“Okay,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure I meant it. As much as I wanted to believe that Apollo would hold to his promise, I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure that there would be an afterward for me.
Marcus pulled back, and I swore his eyes were shiny. He muttered something about helping Luke and stalked off. After saying my goodbyes to Laadan and Diana, I waited off to the side while Aiden spoke to my uncle. No doubt he was getting some over-protective warning, because when Aiden joined me, he was a shade or two paler.
My brows rose. “You okay?”
His gray eyes shifted to mine. “Marcus can be really scary when he wants to be.”
I grinned. “Yeah, he can.”
He took my bag from me, placing it in the back as Deacon shimmied across the seat and situated himself between Luke and Olivia.
“You haven’t seen Apollo, have you?” I asked, chewing on my lower lip.
Shutting the door, Aiden shook his head. I’d told him about Apollo’s promise to bring in the rest of the gods and I’d also told him that, obviously, I hadn’t transferred the power from Seth, but I’d left out the blowing up the statue part. “I wouldn’t hold my breath, Alex. While I think Apollo wants to help and get involved, I don’t think the others will.”
“That’s such crap.” Familiar anger simmered in my stomach. “It’s taking the absentee landlord theory to a whole new level.”
“I know.” He dug the keys out of his tactical pants. “But throughout history, they’ve all really only gotten involved once before, and that was with the Titans. Any other time, most of them don’t get involved.”
“This is different,” I grumbled, beating the horse dead and then bringing it back to life to beat again. “This is one of their own—their problem.”
“Maybe Apollo will surprise us.” He bent down, brushing his lips over my forehead. “Either way, we have this.”
Car keys dangling from his fingertips, Seth passed by us. “If you two can stop making doe-eyes at each for a few minutes, we’re all ready to go.” Behind him, Perses inspected the vehicle with a distrustful scowl. One of the other SUVs in our little section of the convoy revved an engine, and the Titan transferred his scowl to the other vehicle.
Aiden straightened, his gaze narrowing on Seth’s back. “Jealous is an ugly thing.”
“So is blind ignorance,” Seth shot back, rounding the front of a Hummer.
Tension rolled off Aiden as he turned to me. “I really do dislike him most of the time.”
“Yeah, well…” What could I say? The two of them would never be friends. “Ready?”
“We are!” Deacon shouted from inside the Expedition. “I’ve already got the first road game picked out, so freaking hurry!”
Shaking his head, Aiden smiled. “This is going to be the longest twenty-six hours of our lives.”
Turned out, the next twenty-three hours of our lives weren’t the longest, even when they turned into closer to twenty-six hours after our caravan hit a traffic snarl outside of Chicago. I switched places with Aiden and then Luke, giving all of us time to rest up.
As expected, while awake, Deacon kept us somewhere between entertained and five seconds away from pulling the SUV over and ducttaping his mouth shut.
When we entered New York, we followed Seth’s vehicle, keeping to the back of the massive group of Sentinels and Guards. Solos checked in periodically with Aiden from where he rode in one of the lead vehicles. They hadn’t run into any problems, but there was no way Ares didn’t know we were coming. Any number of people we passed on the way here could’ve been spies, mortal or not, even though we were traveling in small clusters of SUVs and cars so as not to stand out. Not to mention that Ares was a god, so it wouldn’t be hard for him to figure out what we were up to.
But the fact that we reached the Catskills without incident had me squirming in my seat, restless and unnerved. When we’d traveled to South Dakota in the first place, we’d been intercepted by Ares’ Sentinels, and that had basically been out in the middle of nowhere. How could it be this easy?
Upon entering the mountainous back roads, my unease tripled to paranoid levels when the vehicle in front of us rolled to a stop. I exchanged a nervous look with Aiden. Ahead, Perses’ arm appeared out the window, waving us forward.
“Why don’t they use a cell?” Luke asked, peering over my seat.
“Does Perses even know to use a cell phone?” Olivia asked.
I snorted while the knot of anxiety worked at giving me an ulcer in record time. “He seems like a quick learner.”
Aiden slipped the Expedition into park and glanced back at his brother. “Stay in the car.”
Deacon rolled his eyes. “Yes, Dad, because I couldn’t possibly be of any help.”
That statement was ignored as Aiden and I stepped out of the SUV and made our way over to Perses’ side. Three Sentinels from the other vehicles joined us—I recognized them as halfs I’d seen in South Dakota, but I didn’t know any of their names.
“What’s going on?” Aiden asked.
Perses stepped out of the vehicle, his all-black eyes fixed on the thick tree line ahead. “Something’s not right.”
“Other than the fact we’re stopped?” I asked, folding my arms. The air was chilly in the mountains, especially where the sun didn’t break through the trees, and my black shirt didn’t offer a lot of warmth.
His lips curled up at the corner in a sardonic twist. “I sense something abnormal among us.”
I peered in through the car at Seth. He just shrugged. “Details?”
“There’s violence in the air; the smell of battle that has yet to begin,” Perses said, stretching his arms above his head. Bones cracked. The twist of his lips spread into a real smile. “Bloodshed is pending.”
My brows rose as I glanced at Aiden. “Well, that’s not freaky or anything.”
“Yeah,” he said, his gaze darting over the tree line and the empty, narrow south lane.
Seth shut the Hummer down and climbed out. “I don’t feel anything, but then again, I’m not a Titan.”
Perses chuckled deeply as he walked toward the front of the vehicle. “I am never wrong about these things.”
Doors opened and closed behind us. “What’s going on?” Luke called, joined by Olivia. Both had daggers in their hands. Sentinels from the other cars were close behind them. “Are we just taking a potty break or something?”
Aiden turned toward them, his mouth opening to respond just as the ground beneath our feet trembled. He looked down, brows furrowing. “What the…?”
The vibration continued, growing in intensity, shaking the vehicles and rattling the trees that crowded the road. Asphalt cracked like an ear-piercing gunshot. A fissure spread along the side of the road, spreading toward the guardrail. I whipped around, following the progress of the crevice as it widened along the land, splitting open. Loose soil pebbled and rolled as giant elms shook until thick roots poked up from the ground.
“Deacon!” Aiden shouted, spinning. His brother was already out of the car, his eyes wide. “Stay near Luke!”
“Earthquake?” Olivia asked, one hand braced on the hood of the Expedition.
I shook my head. “I have a really bad feeling about this.”
“Ditto,” Seth said, joining us.
The trembling eased off and the earth seemed to settle, along with my stomach. The reprieve lasted seconds. From the wide crack in the ground, rich, dark soil spewed into the air like from a volcano. The earthy scent was overpowering as the dirt arced up and shot back down, landing in twenty or so different piles.
“Yeah,” Luke drawled the word out. “That crap ain’t normal.”
The piles of dirt swirled along the ground in circles, then rose up, rapidly taking form. Legs appeared, thick and well-muscled, followed by torsos, broad chests and shoulders, and finally heads.
I blinked once and then twice. “What in the hell?”
The things resembled human males—human males who could’ve easily been pro wrestlers in another life.
