Apollyon

Then he pushed, and I hit the door with enough force to knock the air out of me. Unfortunately, his Dr. Evil speech hadn’t been all pomp. But if he could hurt me, I could take it. I wasn’t submitting. Too much was at stake. Too many lives. I could deal with this, and all I could hope was that he forgot about Aiden and Marcus when he was through, or they got with the program and got the hell out of Dodge.

I can deal with this.

Pushing off the wall, I spun to the right and extended my arm, but where his chest had been was empty space, and I stumbled into it.

“Missed me.”

I whirled around, finding him behind me. Dropping down, I swept my leg at his… but hit nothing but air.

“You can keep this up if you want.”

Looking up, he was leaning against the door, arms crossed. Now I was starting to get pissed off. Launching to my feet, I gained momentum and pushed into the air, twisting into the perfect butterfly kick that—

Arms snagged me out of the air from behind and I let out a surprised gasp.

He held me like I was nothing more than a sack of rice. “I am the god of war, little girl. There is no move that you know, no method of battle or maneuver that I do not.”

Crap.

“I will always be one step ahead. I will always outthink you. You cannot fight me.”

Throwing my head back, I hit his broad, hard shoulder. Then I swung my legs, but Ares dropped me. Stumbling to my feet, I saw he wasn’t in front of me.

Double crap.

Whirling around, I kicked out into nothing. I spun back and suddenly—dear gods —his hand was on my throat, lifting me off the ground as I kicked and clawed at his hand, too panicked and distracted to try to summon akasha again.

“You will wish for death by the time I am through.” His fingers dug in deep, cutting off my air supply. “You will beg for it in all the ways I listed. You had your choice. You had your fun. Game over.”

For a terrifying second, I thought he’d crush my windpipe, and I told myself again that I could deal with this. But then I was suddenly flying backward through the air. I crashed through the aquarium. Sharp glass sliced through my back as water and fish poured out around me.

I hit the floor on my side. Vibrantly striped pink-and-blue fish flopped on the marble floors. Sucking in a sharp inhale against the pain, I put my hand down and pushed up. I grunted as glass sliced open my palm. Blood mixed with water.

I can deal with this.

I stood up, breathing raggedly as I lifted my head.

Ares stood in front of me. Without a single word, his backhand hit the side of my face. Starbursts flooded my vision like a dozen firecrackers going off at once. I smacked into the leather chair behind the desk. Blood pooled in my mouth as I caught myself on the edge of the desk. Something had split. My cheek? Entire face? I had no idea. And over the pounding pain, I could hear them at the door.

I can deal with this.

Grabbing the keyboard, I ripped it free and swung around, aiming for his head. Ares caught the keyboard, yanked it free and then snapped it in two like it was a twig.

I stumbled back, reaching blindly for something. Daggers and swords hung from the wall, but he was on me before I could go for them.

Ares picked me up like I was nothing more than a helpless kitten. Before I could wiggle free, before I could taste the raw fear building in the back of my throat, he flipped me over, slamming my back into the corner of the upturned desk.

There was a crack I heard and felt. Sharp pain came in a flash of light, and then every nerve ending fired at once. My senses overloaded as I slipped to the ground, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Something had come unhinged inside me. I could feel it. A searing hurt roared through me like a gunshot blast. I was wet and warm on the inside and if I hadn’t been the Apollyon—if I had been only a half-blood or a mortal—I knew whatever Ares had done would’ve been fatal.

But I wouldn’t die and I couldn’t move. Something bad was broken. The tips of my fingers were numb, and I couldn’t feel my toes, but I felt everything else. And I figured that, if anyone knew the right place to snap the spine to immobilize someone but ensure they could still feel everything, it would be Ares.

I can deal with this—oh gods, I can deal with this.

He loomed over me, smiling, eyes all-white. “This can all end now, little one. Just say the words.”

My throat worked, and my tongue felt way too heavy. It took everything to get the words out. “Fuck… you…”

The smile slipped from his face and then he moved lightning fast. Pain… it was everywhere. Another bone cracked—maybe my leg, or a kneecap, but I couldn’t be sure. My mouth opened to scream, but a wet, warm whimper came out instead.

I…I can deal with this. I had to… I had to.

When he snapped my other leg and then each rib, one at a time, the pain became my world. There was no escaping it—no breathing around it or hiding. Consciousness was slipping away from me and I fought the fog, because when he was done with me, if he’d ever be done with me, he would move on to Aiden and Marcus, to the whole University. He was the god of war and he would lay waste to everything.

But that pain… it rotted me from the inside. It reached down into the tiny part where I was still a person, where I was still Alex, and the pain took over. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t deal with it. My shields crashed down and the cord roared, but the growing hum was overshadowed by the terrible pain, and the growing hopelessness dug in deep with razor-sharp claws and pulled away my entire sense of being.

I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was, or maybe I’d just hit my limit, because I wanted out—I wanted to die. There was no pride in this. There was no purpose. My soul fragmented and I broke wide open.

Ares grabbed hold of my broken arm, dragging me to the center of the room, over broken glass and dead fish and the blood of those who’d already died in here. That fresh burst of pain seemed like nothing in comparison to everything else, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ares pick up a dagger.

He knelt over me, lips curled back. There was a blade in his hand, and this was about to get much, much worse. “Say the words.”

I was shattered and I was weak. He had won, and I wanted to die, but I couldn’t, and there was no way—I screamed as the first strike of the blade sank deep.

With another sharp slice, my vision flashed amber momentarily and then reverted, but something… something was different. A foreign sensation wiggled around the broken bones and severed muscles. It wasn’t from me, but it was a part of me. It was cold and it felt like steel and it was fury, dark and endless.

It wasn’t from me, because what little part of me that was left had curled up in a ball and was waiting and praying for this to be over. It had given up, cowering away from more pain like an abused dog. It wanted this to be over. It wanted to taste the peacefulness of death.

But that fury built and, as Ares bent over me holding the red-tipped dagger, I knew that the anger was filtering through the connection between me and the First.

It was Seth.

Was he angry that I hadn’t gone with Ares? Or was it because I was so weak that I wished for death? Or was it something else, something deeper than which side we stood on, because Seth… Seth had to feel this now. He had to know, and that last little shred of my being refused to believe that he would condone this. I suffered, and so he suffered.

The god laughed coldly. “I wonder, if you cut the head off the Apollyon, does it grow back? Guess we could find out, huh? You’d like that.”

Part of me died right then, maybe not a physical death, but on some mental, some emotional level I was good as dead. When all of this was over, I wouldn’t be the same.

Wood and metal splintered, and I knew the door had finally been breached. As the god brought the dagger