Deacon offered me a pair of chopsticks. “You shouldn’t be using a fork.”

I shot him a bland look. “Do I look like I know how to use chopsticks?”

He grinned. “Poser.”

“Punk,” I retorted.

His eyes rolled. “It’s not that hard. Here, let me show you.”

Deacon’s impromptu chopsticks lesson and my absolute failure at mastering them eased the sudden awkward tension around the table. Laughing, I gave up when Aiden finally ordered his brother to let me eat in peace.

Digging in, I listened to the conversation around me. There was talk of nothing important and I figured they were waiting for me to finish eating before the real, necessary conversations took place.

I finished off everything I’d been given, ate the remaining rice that Aiden had dumped on my plate as he prowled around the table, and then finished off the sugary goodness of the donuts.

Stomach full, I leaned back in my chair and sighed. “That hit the spot and then some.”

Olivia patted my stomach. “You need it… and probably a couple of Big Macs, too.”

My eyes widened. “Mmm, Big Macs… please tell me there’s a McDonald’s around here? Actually, where am I?”

Everyone grew silent, and no one looked at me.

“What? What?” I sat up, looking around the table. And then it hit me. “You guys don’t trust me, do you?”

Lea was the first to meet my eyes. “Okay. I’ll rain on this happy parade. How do we know you’re still not connected to Seth?”

“She’s not.” Aiden said, picking up the empty cartons and tossing them in a black trash bag he carried. “Trust me, she’s not connected to him anymore.”

Deacon snorted.

I glared at him.

Lea settled back in her chair, folding her arms. “Is there any other concrete proof, other than you telling us to trust you?”

Aiden glanced at me and I quickly looked away. I doubted Lea wanted to hear about that kind of proof. “I’m not connected to Seth. I promise you.”

“Promises are weak; you could be faking it,” she shot back.

“Lea, dear, she has no reason to fake it.” Laadan smiled gently. “If she was connected to the First, she wouldn’t be sitting here.”

“And my brother wouldn’t be cleaning up after us, right?” Deacon slumped back, as if it had just occurred to him that Aiden had been seconds away from death. I wanted to hide under the table as Deacon shook his head, dumbfounded. “Gods, we’d have to get a maid then or something.”

Aiden smacked the back of Deacon’s head as he passed by. “I feel the love.”

His brother tipped his head back, grinning.

Taking a breath, I stood and clenched the back of my chair. “I’m not connected to him and I’m pretty sure he can’t get through the shields. But I know he’s there. I can feel him.”

Aiden stopped and turned to me.

Whoops, better clarify that. “I mean, I can feel him, but he can’t reach me, not really. There’s just a low-level buzz. Nothing like before. He can’t get to me. I’m pretty sure.”

“Pretty sure?” Marcus asked, throat working.

I nodded and took another breath. “Look, I can’t say that something freaky won’t happen. I don’t know what he’s really capable of, but he’s going to have to try really hard to get past these shields.”

“You’ll be okay,” Aiden said. Tying off the garbage bag, muscles popped in his arms. “He won’t break through.”

Forcing a smile, I knew Aiden believed that. “And you’ll know the second he does. I don’t think I have the patience to try to fool anyone.”

Luke barked out a short laugh. “Don’t I know that.”

“Let’s take the conversation to a more comfortable place, then.” Marcus stood, grasping his glass of what I assumed was wine. I eyed the crystal longingly. “I’m sure all of us have a lot of questions.”

The group followed Marcus, but I stayed behind. Picking up the empty cans, I brought them over to the trashcan Aiden was placing a fresh bag in.

“Cleaning up?” he asked, fitting the bag to the can. “This is unexpected.”

“I’m a new girl.” I dumped the cans. “Are you okay?”

Aiden hooked a finger into the belt of my jeans and led me over to the sink. Then he rolled up my sleeves, turned on the tap and picked up the hand soap.

I rolled my eyes, but shoved my hands under the warm water. “Aiden?”

“What? You’re going to have sticky hands and be touching everything.” He squirted the apple-scented soap on my hands. “You’ll leave little fingerprints all over the place.”

I watched my hands disappear under his larger ones and sort of forgot about what I was asking. Who knew washing hands could be so… distracting? “Are you concerned about CSI visiting the place?”

“You never know.”

I let him finish, because who was I to stop his OCD at the moment, then I dried my hands. “That’s not what I meant. Are you okay?”

“Are you?”

I balled my freshly clean hands into fists. “Yes, I’m okay. Answer my question.”

He tilted to his head to the side. “What did you mean earlier about being able to feel Seth?”

So was this what had him suddenly uptight? “You know what it’s like when you’re in a house with a TV on mute? There’s that weird frequency you can feel?” When he nodded, I smiled. “It’s like that. He’s just there, but he can’t reach me.”

There was a pause. “Have you had any headaches?”

Confused, I shook my head. “No. Why do you ask?”

“Nothing,” he said, and he smiled. “And I’m okay, Alex. I’m the last person you should worry about.”

“But I do worry.” There was so much to worry about. Turning back to the fridge, I stretched up to grab a bottle of water. As I pulled one down, it revealed another bottle, but it was different.

The contents had been emptied out and replaced with vibrant blue liquid.

Aiden’s sharp inhale was like a blast of cold air. “Alex—”

Ignoring him, I dropped my bottle and reached for the other one. Hands shaking, I wrapped my fingers around the plastic. I knew what was in the bottle. I knew what harmlessly sloshed around inside would carry a sickeningly sweet aroma and could rob me of who I was in minutes.

Aiden swore under his breath.

Facing him, I held the bottle. “This is the Elixir, isn’t it?”

His hand clenched at his side. “It is.”

I glanced down at the water bottle. Two fears in life: losing myself to Seth and losing myself to the Elixir. Both had happened, and somehow I’d come back out of those rabbit holes. But holding it in my hands, I couldn’t deny the raw taste of fear building in the back of my throat.

It was like holding a bomb—a bomb designed to decay my mind.

Aiden looked like he wanted to rip it from my hands, and I gave a weak smile. “Should we keep it?”

“What?” Tension rolled off him, and something else. Disgust? Bits and pieces of memories of when I’d been under the Elixir weren’t pretty.

“What if we need it again?” I asked, fighting that cold lump in my throat. “Isn’t that why you… you all were keeping it?”

“No. I’d placed it there and forgot about it.” Then he did take it out of my hands. Moving stiffly, he brought it back to the sink and unscrewed the lid.

“Aiden?”

Without saying a word, he dumped what was left of the Elixir. Sweetness filled the air, rinsed away when he turned on the tap. I hoped he wasn’t making a mistake.

I placed my hand on his arm.

Muscles tensed as he stepped into me, placing the tips of his fingers on my chin, but before he could do anything, someone cleared their throat behind us. I turned, spying Solos in the doorway.

“Just making sure you two are okay,” he said, a single eyebrow arched.

A rush of shame and guilt smacked into my stomach. “I’m not going to kill him and stash his body in the fridge.”

“That’s good to know,” Aiden muttered.

“One can never be too safe.” Solos pivoted. “Chop, chop, kids; people are getting antsy.”

I sighed. “Gods, I kind of miss Apollo. At least he didn’t think I wanted to kill you.”

“Yeah, well, about that…”

I faced Aiden slowly, remembering that Aiden had somehow banned Apollo. “What did you do? You banned him, right? How? Why?”

His brows arched. “I’m not sure you really want to know what provoked that.”

Crossing my arms, I waited.

Aiden cocked his head to the side, jaw clenching. “Apollo wasn’t completely honest about a lot of things, namely how an Apollyon can be killed.”

I had a real bad feeling about this.

“Apollo can kill you, Alex. He was planning to if I took you off the Elixir and you connected with Seth again. And whoever is responsible for Seth can do him in, but it seems like that god may be working with them.” He paused, grimacing. “So, I banned Apollo from the house.”

My stomach lurched. Yeah, maybe I should’ve waited on that explanation until after my food had settled.

CHAPTER 10

After I forced Aiden to drop that little bomb, we went into the large sitting room. I was numb. Apollo could kill me? Apollo had wanted to kill me? Then why had he shown up and put a smackdown on Thanatos? Gods, why was I trying to be logical about this? Apollo was a god. Who knew?

I sat beside Deacon and decided to push the Apollo issue aside for right now. “Okay, can I start small? What is today’s date?”

Marcus leaned against a desk. I realized then he was in jeans and I couldn’t think of a time when I’d ever seen him so casual. “Today is April 5th.”

Blinking a couple of times, I sat back. A month… I’d basically lost an entire month. Gods, what was going on in the world outside this cabin? I cleared my throat. “And where am I? If it makes you feel better, you can just tell me the state.”

“Apple River,” Aiden said, keeping watch by the large picture window.

I folded my arms, which kind of hurt. “Okay, I know you have to be making that name up.”

A slight smile formed on Aiden’s lips. “It’s real. You’re in Illinois.”

“Illinois?” My brain was stuck on the name Apple River being real.

“And it’s about as empty and boring as it sounds,” Deacon said, tipping his head at Luke. “And really backwoods. I went out once. Scary. Lumberjacks, enough said.”

Solos scuffed. “This is my father’s hunting cabin—one of many—and it’s not that scary.”

I nodded slowly. “Okay. So the gods? How many of them are ticked off right now?”

“All of them.” Marcus laughed, swishing the contents of his glass. The smile quickly left his face. “All of them, Alexandria.”

“We haven’t seen many of the gods, but Hephaestus reinforced the bars,” Lea said, studying her nails. “He was kind of scary.”