An ache throbbed in my chest in response to his clipped, professional tone. I had no idea where the tender Aiden had gone, the one who’d sworn to always be there for me, the one who’d gently brought me back from the brink when I’d freaked out in training. Gods, there were so many more moments, but all of them were gone.
Aiden was gone. Like Caleb, but in a different way. I’d lost both of them. A lot of the anger leaked out of me then. I faced the window, sighing. “I didn’t expect them to. I’ll behave. You don’t have to worry about me.” I started to open the door again.
“Alex?”
Slowly, I turned to him. Aiden wasn’t so guarded in that instant, and a deep, unsettling pain reflected in his gaze. There was more—almost like an uncertainty. But he pulled it together, like slipping on a well-worn mask of indifference, shuttering any and all emotions.
“Just be careful.” His voice was strangely hollow.
I wanted to say something, anything, but a flurry of activity outside of the car made that impossible. Servants—droves of half-blood servants—descended on the Hummer, opening doors and retrieving luggage. My mouth dropped open as one, a fair-haired boy about my age, meekly opened my car door. A black circle with a slash through it had been tattooed onto his forehead. I glanced at Aiden and saw his gaze still fastened on me. He gave me a strained smile before climbing out. I couldn’t help but wonder if the doubt I’d seen in his face had anything to do with me.
I was given a room on the fifth floor, one that connected to Marcus’s room. Or at least, that was what the half-blood doorman inside the mansion said before stepping back into the shadows. I really had no clue, so I just followed the blond boy. I didn’t see where Aiden and Leon were carted off to, but I bet they got rooms on the bottom floors—big, awesome rooms.
We crossed the grandiose lobby and entered a glass-enclosed breezeway. To our left was the entrance to what appeared to be the ballroom, but the twinkling lights didn’t hold my attention. Right in the middle of the breezeway was the very same statue that stood in the Covenant lobby in North Carolina.
Furies.
Sucking in a sharp gasp, I hurried around the statues to catch up with the half servant. Their heavy presence remained after I left the breezeway, nagging at the back of my thoughts. We went up several flights of steps, and I couldn’t deal with the silence any longer.
“So… um, how do you like it here?” I asked as we stepped into a narrow hallway adorned with oil paintings.
The boy kept his eyes fastened on the oriental carpet.
Okay… was there some sort of “no talking” rule? I glanced at the paintings, mentally listing the gods as we passed them: Zeus, Hera, Artemis, Hades, Apollo, Demeter, Thanatos, Ares—wait. Thanatos? I stopped to get a closer look at his painting.
He had wings and a sword. Thanatos looked like a pretty rocking angel, actually. But he shared the same woeful look the cemetery Thanatos had had on his face as he gazed upward. His left hand held a flaming torch turned downward. Why would Thanatos, who wasn’t one of the major Olympian gods, have his picture here among them?
An opening door drew my attention from the painting. I glanced over my shoulder. The half servant held the door open, eyes downcast.
I pursed my lips, scanning the four dull-white walls within. A closet would have been too nice of a description for this… this thing considered a room. I walked in as the servant placed my luggage inside the door.
There was a bed—a twin size bed covered with an itchy-looking brown blanket and one flat pillow. A tiny bedside table offered a rusty lamp that’d seen better days. It took me two seconds to cross the room and peek inside the bathroom.
It was the size of a coffin.
My eyes fell over the scuffed-up tile, dirty mirror, and rust stains surrounding the drain in the shower stall. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered.
“They expect you to sleep in this room—on that bed?”
Jumping at the unexpected sound of Seth’s voice, my hip slammed into the washbasin. “Ouch!” I rubbed my hip as I turned around.
Seth stood at the foot of the bed, his ever-present smug expression tainted with
disdain. It’d only been a day since I’d seen him, but strangely, it felt longer than that. His hair was down, curving around his chin. And he wore jeans and a plain black sweater—a rarity.
I was kind of glad to see him.
“Yeah, this room sucks.” I left the bathroom.
Seth strolled to a door on the other side of the bed. He reached down, throwing the lock.
“I guess that’s not the closet?”
“Nope, that’s the door to Marcus’s room.”
He arched a brow. “They gave you a servant’s room?”
“Nice.” I looked around, discovering there wasn’t even a closet in the room—or a dresser. I’d be living out of a suitcase for my whole stay. Yippee. “Why’d you lock it?”
Seth threw me a mischievous grin. “I can’t have Marcus just walking in on us. What if I want to snuggle on these cold New York nights?”
My frown increased. “We don’t snuggle.”
He dropped his arm over my shoulder, and the scent of mint and something wild tickled my nose. “How about we cuddle?”
“We don’t do that either.”
“But you’re my cuddle bunny. My little Apollyon cuddle—”
I punched him in the side.
Laughing, Seth steered me toward the door. “Come on, I want to show you something.”