The Return (Titan 1)

Irritation pricked at my skin, causing the glyphs to agitate restlessly across it. Apollo and I had a history—a very bad history. He couldn’t kill me. I wasn’t sure how any of the Olympian gods could kill me, but I knew they would, eventually. Just not yet— they still needed me. “What do you want?”

He tilted his head to the side. “One of these days you will speak to me with respect, Apollyon.”

“One of these days you will realize I don’t respect you.”

The Sentinels in the room stared at me like I’d just pulled down my pants and shaken my junk in their faces.

A tight smile appeared on the god’s lips, a hide-your-kids-and-loved-ones kind of smile, but since I had neither of those things, I wasn’t intimidated. “We need to chat.”

Before I could respond, he snapped his fingers, and I was suddenly standing outside the mansion, my booted feet in the sand, the smell of salt overwhelming my senses, and the rolling ocean at my back.

A growl of anger rose in my throat. “I hate it when you do that.”

The smile on his face increased. “I know.”

I absolutely loathed it, and the bastard did it every chance he got—usually about every five minutes whenever I was in his presence and mostly without any purpose. Sometimes he would just pop me from room to room for the hell of it. The last year or so of my life had been a real test of my short patience.

“What do we need to talk about?” I ground out, folding my arms to keep myself from hitting him with a blast of akasha, the fifth and most powerful element only the gods and the Apollyon could wield. It wouldn’t kill him, but sure as hell would sting like a bitch.

Apollo shifted his gaze to the dark ocean. “Do you have to always be so messy?”

My brows rose. “Huh?”

“Back there,” he said, jerking his chin to where the lights from the mansion twinkled in the distance. “Do you always have to be so messy when you dispatch those who betrayed us?”

“Do I have to? No.”

“Then why?” He looked at me.

Killing them the way I did was unnecessary. I could just blast them into nothing, make it quick, neat, and painless, but that’s not how I rolled. Maybe in the beginning I’d been less…violent, but not anymore. Not when my sole purpose of existence was carrying out the gods’ dirty work. Because every time I saw one of their faces, I thought of my own major screw-ups, and they were plentiful, and that made me think of— I cut that thought off. I was so not going down that road tonight without a bottle of whiskey.

“You all turned me into the Terminator. What did you expect?” I shrugged. “Is this what you wanted to talk to me about? My method of carrying out your orders? I’d think you’d have better things to do than pop up just to bitch at me because I made a mess.”

“It’s not just making a mess, Seth, and you know that. It’s you.”

A muscle began to thump along my jaw. I got what he was saying. “It’s what I am now. So deal with it.” I started to turn away. “If that’s it, I’m out. There are these girls I want—”

“That’s not why I’m here.”

Closing my eyes, I swallowed a stream of curses. Of course not. I pivoted back to him. “What?”

Apollo didn’t answer immediately. “Remember Perses?”

“Uh. No. I’ve forgotten all about the seven-foot Titan I helped free from Tartarus. Totally slipped my mind.” My voice dripped sarcasm, and the flare of static crackling out from his all-white eyes showed that he noted it. That made me ridiculously happy. “Did you guys catch him?”

“Not quite.”

I rolled my eyes. “Big surprise there.”

Freeing Perses had been a last-ditch effort in the fight against Ares. The Titan was probably the only thing the God of War had feared, and the decision to roll out the red carpet to the mortal realm had been risky. Perses had been promised an eternity in the Elysian Fields for his help—if he behaved. Obviously, he had not behaved, and the moment Ares had been taken out, the Titan had disappeared—off to do whatever ancient gods did after they’d been asleep for a few millennia.

I bet it involved getting laid. A lot.

“Your sarcasm and general assholeness are not necessary,” Apollo remarked casually.

I grinned at him. “I don’t think ‘assholeness’ is a word.”

“It is if I say it is.” Apollo drew in a deep breath, a sure sign his temper was reaching its knock-Seth-into-the-nearby-ocean point. “Perses has managed to do the unthinkable.”

There were a lot of things I’d consider unthinkable, like say half of what the gods did every day. “You’re going to have to narrow that down.”

He blinked and when his eyes reopened, they were more normal. Not completely normal, but he now had pupils and irises. His eyes were an intense, denim blue when they met my amber-colored ones. “He’s freed more Titans.”

“That’s not —wait. What?”

“He’s freed more Titans, Seth.”

Now he had my full attention. “All of them?”

“Seven of them,” Apollo confirmed. “Including Cronus.”

Holy shitstorm in Hades—that was not something I’d expected. I took a step back, dropping my hands to my hips as I mulled that development over. “How in the fuck is that even possible? Was Hades sleeping on the job or something?”

“Yes, Seth, he took a nap and Perses snuck in the back door and let them out. Then they skipped through the Vale of Mourning, stopped to have a pic-a-nic and then decided to leave the Underworld all slow-like, and all the while Hades was chillin’ and doing nothing.”

That sounded probable.

“No,” he snapped, blue eyes flaring brightly. “Hades wasn’t sleeping on the job. None of us were, you little punk ass.”

I arched a brow. “Well, that was unnecessary.”

Apollo ignored that. “Use your brain for once, Seth. You’re a smart guy. I know you are. And you knew damn well that when Ares was taken out there would be ripple effects.”

“Yeah. I might remember that.”

He stepped a good foot back from me, and I knew it was to stop himself from attempting to pummel me into next week. “We knew there’d be side effects. It was a risk we had to take—just like freeing Perses. But when Ares died, all of us were weakened in one way or another. We did not realize that one of the biggest chinks in our armor would be the wards entombing the Titans. How Perses realized that and made it into Tartarus to free them is unknown and really doesn’t matter at this point. Some of them are free. So are some souls—shades. And not just any ordinary souls, but ancient souls who supported the Titans when they ruled.”