It took only three hours of non-stop running for Percy to carry us to Boston. We had exited the woods within minutes of fleeing from the strange monster that had attacked us, and I was thankful for both the dark of night and the Mist as we nearly flew alongside highways towards our destination. The streets of Boston were far from empty as we entered the city, but Percy managed to avoid most of it, skirting towards the harbor on the edge of town.

"What are you doing?" I asked. "The school is downtown."

"It's the middle of the night," Percy grunted. "She won't be there, and we need somewhere safe to recover."

"Where are you taking us?" Thalia asked.

"I have some friends who will house us for the night," he replied, lowering himself to the ground. "I need you two to get off so I can call her, though."

Thalia and I agreed and jumped off him after which he started to shrink, straightening up onto his hind legs as he did. The fur disappeared, and I fought the urge to gasp as the still-bleeding wounds he had received revealed themselves. Thalia was not as composed and rushed forward, only to stop as Percy held up a hand, telling her to wait as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a flashlight. Flicking the light on, he pointed it out towards the water of the Boston Harbor, and I watched as a fine mist floated before him, refracting the light. Reaching once more into his pocket, Percy took out a shining drachma and tossed it into the small rainbow.

"Iris, could you please connect me to Hylla of the Amazons?"

"Sure thing, Percy," a soft voice whispered,

"The Amazons?" I parroted, anger reigniting in my veins. "Why would we go to them?"

Percy didn't answer as the image of a young woman, nearly identical to the one who greeted me and Percy upon our arrival to his island refuge, with long, black hair and dark eyes.

"Percy?" She asked. "I wasn't expecting word from you for a couple weeks still."

"Hey, Hylla," he greeted. "I'm in Boston for something else, actually. Think you can spare a couple of rooms for the night?"

"Sure, is everything alright?" Hylla asked, her eyes drifting to where Thalia and I were standing behind him.

"Rough encounter with a monster," Percy explained. "We're near the harbor."

Hylla nodded and ended the call while Percy sighed, slumping against the wall of a nearby warehouse.

"What are you doing?" Thalia asked as he shrugged off his coat. Luckily, his pants seemed to have returned from his transformation this time, unlike when I first met him. His chest was still bare, his normally sun-kissed skin pale, and the hair on his chest and arms matted with thick, dark blood. The wound was deep, the creature's saw having rent through Percy's flesh on his back and side, and I was honestly surprised he was still conscious after having run for hours. I had seen countless wounds over the years, and the ones Percy had sustained should have been gushing blood with every beat of his heart, instead it oozed, as if it was already clotting and rolled slowly over the muscles of his torso as he took out a thermos and tossed it to Thalia.

I caught the familiar scent of nectar the moment she unscrewed the thermos, and waited while my lieutenant took a swig from it before doing the same, being considerably less cautious with how much I drank - the perks of being the one for whom the concoction was intended. Percy, however, didn't drink any of the dregs I left for him, instead reaching once more into his pocket and pulling out a battered pen. Closing his eyes, he clicked open the pen with one hand, and my eyes widened once more as the sword that had once been my best friend's extended in his hand. Anaklusmos glinted in the dim light of the nearby street lights - or what was left of it did. The hilt was battered, dents and rust reducing the guard to little more than a lump of metal that separated Percy's hand from broken blade. Its two-and-a-half-foot length had been broken, the remaining base measuring slightly longer than one of my hunting knives, with jagged and chipped edges on both sides.

Thalia and I watched as Percy held up the remains of the blade that had become as well known as he was, and run his other hand over it, bright white flames igniting between his fingers and making the celestial bronze glow. Before I could stop him, he flipped the sword in his hand and pressed it against his side, grunting as his flesh and blood hissed and bubbled while the smell of burnt flesh filled the air.

"What are you doing?!" Thalia screamed as Percy pulled the white-hot blade away from his freshly cauterized wound and pressed it against his chest, where the monster's antler had pierced his chest.

"Need to stop the bleeding," Percy snarled, his free hand digging into the wall behind him so hard that he was leaving claw marks. The procedure done, he tossed Anaklusmos to the ground and nearly collapsed, reaching for the thermos of nectar. Guilt suddenly twisted my stomach as I watched him desperately lap at the remaining dregs I had left after taking my fill.

"Di Immortales, Percy, we could have shared!" Thalia yelled, pacing around in agitation.

"It's fine," Percy grunted. "I can't drink as much nectar as I used to, anyway."

"And why is that?" I asked suspiciously. "More importantly, how do you, a son of the Sea God, have the ability to summon fire like that?"

"Perk of being friends with the guy that gave it to us in the first place," Percy explained. My eyes narrowed, if Prometheus had done that for him, had the beings I had seen living on his island done something similar? Was that what Percy was planning? Befriend immortals and gain their blessings until he was powerful enough to challenge my father? "As for your first question, let's just say my tolerance has gotten lower over the last five years."

Before I could question him further, a car tore through the streets and came to a screeching halt in front of the three of us. The door opened and the girl Percy had messaged came out, scowling as she looked over his bloody and burned form.

"Really?" She asked, sighing as Perseus grinned crookedly at her. "You really know how to make my life difficult, don't you, Percy?"

"Yup," Perseus grunted as she helped him to his feet. "How're things going?"

"Oh, you know, same old, same old," the girl replied, ignoring Thalia and me. "The Queen is still torn between her usual bitchiness and trying to butter me up so I can help her shackle you to her bed."

"Not gonna happen." Perseus smiled and nodded his head towards where we were standing. "These are my friends."

"Not again, you mean." The girl looked us over, nodding respectfully towards me before turning back to him. "Reina said she had seen Diana with you, but I didn't really believe her."

My frustration grew as I watched the girl help Perseus into the car, seemingly ignoring me and Thalia, until it reached a boiling point. "That is enough!" Everyone froze and turned to look at me as my power danced and roiled just below the surface. "I have had enough of being dragged along like some sort of pet! You are going to answer my questions, Male. Now."

"And if I don't?" My power rose higher, and I started to direct it towards the Amazonian waif who stood by his side. She whimpered in pain, while Perseus' lips curled into a snarl, pushing himself off her and walking back towards me.

"Leave. Her. Alone."

"You dare command me, Male? I am an Olympian Goddess! I command respect with my presence alone!"

"You are a spoiled child who demands attention," Perseus growled, taking another step towards me. The ground shook slightly beneath my feet, and I could feel the winds begin to howl as he grew taller and the hair on his body grew thicker.

"And you are a beast," I countered. "Not even worthy enough to grovel at my feet."

Perseus continued to walk forward, and I didn't realise that I had been backing away from him until my back met the wall of the nearby warehouse while his chest pressed against my own. The sky pressed down on me as he glared into my eyes, and I felt like I would shatter under his gaze. The firmness of his chest, and the warmth of his breath on my face conjured visions to the forefront of my mind. I imagined him lifting me against the wall, plowing through my defences as he claimed me without remorse. I saw his hand around my throat, the other cupping my chest as he rammed into me. The vision played over and over, filling me with liquid fire, as I watched him extract pleasure with a single-minded vigor. I was horrified by the images, not by the violation, though, but from the fact that each vision was accompanied with pleasure like I had never felt before. In the middle of a heated argument with a disgusting male, and my mind was filled with thoughts that went against everything I stood for. Of broken vows and surrender. Begging for just a little more, wishing to be taken like none had done before.

He continued to stare at me, his eyes a baleful mixture of anger and protectiveness, a burning surging forth as well and I thought that my visions were about to come true, before they softened. He took a deep breath, the smell of smoke, sea salt, and damp earth filling me as his form flickered, the depths of his eyes boring into me threefold as they recalled something instinctive. Primal.

"You're afraid," he whispered, his voice the gentle breeze through a forest. A dream barely recalled upon waking. I wanted to snap at him for suggesting such a thing, but his hand rose and cupped my cheek, cutting me off as something familiarly foreign urged me to press against the rough, callused warmth. "Everything that has happened must be so confusing. I'm sorry."

"I don't understand." The words were unbidden. A fragile confession, drawn forward without intention. I could feel my aspects warring beneath the surface, clashing with the call of something even older.

"I should have done a better job explaining things," he admitted. "You didn't ask for this, and I haven't made it any easier." A deep breath, mustering courage. "Stay with me, Fengari. When our job is done, I will do my best to explain everything."

The words were not his own as Percy touched his forehead to mine, drawing a response that was not my own, yet spoken in my voice. "I'm here for you, Agapite, you need not carry this burden alone."

Percy smiled and we separated, once more back in the present. My cheeks warmed as I realised that I had been leaning against his chest, and he quickly stepped away, grabbing his duster off the ground as he limped back to the car. I followed him, and got in the car behind Thalia as Percy took the passenger seat. The Amazonian put the keys in the ignition and started to drive pull out of the harbor.

"I.. I have a brother," Thalia said quietly. I turned to her, my eyebrow raised in curiosity. "Back in Jersey, you, or Diana I guess, asked why I wasn't surprised by the fact that you had Roman aspects. It's because while I'm a daughter of Zeus, my brother was… he's a son of Jupiter. We were told that we had to be separated, and my mom left him in the woods somewhere in California. I ran away not long after before meeting Luke and Annabeth."

"I see," I replied. Reaching over, I grabbed her hand and squeezed it. "Thank you for sharing this with us, Thalia."

Our attention turned to Percy, who looked unsurprised. "I figured you knew someone who was Roman," he said evasively. He paused for a moment, composing himself before continuing. "That thing we fought: it was the Jersey Devil."

"That thing's real?" The Amazonian asked, her eyes darting from the road to him.

Percy nodded. "As real as any other monster I've faced. The fact that it's not Greek or Roman is probably why Artemis' powers didn't work on it."

"How do you know that's what it was?" I asked.

"Harpocrates," Percy explained. "He has access to knowledge that should be forbidden, and when I freed him, I learned some of it."

"He's the weird angel guy we saw sometimes around your island, right?" Thalia asked.

"Harpocrates is the God of Secrets," I told her. "There are certain truths that could unravel Olympus and the world at large. Harpocrates has the ability to reveal those truths, or, alternatively, he could wrap someone in a secret so powerful none would even be aware of their existence."

"Which, to a god, basically means he could make them fade," Percy finished. "Anyway, the gist of it is that there are monsters out there that don't belong to Greek and Roman myths, because of that, the powers of Greek and Roman gods don't work as well on them."

"How come we haven't seen them before now, though?" The Amazonian wondered.

"We smell Greek - or Roman in your case, Hylla - so we attract Greek and Roman monsters. If I had to guess, the Jersey Devil in particular might have started as a Greek or Roman monster."

"The way it screamed was familiar," Thalia agreed. "It reminded me of when Grover did something similar during our quest to rescue Milady."

"I thought so as well," I added. "I have only experienced Panic once, but that was too similar to be a coincidence."

"There's also the goat feet," Percy chimed in, and I rolled my eyes.

"So, Perce, why are you in Boston anyway?" The Amazonian, Hylla, asked after a minute.

"Looking for an art teacher," Percy grunted.

"We are hunting Medusa," I elaborated, swatting Percy. "We currently believe she has taken the position of a teacher at a local school."

"Oh, okay," Hylla hummed. "I was worried you were coming to check in on the Delos investigation already."

"What Delos investigation?" I asked, the mention of my mother's island prison jolting me to attention.

Percy glared at Hylla, who simply shrugged unapologetically, and sighed in defeat. "Calypso and Edward are currently trying to track down Delos."

"Why would you want to do that?" I questioned, my imagination and suspicion running wild.

"So he can free Leto, of course," Hylla said while Percy huffed and looked out the window. "He is the Oathbreaker, after all."

"I don't understand," Thalia said while I felt myself drift into a fog.

"Except for people like Hecate and Circe, who are literally witches, pretty much all curses from way back when are worded as oaths sworn on the Styx," Percy explained. "Calypso was trapped because your dad swore that she would never leave her island. So, when I broke her out, I broke his oath, so to speak."

"So you're tracking down Delos in order to free Milady's mother?" Thalia concluded.

Percy nodded.

"Why?" I asked, my voice distant as I tried to balance this revelation on top of the massive stack of questions that had formed since waking up on Percy's island weeks ago.

Percy shrugged. "Seems like the right thing to do."

*(OoO)*

It took a good twenty minutes to arrive at the small townhouse Hylla had acquired for us. I didn't really understand how the Amazons' politics worked, but, in the time since she had joined them, apparently she had worked her way up quite a bit. It still didn't stop the current queen Penthisilea from trying to chain me to her bed like a living sex toy every time I visited, but it did afford her certain luxuries and, more importantly, the privacy to help me on occasion. She also knew that there was a time and place for certain questions.

If there was one thing I appreciated about being Alpha of the lost, it was that they trusted me enough to not need me to explain everything. I knew there were risks and dangers that came with that kind of blind faith, but, in the five years since Kronos was defeated, pretty much every single member and I found ourselves at one point or another in a situation that called for us to put our lives in each other's hands. It wasn't so much that I liked playing things close to the chest, but after spending enough time with the God of Secrets, I had learned the value of being careful with what I said to who. On top of that, whenever I had to field questions about things people didn't understand (which, strangely enough, came more from the demigods I knew than the mortals), it seemed to follow a set pattern: it would start with what something was, then once I had explained it, would progress to how I knew the answer, to grilling me on things I'd rather not revisit over and over.

That was why I was extremely grateful when Hylla dropped us off and all I got was a look telling me her sister would be grilling me when I got back. The girls went inside almost immediately, with Thalia throwing me another questioning glance as well before probably going to find the first vaguely flat surface to throw herself on. Meanwhile, I simply willed some water out of the air to wrap around and clean the blood off me before reaching into my coat and pulling out my handy-dandy smokes.

Taking a deep breath of the fragrant smoke curling from my lips, my thoughts turned back to the chaos of the last hour or so as the last vestiges of pine trees and moonlace left me. I thought about how Artemis had shifted once Hylla had showed up - something I should've accounted for, but I had just been running for hours, bleeding like crazy and burned the wounds shut, so sue me. Diana was way more temperamental than Artemis, and way less happy about not being afforded the respect she thought she was due. In the moment, my patience had been at its limits and I couldn't help snapping back at her. Something in me was enraged and was demanding I put her in her place. Visions passed before my eyes as I approached her. Images of claiming her. Conquering her. Ripples ran up my spine at the phantom sounds of her moaning in my ear, begging for more as I exerted myself over her. I wanted nothing more than to show that I was the Alpha, and remind her in the most primal way possible.

Then, something changed. There was a flash of vulnerability in Diana's eyes and she shifted back into Artemis. In what should have been the perfect moment to press my advantage and tear her down, I found that I didn't want to. I looked into her eyes and I saw fear. Not of me, necessarily, but I was certainly a cause of it. In the little over a month since I had seen Lycaon about to attack her, everything Artemis had known for literally thousands of years was being torn out from under her. I had ripped her away from the familiar and implicated her in my schemes that were almost a guaranteed one-way trip to Tartarus.

A stab of guilt pierced me at that moment, and, while I was no stranger to that feeling nor the accompanying resolve that usually quelled it, something else blossomed in my chest. I looked into her eyes and suddenly felt that I had to do everything in my power to make her feel better. It was a feeling that was familiar, similar to what I had felt near the end of the Second Titan War, but it was way stronger. It wasn't a desire to make Artemis feel better, but a need. Something inside me seemed to take over, and before I knew it the beast howling inside me had died down and I was cupping her cheek in my hand, whispering promises to her that I hadn't given to anyone before.

"You seem troubled."

I relaxed as Hestia appeared and her warmth blanketed me in comfort. She was in the shape of a middle-aged woman, sitting in a rocking chair beside me while working on some knitting.

"Isn't that a little cliche?" I asked, nodding towards the gently clacking needles.

"Perhaps," Hestia replied. "Tell me, do you plan to sit out here all night?"

"You know sleep and I haven't had the best relationship in a while," I countered. I looked down at my hand and scowled bitterly. "I guess I can consider myself lucky that I don't need to as much anymore."

"I'm glad you are still able to look on the bright side of things."

We sat there in silence for several minutes as she waited patiently for me to feel ready to share what was on my mind.

"Something about her," I muttered, blowing a plume of smoke in frustration. "I'm not sure what, but it feels like I'm being called. No..." I shook my head, my eyes closed as I tried to better word my thoughts. "Not me. It feels like there is something in me being called to her. Several things, actually. Every time I look at her, it feels like there's an argument going on inside of me about how I should react."

Hestia didn't say anything right away, she merely took a deep breath, her relaxing aura getting stronger as she continued to rock in her chair. Her needles the only sound between us as what looked like a sheet made out of gently crackling flames slowly took shape.

"You know, probably better than any of us, that I cannot give you a straight answer," she said quietly. "Even if I had an explanation for these… urges, you describe, I would be forbidden from elaborating."

"That's alright," I conceded. "It just feels good to talk to you about this."

"I'm honoured that you feel that way," Hestia replied, standing up and hugging me while her knitting continued, floating in the air before her seat without her. "Follow your heart, Nephew. It has rarely led you astray." I pulled away and raised a disbelieving eyebrow causing her to chuckle. "I said rarely. Besides, maybe you aren't the only one feeling these sensations."

With her piece said, Hestia vanished, leaving me with the lingering feeling of warmth and security as I sighed and entered the townhouse. Thalia was gently snoring on the couch right by the door, and I couldn't help but smile as I stooped over and picked her up, carrying her to one of the bedrooms further inside. She was light as a feather - a perk of having actually finished growing up rather than accepting immortality of any kind - and I could feel eyes on me as I placed her on one of the beds, tucking her in before returning to the couch, where I sat myself down, pulling out Riptide with one hand and a new cigar with the other. Once it was lit and between my lips, I reached back inside my duster and pulled out my tattered notebook.

It had taken a while to figure out my pen actually had ink, but I was thankful nonetheless.

A/N: Not entirely happy with how this turned out, but I'm done trying to improve it. It did everything it was supposed to, I guess, so that's gonna have to be enough. Anyway, I like whoever made the comparison between Percy and Bigby Wolf, as they go deeper than you'd think. That being said, the smoking thing was mostly to give Percy a vice that would annoy people while being. in his case, harmless. I really like the predictions you guys are coming up with, though. It feels great to write something, and see that people are actually reading between the lines. That being said, I think we're due for some long-awaited exposition in the next chapter...

Anyway, thanks again for reading and reviewing, and I'll see you guys next time!

TTFN