The Prophecy Read online

  JENNIFER L. ARMENTROUT

  The Titan Series

  (New Adult Paranormal)

  The Return

  The Power

  The Struggle

  The Prophecy

  Covenant Series

  (Full series completed—Young Adult Paranormal)

  Daimon

  Half-Blood

  Pure

  Deity

  Elixir

  Apollyon

  Sentinel

  Lux Series

  (Full series completed—Young Adult Paranormal)

  Shadows

  Obsidian

  Onyx

  Opal

  Origin

  Opposition

  Oblivion (Daemon’s POV of Obsidian)

  The Dark Elements

  (Full series completed—Young Adult Paranormal)

  Bitter Sweet Love

  White Hot Kiss

  Stone Cold Touch

  Every Last Breath

  Standalone Titles:

  The Problem with Forever

  (Young Adult contemporary)

  Don't Look Back

  (Young Adult romantic suspense)

  Cursed

  (Young Adult paranormal)

  Obsession

  (Adult spin-off the Lux Series)

  Unchained

  (Adult Paranormal Romance)

  The Dead List

  (Young Adult contemporary)

  The Gamble Brothers Series

  (Full series completed—Adult Contemporary Romance)

  Tempting the Best Man

  Tempting the Player

  Tempting the Bodyguard

  For details about current and upcoming titles from

  Jennifer L. Armentrout,

  please visit www.jenniferlarmentrout.com

  First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Jennifer L. Armentrout 2018

  The right of Jennifer L. Armentrout to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9781473673205

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.hodder.co.uk

  Contents

  Books by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  THE PROPHECY

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About Jennifer L. Armentrout

  For you, the reader

  Chapter 1

  Josie

  Wind gusted around me, tossing across my cheeks the short, thin strands of blonde hair that had fallen loose from my bun.

  The late-evening air was still cool for early June. At least from what I was used to, having grown up in south Missouri, where it could feel like the devil’s butt by this time of year. But I had a feeling it never really got all that hot here in the hills of South Dakota.

  Drawing in a deep breath, I focused on a large, gray boulder. Probably been sitting where it was since time began. Lifting my arm, I tapped into all the aether that now poured through my veins, since I no longer had my powers bound by a pair of not so ordinary bracelets.

  It felt good to have that power back, especially right now when I wanted to blow stuff up.

  I was super irritated at a certain golden-headed god at the moment.

  Instead of pushing that anger aside like I normally would have, I tapped into it and used it to feed akasha, the deadliest element known to man and immortal. Summoning the air element was something I had always struggled with in the past. Sometimes I’d want to move something and I’d set it on fire instead.

  That was why Luke usually stayed far away from me when I was practicing with the elements.

  I pictured the boulder lifting into the air and held that image. Power coursed through me. At first, nothing happened, and then the boulder began to tremble as if the ground was shaking. A heartbeat later, the great rock shifted, and then it was like a great hand reached down and pulled on it. The scent of rich soil filled the air as the boulder broke loose from the ground and rose.

  I moved the boulder to the left and then to the right. The massive rock slid back and forth like it weighed nothing more than a feather.

  I was doing it, but it wasn’t perfect. I needed to be able to use the elements immediately, with no hesitation. I lowered the boulder, wincing at the jarring impact it made as it settled crookedly into its hole.

  Turning at the waist, I scanned the ancient statues of unnamed gods rising out from tall, wispy weeds, half-expecting one of the many Sentinels or Guards to come rushing onto the low hill, but the field I was practicing on remained empty.

  I wiped at the sweat dotting my brow as I turned back to the boulder. Ignoring the weariness cloaking my body, I shook out my shoulders and arms. A huge part of me wanted to take a nap.

  I’d been sleeping a lot lately.

  Supposedly that was normal, even in the early stages of pregnancy. I knew this because I had done some Google sleuthing. Okay. I’d done a lot of reading. Part of me wished I hadn’t, because I’d learned about all kinds of things I was just better off not knowing about.

  I’d discovered I’d become a bit of a worrywart.

  Because holy crap, there was so much that could go wrong. So much! And that wasn’t even taking into consideration the nightmare-inducing birthing stories I’d spent an afternoon reading.

  I was traumatized from that.

  But there was so much that could happen. What if something happened to this baby? I didn’t think it was a crazy question. Normal pregnancies failed all the time, for one reason or another. Hell, some women never even learned why they lost their babies. Sometimes, it just happened and there was no reason.

  And like I’d said to Seth, we were not normal.

  He was a god, and I was a demigod. His life was crazy dangerous, and mine wasn’t any safer. In all reality, my life was a heck of a lot more dangerous than his. He was absolute. Meaning only another absolute being could kill him. That was still scary, but there were only two other beings alive that posed any real risk to Seth.

  Cronus.

  And Zeus.

  But for me?

 
My heart lurched in my chest. Pretty much any other being that was better trained at physical fighting and was more skilled at controlling the elements posed a risk to me and my child. Granted, as a demigod, I would be harder to kill.

  But I still could be killed.

  And what if I was seriously injured in a fight with the Titans? What would that mean for the baby? The fact the child had survived the time I was captured by Hyperion proved that this kid was a fighter. No doubt about it, but it was still vulnerable, because I…I was vulnerable.

  But I wasn’t weak.

  Which was why I was out here and not cowering in my bed.

  Once again, I summoned the element of air, but this time I didn’t raise my hand.

  A moment passed and then the boulder rose.

  Good. That was good.

  Exhaling through my nose, I gently lowered the boulder and then lifted it again.

  I kept doing it until my will became an immediate action, until there wasn’t a tremble before the rock lifted.

  I didn’t stop until I did it right, and after about a dozen times, the boulder did what I wanted, lifting without hesitation.

  A smile tugged at my lips as I stared at the boulder hovering a good three feet off the ground. That thing had to weigh a ton, but I had lifted it off the ground with my mind.

  How cool was that?

  Even after everything I’d been through and everything I’d seen, there were still times when I couldn’t believe any of this was real.

  That I was a demigod.

  That I was in love with a god.

  That I was preg—

  A twig snapped, startling me. The boulder fell back to earth, slamming into the ground with enough force to collapse the knee-high iron fence at the back of the field.

  “Wow,” came the deep, slightly melodic voice. “You dropped that like it was hot.”

  It was him.

  He was back.

  I spun around, and like always my breath hitched. No matter how mad I was at Seth, seeing him never failed to get my heart pounding. He was…he was simply beautiful, almost painfully so.

  He had a face that was so perfectly pieced together, there were days I didn’t think Seth was real. Like those broad cheekbones and full lips were molded from clay. And the curved jaw was chiseled into perfection from the finest marble, as was every square inch of his body.

  And I would know, since I was well versed in every square inch of his body.

  The first time I saw Seth in the stairwell at Radford University, back when my life was normal and gods were just ancient Greek myths, he’d reminded me of a fallen angel. A fallen angel with personal boundary issues, but I’d never seen anyone who looked like him before, but Seth was no angel, fallen or not. He was, literally, a god.

  The Appointed One.

  The God of Death and Life.

  So of course he’d look like a god.

  And I didn’t care how hot he was at the moment, I was pissed at him.

  He seemed oblivious to this, because he smiled at me—that one smile he had that usually caused my chest to feel like it was full of butterflies.

  “Have I told you how much it turns me on when you’re moving stuff with your mind?” He stepped around several smaller rocks that were piled up on one another. “Because if I haven’t, let me inform you now. It really turns me—”

  “Don’t.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  Brows a little darker than his golden hair furrowed. “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t come over here and try to flatter me,” I said. “I’m mad at you.”

  Seth stopped a foot away from me. Confusion settled onto his striking features. “Mad at me for what?”

  I stared at him for a moment and then realized he really had no idea that I knew what he’d been doing. “There’s something we haven’t talked about, Seth.”

  Lifting a hand, he tucked his hair back behind his ear. “Yeah, I’m getting a feeling there is.”

  “I know a lot has happened in the last couple of weeks. Months, even. My entire world has changed. So has yours! I found out that my dad is freaking Apollo and I’m supposed to help entomb some crazy Titans, which by the way, we still don’t know how to do. Anyway, everything with my mom and grandparents happened.” My voice cracked, and I swallowed the sudden knot in my throat. “And then everything with Atlas and Solos went down, and you became a god and freaked out.”

  The corners of Seth’s lips started to turn down.

  “Then I got kidnapped by Hyperion, but you found me, which was obviously great and all,” I went on in a rush as I kept giving him the highlights of the last several months. “Then we find out I’m pregnant, and then you kill Hyperion, so yeah, a lot of crazy things have been happening, but I haven’t forgotten.”

  “Forgotten what?” he asked, those amber-colored eyes of his luminous in the fading sunlight.

  Frustration pricked my skin as I took a step toward him. “Where have you been?”

  “I told you where I was going.” He tilted his head. “I went back to Andros to check in—”

  “With Basil,” I interrupted. “But that’s not all you did, is it?”

  Seth opened his mouth, but he didn’t say anything. His eyes widened with realization. A moment passed. “Josie—?”

  “I didn’t forget,” I reminded him, unfolding my arms as I drew in a short breath. “And I know checking in with Basil was not the only reason why you returned to Andros. I don’t know if you forgot that I saw you with her—”

  “It’s not like that.” Seth was suddenly right in front of me. Barely an inch separated us. “When you saw me with Karina, I was—”

  “You were recharging. I know.” I lifted my chin to meet his gaze since Seth was a good head taller than me. “I know you weren’t being romantic with her or anything else like that. That’s not what I’m talking about.”

  His eyes searched mine. “You know I have to do that. If I didn’t have to, I wouldn’t. I promise you that.”

  “I know,” I repeated, and I did. When Seth became a god, he finally learned why he’d always struggled with the allure of aether. Aether was what fed the gods’ abilities and what made them immortal. It was why the Olympians stayed in Olympus. The place was surrounded in aether. But for Seth? He existed in the mortal realm. The only way he could get aether was by…by feeding just like the Titans did.

  “And I wouldn’t have had to do it so soon, but after fighting Hyperion and dealing with the damn daimons crawling out of the ground, I needed to.”

  It had only been two days since Seth had taken out Hyperion, but in those two days, he’d been busy. Hyperion’s death hadn’t just caused one tear in the mortal realm, allowing daimons to escape Tartarus. Just yesterday, an earthquake had rocked Oklahoma. The mortal world had no idea it wasn’t a normal earthquake. We had no idea why there’d been another tear, but we figured it had to do with how powerful Hyperion was. His death was having a continuous ripple effect.

  But none of that was the point.

  “You didn’t tell me the truth,” I said. “You could’ve told me the real reason why you went back there.”

  Seth said nothing as he looked away. A muscle flexed along his jaw.

  “I get that you have to do it, and I’ll be honest, I do not like that it has to be one of the priestesses, but I get it. You have to do it.” I stepped back, and Seth’s head swung in my direction. “But I don’t get why you’d lie to me.”

  “I…I didn’t mean to lie to you.”

  My brows lifted.

  “Okay. I just hoped you wouldn’t think about what I was doing,” he corrected, and that wasn’t much better.

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Really.” He sighed, shoving a hand through his hair. “It’s not exactly something I’m proud of, Josie.”

  “Why would you be ashamed? You have to do it. You’re a god—”

  “But I know you don’t like it. I know it bothers you, because how could it not? That bastard fed
off you until it almost killed you—killed our child. And you really want to know the exact moment I’m doing the same thing?”

  “It’s not the same thing.” I moved to him, grasping his cheeks and forcing his gaze to mine. “What you’re doing is not the same thing Hyperion did, for a multitude of reasons. How can you think it’s the same thing?”

  Seth’s jaw hardened. “So, you’re a hundred percent okay with me doing that? Doesn’t bother you at all?”

  “Honestly? I wish it wasn’t Karina, who just has to be utterly gorgeous, that you have to get all up close and personal with, but other than that? No. It doesn’t bother me.” I dragged my thumb along the line of his jaw as the wind picked up, blowing a lock of his hair across his cheek. “I wish I could be the one who could give you what you need.”

  “No.” Seth slipped free, putting space between us. “I will never use you for that. I will not risk you or our child by using you.”

  “I’m not suggesting that,” I said, ignoring the way his gaze sharpened. “The only part of this that upsets me is that you’d try to hide it from me. That makes it feel like you’re doing something wrong. And it makes me feel like you don’t fully trust me.”

  “Trust you? I trust you with my life, Josie. You’re the only person I trust.”

  “But you don’t trust me enough to know that I wouldn’t judge you? That I wouldn’t understand what you have to do?” I reasoned. “You’re cutting me out of a huge part of your life that isn’t going to magically go away one day. I don’t want this to become some kind of dirty secret between us where we’re both pretending the other doesn’t know about it.”

  I drew in a shallow breath. “We’re going to have a child, Seth. I don’t want anything to be between us. Not now. Not ever. I want us to be on the same page. Always.”

  Seth lowered his hands to his sides. He was silent for a long moment, so long that I had no idea what he was thinking, but then he moved—moved too fast for me to track. In a heartbeat, he was with me, an arm around my waist and a hand at the base of my neck. I sucked in a sharp breath, and Seth caught it with a kiss.

  My entire body jolted with surprise. This was no slow kiss. Oh no, this was deep and fierce and it scorched me straight to my core, to my very soul. My hands flattened against his shoulders, but I didn’t push him away. I slid my arms around his neck, and the arm at my waist tightened, drawing me flush with his body. The kiss short-circuited every one of my senses by the time he dragged his mouth away from mine.