Deacon shouted over the melee, his voice filled with joy, and out of the corner of my eyes, I saw him start toward them. Despite all the crazy going on around us, the beautiful man smiled in response, flashing even, white teeth.

Understanding seeped in as a brawling half and pure got close to the newcomers. Throwing a punch, the half knocked the pure back several feet. He bumped into the new girl and turned, flames flickering over his busted knuckles.

Her reaction was wicked fast.

The girl’s arm shot out and her hand landed on his shoulder. She spun him around as she dipped low, kicking out with her leg. She caught the pure just below the knees, taking his legs out from underneath him. As the now-dazed pure fell forward, she slammed her palm into his back. Static burst and crackled into the air, and the pure flew forward, landing in a moaning, twitching heap facedown several yards away.

Damn.

In complete control of every muscle in her body, the girl straightened fluidly. The whitish light faded from her right hand. Her lips curved into a half-smile that was vaguely familiar as she knocked a strand of long brown hair out of her face. “Hey, Seth.”

Seth was nearly immobile as he stared at the twosome. Glyphs bled to the surface of his golden skin, piecing together and changing so fast I had no idea what the runes were saying, but the taut set of his features said it all.

“Alex,” he breathed.

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Seth

My skin buzzed. Blood pounded. Pulse accelerated. Energy poured into me as if I’d taken a jolt of caffeine straight to the heart. The glyphs, the mark of the Apollyon, were doing a fucking happy dance on my skin in response to Alex.

In response to the Apollyon.

Shit.

Oh shit.

The connection was snapping to life, waking up like a sleeping cobra, and it was there, between us, preparing to strike. The entire world zeroed in on this girl. The thing inside me, that felt like a part of me but something else entirely, was roaring like a freight train.

Without warning, a piece of knowledge floated among my thoughts. I can use her. I can use them. The moment those thoughts hit me they almost faded from my grasp. Like a word you couldn’t place, but waited on the tip of the tongue. Ever since I Awakened, that had happened on and off. For the longest time I didn’t understand why, just thought I was spacing out, but I realized it was from when I Awakened and what had happened. It was the same thing that happened to Alex. Thousands of years of information downloaded, passed down from every Apollyon from before. There was tons of crap I knew, but didn’t always realize since the knowledge existed in the back of my subconscious.