Pure (48 page)

Seth and I didn’t talk until we’d boarded Lucian’s jet. I took a seat beside a window while Seth
encouraged
the pilot and the servants to take off without Lucian.

I rested my head against the cool pane, squeezing my eyes shut. My stomach felt hollow. At some point after the plane took off, I stopped thinking. I just sat there, existing in a world where I might not even have a future. So many things could go wrong at this point. What if the compulsion failed to work? If so, Guards would be waiting for us the moment the plane landed. And even if Aiden was successful, compulsions weren’t guaranteed to be permanent. They could wear off after time.

Then what? Both Aiden and I would lose everything.

Seth dropped into the seat beside me. I lifted my head and glanced at him. He held two glasses in his hands, filled with something that looked a lot like liquor. “What is it?”

“It’s not the brew.” His joke fell flat, but I smiled weakly and took it. “It’s just scotch. It should help.”

I downed the glass and handed it back. “Thank you.”

“You really stopped the furies?”

Nodding, I handed the glass back to him. “Cut their heads off. They said they’d be back, though.”

“Only a god can truly kill another god.” He paused. “Or a god killer, but if you cut off their heads I can imagine that would put them out of commission for a while.”

“Seth, they said… they said I was the threat.” I bit my lip, shuddering. “Oh, gods, I killed a pure.”

“Shh. Don’t ever say that again. You know how much Aiden is risking. Don’t let it all go to waste.” Seth leaned over, draping his arm around my shoulders. After a few seconds, he spoke. “He really… isn’t like the other pures, Alex.”

“I know,” I whispered. Aiden wasn’t like anyone I knew, and there was no way I could accept that his actions tonight were a sense of duty on steroids.

But there was nothing I could do about that right now.

I looked out the tiny window, out into the dark night. Below, diamond-shaped lights grew smaller and smaller, becoming insignificant and vanishing as we moved into ominous clouds. I drew in a deep breath, but it got stuck in my throat. I’d killed a pure-blood and the man I loved was down there, covering it up, risking everything for me.

What had I done?

Thinking back on those seconds when I’d seen the pure raise the dagger, I knew there’d been time to avoid the deadly plunge of the blade. I was fast. I could’ve moved out of the way. I could’ve run. I hadn’t needed to
kill
him.

Seth’s arm around my shoulder’s tightened as if he could read my mind. “You were defending yourself, Alex.”

“Was I?”

“Yes. They declared war on us. You had no other choice.”

“There are always choices.” I pulled my gaze from the window and looked at Seth.
There are always choices
. I just had this terrible habit of making the wrong ones and now I had to deal with it. So did Aiden. So did Seth.

Seth reached out slowly, as if he was afraid to startle me. His caught my chin with the tips of his fingers. He didn’t say anything. Not that he needed to—the connection between us was there, sparking alive.

I
needed
it right now—
needed
Seth.

Closing my eyes, I let him guide my head to his shoulder. And after I could take the first deep breath of air without choking on it—after I’d made my choice—I finally let the connection in completely. Seth’s presence—
his warmth
surrounded me. Waves of comfort washed over me, easing the knots in my stomach. Not filling in all the cracks, not replacing ones that lingered back in the Catskills, but filling enough that I felt a little better, a little saner.

This e-book contains a bonus scene from Seth's Point-of-View

I watched Dawn place her hand on Aiden’s arm and once again felt a wealth of gratitude that Alex had decided not to attend this ball. If she
were
here watching this, she might've ripped out every strand of the pure-blood’s coppery hair.

Images of Alex going all girl-fight filled my head, and I snickered.

Aiden raised his brows at me. “Doing okay over there?”

I rolled my eyes, not even bothering to answer. Just because I was standing next to him—only because he was the least undesirable option at the moment—didn’t mean I was going to be chatty with him. On a good day, the animosity levels between us were usually at CODE RED. Bad days they were at CODE I’M GOING TO KILL YOU.

We had more bad days than good days.

The pure’s gray eyes narrowed before he turned back to the one of the Councilman’s sons, who was currently describing how thrilling yachting on the open sea was. Boredom was going to kill me. My gaze slid over to where Lucian stood, surrounding by the Ministers. Even he was looking like he’d be a more stimulating company.

Aiden sighed under his breath, loud enough that I could hear him, and I almost laughed out loud. Apparently he and I shared more than one thing in common: our current boredom and one—

A shiver of awareness rolled over my skin, and I could feel the marks tingling, responding to the presence of her. Alex.

I turned slowly, zeroing in on where she was. Now what in the Hades was she doing down… my brain pretty much emptied of all rational thought.

Alex stood just inside the entrance of the ballroom, looking as frightened as a wood nymph having earned Apollo’s favor. Her anxiety hummed around her, but I wasn’t feeling it. Well, I was feeling
something
.

There always was this certain beauty to her—one that was rough at the edges, making her unique to those around her. But tonight, dressed in a red gown that should’ve been illegal on her body? I’d seen Alex in workout clothes, in those little distracting pajama bottoms, and in regular clothes, but
damn
. That wild tangle of hair was twisted up… and those eyes…

Tonight she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

I watched her move away from Laadan and Lucian, retreating to the side. She didn’t belong there. Hades, she didn’t belong
here
.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, her eyes met mine. She lifted her glass, silently saluting me. Every muscle in my body locked up, and then I realized I was staring at her like an imbecile.

“Holy crap,” I murmured.

I felt Aiden stiffen beside me, and I wondered if he somehow knew that she was here, if there was some kind of bond that coursed between those two that was far more powerful than what Alex and I shared. Impossible… but I wondered.

Then he looked over his shoulder, and dear gods, I never seen a man more surprised by a girl in a dress than Aiden. Okay. Lie. I had been just as surprised, and if he was thinking half of what I was thinking, I sort of wanted to hit him more than I usually did.

The look on both of their faces actually did make me want to hit—no, zap something. Right here, out in the open, they were doing the eye-screw thing.

And it was about to get worse. Aiden seriously
was
walking toward her. Clenching my jaw until I was sure my teeth would crack, I slipped away from the group, passing Lucian and Marcus. When I made it behind Laadan, she lifted her gaze.

“She’s not for you,” she murmured over the rim of her glass. The slight, knowing smile of hers didn’t fade. I didn’t even want to know how she knew. “A penny wise, Seth…”

“And a pound shut-the-hell-up.”

Laadan arched a brow, but said nothing else, which was fine by me. Out of all the pures I knew, she freaked even me out. I moved past her toward Alex and briefly considered grabbing a napkin off the table to help with the drool, but I doubted she’d appreciate the offer.

Sighing, I slid up behind her, placing my hand on her shoulder. She didn’t even flinch, but I did. Zeus could be feeling her up right now and she wouldn’t even notice. But Aiden noticed. He did nothing to hide the flash of rage contorting his usually cool expression.

My lip curled up on one side.

Aiden looked like he was going to hit me, and I sort of hoped he did. I would love nothing more than shove my foot so far up his… but Alex—it wouldn’t end well for Alex.

Leaning into her, I inhaled the scent of peaches and something mysterious and uniquely hers. “People are starting to stare.”

And I knew she could care less, and that made me want to throttle her, but Aiden—as always—displayed some common sense. He stopped, grinding his teeth just as strongly as me.

I slid my hand down her arm, threading my fingers through hers, and then I said the most ironic thing of all. “You know he’s not for you.”

“I know,” she whispered, and her desperation and pain blew back at me so strongly I struggled not to drown in it as Aiden turned around. Part of me wanted him to come back to her, just to end what she was feeling.

A very small part that I knocked the crap out of.

“Do you want to dance?” I asked.

She tipped her chin back, her eyes a honey brown. “I don’t want to dance.”

My gaze dripped. “Do you want to stay here?”

“I don’t know.”

Ah, indecision—a man’s best friend. I smiled and as I spoke, my lips brushed her ear. “We don’t belong here, Alex. Not with them.”

Her eyes flickered away from mine and she sucked in her lower lip. She was confused, which usually brought out the less than tolerable side of Alex, but then her eyes came back to mine.

“Let’s go,” I coaxed.

Her fingers trembled as she placed her wine glass down, and we went even though I knew her head wasn’t with me. Her thoughts and her heart never were, always wrapped up in the wrong place.

Only for now
, I reminded myself,
only for now.

I led around the building, not really given her much of a choice but to follow. She shivered in the cool air and remained silent the entire time, which had to be a record for her. My free hand curled into a fist. Her distress ate away at me like acid, and she had no clue how much she fed through our connection.

“Let’s do something stupid,” I said.

She glanced at me. “You want to do something stupid right now?”

“Can you think of a better time to do something stupid?”

Her lips twitched. “Okay. I’m down with stupid.”

“Good.” Great. Yay. Yippee. I pulled her through the labyrinth, fighting the anger building in me.

“You want to train?”

Shaking my head, I picked up pace. “No. I don’t want to train.”

The double doors weren’t locked, and I grinned when I spotted the swimming pool. Both of us needed stupid right now.

“You want to go swimming?” she asked, sounding doubtful.

“Sure.”

“It’s like forty degrees outside.”

I pushed open the door, greeted with a nose full of chloride. “So? It’s not forty degrees in here, is it? More like sixty.”

Alex pulled away from me and went to the edge of the pool. Of course I watched her as I kicked off my shoes. She glanced at me, and I winked.

“You’re ridiculous,” she said.

“So are you.” I dropped my jacket on the cement, watching her, always watching her. It wasn’t so much me, but what was inside me—inside her. It was just the way it was, I supposed.

“We are a lot alike, Alex.”

She looked like she wanted to argue that, but she got that look on her face that said she was thinking real hard. Brows knitted, nose scrunched a little, and lips parted. Cute.

“Was it so obvious back there?” she asked.

It took me a moment to realize what she was getting at and then I strung as many four letter words together that I could. They were creative. “I don’t know what goes on in your head, Alex. I can’t read your thoughts. I just picked up on your emotions.”

She frowned. “Good to know.”

“I second that.” I started unbuttoning my shirt. “Anyway, I don’t even need to be able to sense your emotions to know. I don’t think you want to know what it looked like.”

“No. I do.”

Famous last words, but who was I to deny her? I signed. “You were staring at him like an ugly chick stares at the last cute guy at the bar when they make the last call.”

She let out a strangled laugh. “Oh. Wow. Thanks.”

Dammit. I raised my hands. “I told you.”

“Yeah. So I looked like an idiot to everyone?”

An idiot? I wish. “No, everyone saw a beautiful half-blood. That’s all anyone saw.”

I glanced away, knowing it was time to change the subject. “Can I tell you something?”

She turned back to t he pool. “Sure.”

I moved toward her, partly because I
had
to and because I knew she hated it when I moved too fast. “I prefer you without gloves.”