The Return (Titan 1)

Pressing my lips together, I said nothing at first, because that was far from the truth. I didn’t want him to leave, but I couldn’t stop him from going. I shook my head. “You don’t need to do this…” I waved my hand, indicating the bathroom. “I’m fine. I can clean myself up.”

“Are you wearing anything under that sweater?” he asked, ignoring me.

“Um…” I swallowed. “Yeah, a tank top. Why?”

He shifted, turning on the faucet. “Take it off.”

“What?” My voice pitched high.

With the damp towel in hand, he was kneeling in front of me again. “I need to look at your neck again. It was bleeding earlier. You wouldn’t let me do it on the road, so let me do it now,” he said, and I opened my mouth to tell him hell to the no, but he spoke again. “Please.”

I don’t know why that single word held so much power over me, but it did, and besides, I wasn’t naked underneath. Grabbing the hem, I tugged the ruined sweater over my head, flinching at the movements. I dropped it on the floor.

Seth’s gaze stayed on my face before dipping to my neck. His lips parted in a rough exhale. I clasped my hands again as he slipped a finger under the thin strap of my cami. I jerked when he grazed my skin. The soft caress rippled over my body in a way that was kind of embarrassing.

He halted, his gaze flicking to mine. “Did I hurt you?”

My cheeks heated. There was something wrong with me. The last thing I should have been feeling was any kind of arousal. “No,” I whispered.

He held my gaze a moment longer, and then gently placed the towel against my neck, where Hyperion’s nails had sliced into my skin. It didn’t hurt, but I had to hold myself still. “My last name is Diodoros.”

I blinked. “Dio-what?”

A soft laugh came from him as he tossed the dirtied towel into the tub and wet a fresh one. “Diodoros.”

I had no idea how to even begin to spell it, but somehow I knew not many people in this world, if any, knew this about him. It was in the way he said it, his voice gruff and raw. He was sharing something personal, and he’d chosen me to share that with. I didn’t know why, but I wanted to cherish that fact, hold it close.

“You know what it means in Greek? ‘Gift of Zeus,’” he continued, sliding the towel to the top of my cami, wiping up dried blood and dirt. “That’s the height of irony.”

My breath caught as the cloth dipped lower than my shoulder, the edges brushing over the swell of my breast, and thank God I had a bra on under the cami, because I could feel my nipples hardening, and that was just beyond embarrassing. It had to be the trauma of today. Okay. That was an excuse.

“Why?” I finally asked.

“Because I’m more like a pain in the ass to Zeus than a gift.” He sighed, rocking back on his heels as he lifted his gaze. “The cuts aren’t deep and he didn’t tag you like the daimons did, but I saw him. He was going for your aether too. Did you feel anything?”

“It hurt.” The reminder of how that felt grounded my butt back in reality. “Like he was pulling something out from deep inside me, just as bad as when the daimons got me.”

He said nothing as he moved the towel along my face, wiping up what felt like a week’s worth of dirt. Then he tossed the second towel and took my hand again. Hauling me up, he placed his other hand on my hip when I stumbled. A heartbeat passed as our gazes locked.

We were standing toe to toe in the bathroom, barely any space between us. His chin was tipped down and mine stretched up. It felt like we were about to dance, which was silly to imagine. I don’t know why I did what I did next, but it seemed natural to do so, and I was so tired, so emotionally spent, that I didn’t really think about it.

Closing my eyes, I leaned in and rested my cheek against his chest, right above his heart. Seth stiffened like he’d turned into one of those marble statues I’d seen earlier. His chest rose sharply, and I held my breath, waiting for him to shove me away.

But he didn’t.

Seth’s hand slipped off my hip and made its way to the center of my back. He also dropped my hand, loosely circling his arm around my shoulders. My breath hitched as I placed my hands on his waist. A long moment passed and he dropped his chin to the top of my head, and while that seemed like it wasn’t a big deal, my chest squeezed.

His arms tightened just a fraction as he cleared his throat. “One of the first things they teach you when you’re training is to never let your opponent get a good grip on you or get you on your back.”

A shiver rolled down my spine. “The daimons got me on my back. Hyperion…well, he didn’t get me on my back. He sort of just lifted me up with one hand.”

“And there’s that.” His hand slid up, tangling in my hair as his fingers curled around the nape of my neck. “I’m going to train you.”

At first I didn’t think I heard him correctly. I started to pull back, but he held onto me. “What?”

“I don’t know if your father will show up and send me off somewhere else,” he continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “If he does, I won’t be able to deny him.”

My mind was racing. “Why?”

“Doesn’t matter. These are my rules if you want me to train you. You have to agree to listen to me and not to whine when it gets hard, because it will get hard, Josie. You think your body hurts now? You haven’t seen anything yet. You’re going to hurt. You’re going to want to stop, but you’re not going to be able to.” He pulled my head back, and our eyes met. “I’m going to own you through this process.”

Own me? Um, well, that didn’t sound right, and I shivered again, which also wasn’t right.

He continued. “But, most importantly, you have to trust me. Can you agree to all of that?”

“Yes,” I said immediately. “I can agree to that.”

His gaze held me in those amber depths a moment longer, and then he stepped back, slipping his hands off me in a slow slide that got yet another shiver out of me. “We’ll start tomorrow, then.”

“Tomorrow,” I whispered, nodding. “You’re staying then.”

“I’m staying.”

I had no idea what made him change his mind, but I didn’t push it, because I wanted him to be the one to train me. Even though he was a puzzle I probably had no hope of figuring out, I did trust him.