Jennifer Armentrout - Half-Blood

Until one said, “Be safe and come back, Sentinel,” and stepped aside.

Sentinel. It was what I’d always wanted to be upon graduation, taking the more proactive route of dealing with daimons instead of guarding pures or their communities.

Once again, I stuck to the shadows as I made my away around the fishing and cruising boats. The townsfolk on Bald Head Island were used to the “intensely private”

people from Deity Island, but there was something about us they sensed. They didn’t know what it was that made them back off at the same time they wanted to be close to us.

Living among mortals for three years had been a truly craptastic experience for me. The teenagers had wanted to be close to me while their parents had said I was “one of those kids” they needed to stay away from. Whatever that meant.

I wondered what those parents would think if they knew exactly what I was—an almost-trained kil ing machine. I guess they’d been right to order their offspring to steer clear.

When I left the docks, I stuck to the sides of the buildings.

I wasn’t sure where to go, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t have to go far. And I was right. About ten minutes into what I lovingly referred to as the normal world, I heard quick footsteps behind me. I spun around to face my would-be attacker, gun drawn and leveled.

“Caleb?” I felt something halfway between disbelief and relief.

He stood a few feet behind me, blue eyes wide and arms raised. He wore pajamas, a white shirt, and flip-flops. “Put your gun down!” he hissed. “Gods. You’re gonna accidental y shoot me or something.”

I lowered the gun and grabbed his arm, dragging him into an al ey. “Caleb, what are you doing here? Are you crazy?”

“I could ask you the same question.” He glared at me. “I was fol owing you, obviously.”

I shook my head and shoved my gun back into the waist of my pants. I’d forgotten a holster—go figure. “You need to go back to the Covenant. Now. Dammit, Caleb! What were you thinking?”

“What are you thinking?” He glowered as he threw the question back at me. “I knew you were going to do something incredibly stupid. That’s why I couldn’t sleep at al . I sat by my damn window and waited. Low and behold, I see your crazy ass sneaking across the quad!”

“How in the hel did you even get past the Guards in your Mario Brothers pajamas?”

He glanced down at them, shrugging. “I have my ways.”

“Your ways?” I didn’t have time for this. Stepping away from him, I pointed in the direction of the bridge. “You need to get back there, where it’s safe.”

He folded his arms across his chest stubbornly. “Not without you.”

“Oh, for the love of the gods!” My temper snapped. “I don’t need this right now. You don’t understand.”

“Don’t start with the ‘I don’t understand’ crap. This isn’t about understanding anything! This is about you getting yourself kil ed! This is suicide, Alex. This isn’t brave. It isn’t smart. This isn’t about duty or some misguided guilt you—”

His eyes widened again as something landed a couple of feet behind me. I whirled around, and at the same time, Caleb grabbed the dagger from my pants as I pul ed the gun.

It was her.

She stood there, in the center of the al ey. It was her…

except it wasn’t. It had her long, dark hair that fel in soft waves, framing her pale, ghastly white face—those high cheekbones and familiar lips. But darkness existed where her eyes should have been. Inky veins covered her cheeks, and if she smiled, there’d be a row of nasty, sharp teeth in her mouth.

It was my mother… as a daimon.

The shock of seeing her—seeing her beautiful, loving face twisted into such a grotesque mask—caused my arm to waver, my finger to twitch over the trigger. It was her…

but it wasn’t.

I knew from where she stood, there was no way she could defend herself against a gunshot to the chest. I had the upper hand with my gun fil ed with titanium bul ets—a ful clip of them, actual y. I could light her up right here and al of this would be over.

She hadn’t moved, not an inch.

And now she looked like Mom. The elemental magic cloaked the daimon in her, and she stared at me with those bright, emerald-colored eyes. Her face was stil pale, but no longer riddled with thick veins. She looked like she had the night before she’d turned—smiling at me, holding my gaze with hers.

“Lexie,” she murmured, but I heard her loud and clear. It was her voice. Just hearing it did wonderful and awful things to me.

She was beautiful, stunning, and very much alive—

daimon or not.

“Alex! Do it! Do—!” Caleb cried out.

A quick glance behind me confirmed Mom wasn’t alone.

Another dark-haired daimon now had a hand around Caleb’s throat. He didn’t move to kil him or to tag him. He simply held him.

“Lexie, look at me.”

Unable to deny the sound of her voice, I turned back to her. She stood closer—close enough a bul et would leave one hel of a hole in her chest. And close enough I caught the scent of vanil a—her favorite perfume.

My gaze flickered over her face, each line of it familiar and beautiful to me. As I stared into her eyes, I remembered the strangest things. Memories of our summers together, the day she’d taken me to the zoo and told me my father’s name, the look on her face when she’d told me we needed to leave the Covenant, and the way she’d looked sprawled across the floor in her tiny bedroom.

I faltered. I couldn’t catch my breath as I stared into those eyes. This was my mother— my mother! She had raised me, treated me like I was most precious thing in the world.

And I had been her everything—her reason for living. I couldn’t move.

Do it! She’s not your mother anymore! My arm trembled.

Do it! Do it!

A scream of frustration tore through me and my arm dropped to my side. Seconds, only seconds had passed and yet, it felt like an eternity. I couldn’t do it.

Her lips curved into a smug smile. Caleb gave a yelp from behind me, and then pain exploded alongside my temple. I slipped into the sweet darkness of oblivion.

***

I woke up to a splitting headache and a dry, bitter taste in the back of my mouth. It took me a few minutes to remember what’d happened. A mixture of horror and disappointment jerked me upright, on alert despite the throbbing ache radiating down the side of my face. I touched my head gingerly, feeling a knot the size of an egg.

Woozy, I looked around the lavishly furnished room. The cedar log wal s, the large bed covered in satin sheets, the plasma television, the handcrafted furniture, al of it appeared familiar to me. It was one of the bedrooms in the cabin we used to visit, the one I’d slept in a half a dozen times. A pot of purple hibiscus flowers sat beside the bed

—Mom’s favorite. She had a thing for purple flowers.

Shock and dismay set in. I remembered this room. Oh, gods. This wasn’t good. Nope.

I was in freaking Gatlinburg, Tennessee—more than five hours away from the Covenant. Five hours. Worse yet, I didn’t see Caleb. Creeping over to the door, I paused and listened. Not a sound. I glanced at the glass doors leading out to the deck, but there was no way I could leave. I had to find Caleb… if he was stil alive.

I clamped down on that thought. He had to be alive.

There could be no other way.

Of course, my gun was gone and Caleb had taken my dagger. There was nothing in this room I could use as a weapon. If I started breaking stuff apart, it would draw attention, and it wasn’t like any of this stuff could be converted into a weapon. Anything that might’ve been made of titanium had been stripped away.