grew inside me, but so did hurt, and that hurt had been festering since we’d left the Underworld. I didn’t know why. Apollo might be related to me by blood, but he was a god and they’d missed out on the whole empathy train, sort of like a bunch of sociopaths, but it still hurt something fierce.

It cut deep.

Because in the end, I was the lion andthe lamb; I would slaughter and then be slaughtered. Apollo didn’t say it, but I saw it in what he wouldn’t say.

“We cannot risk this kind of destruction again, Alexandria. Thousands of innocent people have died, and there willbe more. And even if we stop the First, this will happen again.” He placed his hand on my shoulder and it was heavy. “We cannot kill one another. We need the only thing that can kill us. We need the God Killer—we need you.”

I stared at him, dumbfounded. “You don’t want me to kill Seth, then.”

He snorted. “On most days I do, but you must take his power, and he has to be alive for that. I need you to be able to defeat him and transfer his power to you.”

My hands balled into fists and it took everything in me not to grab hold of those golden locks and rip them out. “You’ve been lying to me this entire time.”

“No I haven’t.” He didn’t even blink.

“Bull! You told me before I Awakened that you wanted me to kill Seth! You know, over grape soda and Spider-man cake?”