This time I’d been training with Seth, hand-to-hand combat. He’d taken me to the ground, except it hadn’t been Seth I stared up at.

It had been the same unfamiliar face.

And he’d said the same thing he’d said in every dream. I’m going to find you. But this time, I was so lucky and got four extra words of warm and fuzzy. I’m coming for you.

I’d woken up in a cold sweat, with a scream stuck in my throat, and somehow I’d managed to not wake up Seth this time, but my entire day was off. I didn’t think it was just the dream throwing me off, though.

I was also rocking some hardcore daddy issues.

And some mommy issues too.

Part of me was thrilled that I’d gotten to see Apollo yesterday, even if he’d only been there for a few minutes. I was like a sponge when it came to him, soaking up every precious second, because except for that one summer, he’d been gone all my life. I was like a puppy. Any attention was good attention. It was still hard processing that I had a dad that was in the picture, albeit not often. And even more crazy to process that said dad was Apollo, the Sun God.

There was the other half of me that was pissed every time he left, because he was leaving yet again. We never really got to talk. There was no chatter over coffee or lunch. Nothing personal. I’d gotten a chance to ask him about Erin but not my mom. And you’d think Apollo would, oh, I don’t know, start the conversation off with news about my mother, because hello, she was my mother, but there was nothing.

Training had been flipped around today. Solos worked with me on the more physical stuff in the morning, which sucked, because I’d gotten used to not having my ass kicked first thing in the morning, and the day was ending outside with Seth.

And I wanted to throat punch him.

“Concentrate, Josie. That’s all you have to do.” He paced in front of me, obviously at his wits’ end with the whole thing. “That’s it.”

“If that was all that it was, don’t you think I’d have done that by now?” I fired back.

He shot me a look. “You’re not concentrating.”

“I am too!”

“That is one thing you definitely got from your father.” He stopped to my right, eyes flashing. “A bird flies by and you’re staring at it for the next minute, no matter what you’re doing. ADD must run in the family.”

My mouth dropped open. “That is not true.”

“Really?” Incredulity filled his expression. “Because a couple of minutes ago, when you were supposed to be concentrating on summoning the water element, you were staring at an eagle.”