And Seth…he had been lost.

“Lucian got Seth on his side, meaning he got Seth on Ares’s side. No one knew this. There was a lot of other shit going on, but when it got closer to Alex’s birthday, to when she would awaken as the Apollyon, the shit hit the fan.”

“What…what happened?”

He stared into my eyes. “This is the part I hope you’re ready to hear.”

I waited a moment and then nodded.

“Seth was in deep with Lucian and Ares, and he did what they ordered. The first phase of Ares’s take-over-the-world plan was to take out the Council at Deity Island, and that was done.” A pinched, pained look clouded his face, like the memories were too raw. “They used Seth to do it.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. Oh God.

“He took out the Council. It was…it was bad, and it sparked a chain reaction among the other gods. Poseidon showed up. Yep. That Poseidon. He destroyed Deity Island trying to stop Seth and Lucian, but it didn’t work. A bunch of innocent people died.”

Closing my eyes, I swallowed my next breath. I remembered watching the news when that’d happened. Of course, they had reported it as a natural disaster. Horror poured into me, knowing that Seth had been a part of such…such destruction.

I wasn’t even sure I could kill a daimon and Seth had killed… He had killed so many people, either by his hand or as a result of his actions.

“And Seth, it turned out that he’d been trying to awaken Alex before all of that. He was tapping into her aether…and from what I gathered, he was getting addicted to it—to the power. That just made the whole thing worse. Then Alex awakened, and she connected with Seth because of what he was doing. It was pretty bad. The gods were pissed. Volcanoes were erupting. Earthquakes. Shit got real. Ares was on Earth, his influence sparking war and conflict, and we had to cage up psycho Alex to keep her from running off and joining psycho Seth.”

My mouth dropped open. Seth was a killer…and an addict. There were no words.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure Alex threatened to make a crown out of my ribs or something. She was such a bitch during that time.” He flashed a quick grin. “But as cheesy as this sounds, love conquers everything, even fate and destiny. She managed to escape and Aiden went after her. She could’ve killed him, but her love for him snapped her out of it. She unplugged from Seth and wasn’t so crazy anymore.”

“That’s…that’s good to know,” I murmured, staring at him.

“But, meanwhile in psycho-Seth land, he was doing whatever Ares told him to do. Fighting. Taking out those who were trying to flee Ares. He…he was a killing machine, addicted to power, completely manipulated. Totally psycho and—”

“Please stop saying that,” I cut in. “Please stop calling him psycho.”

Deacon blinked. “Okay. He was searching for Alex, thinking if he could reach her, he could get her back under his control, which would mean under Ares’s control. Whatever bullshit that god was feeding him, it…it warped him, Josie. Yeah, he could be a smug dick before, but what he was like under Ares’s thumb…” He trailed off, shaking his head, and I suddenly wanted to cry, because none of this was fair. “But something happened that changed everything, something reached into Seth and broke him free.”

I exhaled roughly. “What do you mean? He turned against Ares?”

“Yeah, in the end, when it really mattered, he gave Ares the middle finger.” Deacon cringed. “Sometimes the gods can be cruel. In ways I hope you never have to experience or see what they’re capable of.”

Understanding crept in. I guessed it. “Ares got hold of Alex, didn’t he?”

He nodded, his expression full of sorrow. “He got into here, the University, and Alex was with her uncle—Marcus—and Aiden when he revealed himself. She got them out of the room, because she knew Ares would kill them. She squared off with Ares, but… but he was the god of war, Josie. He beat her so badly that there wasn’t an inch of her skin without scars. It was so bad that Apollo had to take her to Olympus to be healed.”

“Oh my God.” Tears pricked at my eyes, pain for a girl I’d never met, a girl that Seth had cared deeply for.

“It was horrible.” Deacon’s voice cracked and I reached out, squeezing his arm. He smiled faintly. “My brother…Aiden heard the whole thing go down, but couldn’t get to her, couldn’t help her. That… Yeah, that killed a part of him. And the only good thing that came from it was…that Seth was connected to Alex when she was fighting Ares. He felt everything she felt.”

Another dose of horror rose in me. How could this get any worse?

“Seth didn’t know Ares was going to do something so awful, and that didn’t mesh well with him. It broke the hold. Somehow he convinced Ares that he could sway Alex into joining him, and he left for the Covenant, bringing Lucian with him.” He took a big breath and let it out slowly. “When he showed up at the gates, we thought it was about to go south, but he simply handed over Lucian to Alex and kind of… He kind of turned himself over. I think…I think he was just done, you know? He’d never meant for Alex to get hurt. I think, deep down, he’d never meant for anyone to get hurt.”

I felt something wet on my cheek and I reached up, hastily knocking it away. God, all of this was so terrible and so sad.

“Even then, Seth wasn’t the guy we knew in the beginning. He was quiet. Completely withdrawn. Kind of like he is now. That shit…it had to have messed with his head.”