The Return (Titan 1)

Pressing my lips together, I nodded. My knuckles started to ache from how tightly I was clenching the blanket.

“Your father is Apollo, and that does make you a demigod.”

“But…I’m not special,” I said, and then realized how lame that sounded when he grinned. “I mean, demigods have powers, right? I remember reading about Hercules and some others. They were super-strong, and I can’t even jog a mile without getting out of breath or having a leg cramp.”

“Well, that’s good to know, in case I need you to run fast.” He cast a bland look in my direction. “Your abilities were bound at birth, along with those of the others.”

“Others?”

He nodded. “I don’t know how much you know about Greek mythology, but only half of what they teach in the mortal schools is true. The one thing you do need to know is that the gods are very powerful, but they suck at cognitive thinking skills.”

“Um.” An ache started at my temples. “Alrighty, then.”

“They do things without really thinking them through, which is how we’re in this situation now,” he continued as he turned his gaze to the open window.

I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear about this situation. “And, you’re not a demigod. You’re the pollen-ann?”

“Apollyon,” he said, sighing. “Like I told you before, my mom was a pure and my father was a half. I didn’t know him.”

“I didn’t know my dad, either.” When he glanced back at me, I felt my cheeks heat. “Well, duh. You know that.”

“Well, I guess we also have that in common, don’t we?” His eyes flashed a bright amber, startling me with their intensity. “You and I might have some things in common, but we’re nothing alike and there’s nothing to bond over.”

Drawing back against the headboard, I was stung, and I wasn’t quite sure why, but the tone of his words had been harsh. “I wasn’t trying to bond with you.”

He turned his gaze back to the window and didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Not every pure and half who get together create an Apollyon. Usually there’s some kind of divine intervention, but relationships between pures and halfs were forbidden because of the threat of an Apollyon being born.”

Pushing away the sting of his earlier words, I focused on what was important. “Why?”

“There’s only supposed to be one Apollyon in a generation. We’re as powerful as a demigod, able to control the four elements— air, water, fire, and earth—and we control the fifth—akasha. But when there are two Apollyons, we can…we’re connected in a way that’s hard to explain. We can pull energy from each other, and one of us, if we do a certain ritual on the other, can become a God Killer, something a demigod cannot do. And being a God Killer basically means what you’d think it does. Needless to say, the gods aren’t thrilled whenever there are two Apollyons, because of that potential.”

All of this was Greek to me. Literally. But it was fascinating.

Twisting at the waist, he faced me again. “I’m going to give you the CliffsNotes version of what went down.”

I was surprised he hadn’t said he was going to give me the version for dummies, but I kept my mouth shut.

“I shouldn’t have been born,” he stated pointedly.

“Whoa.” My eyes widened. “That’s a bit harsh.” And also a bit too close to home for my liking.

He shrugged, but there was a hardness to his jaw that said it affected him more than he led on. “There was already another Apollyon lined up to be born. All of them are descendants of Apollo, one way or another. But I was born before…before her, and I was raised to be the Apollyon—schooled, trained to fight from the moment I could walk. My duty was to step in and handle situations the Sentinels couldn’t handle.”

“Sentinels? Isn’t that a Transformer?”

He chuckled, smiling slightly. “Sentinels are halfs and pures who train to keep things in order—to make sure no one gets out of hand and that the mortal world remains oblivious to what coexists among them. There’s a whole society—schools, universities, communities, clubs—you name it. It’s out there and mortals have no idea about any of it, Joe.”

I frowned. “Don’t call me Joe. I’m not a dude.”

Seth ignored that. “Anyway, I was raised believing I was the only Apollyon. Until I was brought to Deity Island—a small island off the coast of North Carolina. Then I met the other and… Well, everything sort of went downhill from there. The gods knew that I wasn’t supposed to be the Apollyon, and they knew one of their own was seeking to betray them. Turns out that Ares, who made sure I came into existence, wanted to take over the world, bring it back to the glory days where gods ruled not just Olympus but also over the mortal realm.”

Surprise shuttled through me. Ares was real? Goodness.

“The gods took precautions when I was born. They knew they needed a backup plan in case one of the Apollyons became the God Killer, so they created twelve demigods, bound their powers, and left them alone. You’re one of them.”

My head was spinning again. “So, I’m virtually Plan B?”

“Actually, you’re virtually Plan C.”

Well, damn. My birth was Plan C?

“We fought Ares a year ago. One of the ways we battled him was by releasing one of the Titans from Tartarus,” he explained, and all I could think was holy crap, Tartarus is real? What about the guy who ferried the boat? “It was a crap plan from the get-go. Perses ended up freeing more Titans after we defeated Ares, because all the gods were weakened when we took Ares out. Due to some kind of cosmic bullshit, only the demigods can put them back in their place. So Plan C is being put into play.”

“Um, I’m… I’m supposed to do what? Send a Titan back to hell?”

“Tartarus isn’t hell. It’s a mixture of good, bad, and something in-between. And yes. Once the six remaining demigods are together, your powers will unbind.”

“Wait. Remaining six? I thought there were twelve?”

“There were twelve. Ares took out some of them.” He placed his hand over mine, causing me to jump. A slight, knowing grin appeared on his lips as he easily pried one of my hands free from the blanket. His hand slid off mine, leaving a shiver in its wake as he moved onto my other hand. “There are six, but it appears the Titans got to two of them. They aren’t dead. Not yet.”