The Marked

Chapter Sixteen

Zion parks the car a few houses down from Lily's like she requested while Lily sends her text to Ryder, both of them get out the car and walk along the pavement down to Lily's front door.

"I forgot to mention that it'll just be the two of us," Lily tells him suddenly feeling nervous, "is that okay? I don't want you to feel uncomfortable."

"Honestly, I didn't think of anyone else being here." Zion tells her truthfully, he didn't even think about her family being at home, he'd just accepted her offer because he was curious.

Lily unlocks the door and walks inside, Zion follows behind her and closes the door, "you mind if we go up to my room?" Lily asks, blushing.

Zion sees the blush appear on her cheeks, she looks cute, he thinks before reassuring her, "I don't mind."

Lily nods and then turns to the stairs, making her way up them and leading the way to her room. Once inside she takes off her shoes and places them by the door, after shutting the door behind him Zion does the same.

Looking up he sees that Lily is now sat on her double bed getting the book out of her bag, he walks round to the other side to take a seat, making sure not to get to close to her.

Lily grabs the remote off her bedside and turns on the TV.

"Why are you interested in all this," Lily blurts out, Zion lifts his head from the TV to look at her, "I mean, like why are you so interested in discussing this with me?"

Zion waits a moment thinking about what to say but then he decides to be honest with her about some stuff at least, what harm could it do? "I'm not sure I wanna say... from our discussions I'm not sure if you'd believe me."

"You're something from in the book? Or at least something we've talked about." Lily wonders.

"Sort of," Zion pauses, "I have a marked ability, like the people in the book, which is why I know so much about all this. When I saw you in the library, so unsure, I wanted to help you figure things out in case you were like me."

"I take it you've figured out I'm not like you." Lily says.

"I may have guessed," Zion tells her, "I just didn't know for sure till now."

"What's your ability?" Lily asks.

"I'm the God of Death," Zion tells her expecting fear and when she remains where she is he continues, "you mentioned that in the book, the writer said he saw a creature that could control the water, that would be my brother, Thaddeus, God of the Sea, and by his side Mordekai, God of the Sky," he pauses again checking her reaction, "we were created as replacements after the Gods of Olympus had fallen."

"This is a lot," Lily responds unsure how to react, "so, when you say God of Death, what exactly does that mean in terms of what you can do."

"I control death," Zion tells her, "I can inflict it upon anyone in pretty much anyway I want."

"This just got worse," Lily mutters under her breath, "All that stuff in the book is true? This whole time we've been discussing it as a story but it's all real?"

"I think so," Zion answers, "I haven't actually read it, my friend Charon has and he gave me a rundown, but all of what we talked about is true, at least all my theories are."

Lily doesn't respond for a few minutes making Zion worry that he'd scared her stiff or something, "are you okay? I don't have plans to kill you if that's what you think I'm here for."

"Yeah, just, I'm shocked," Lily explains, "I didn't actually think about you killing me, you haven't tried anything before and you just explained to me about a big part of your life so I didn't think of that as a possibility. Probably should have."

There's a few moments of silence again with just the TV playing, Lily hasn't moved much and Zion keeps looking at her, waiting for her to run, scream, hide, something, but she doesn't, instead she turns to look at him.

"Is it too personal to ask to see your mark?" Lily asks, unsure about how things work with all this stuff.

"I could show it you," Zion stands off the bed, making a quick decision to show her, he lifts up his top and removes it from his back revealing his mark and several scars. He can feel Lily's gaze on the mark and it warms up his skin, suddenly he feels her fingers on his back and he jerks away, not liking the feeling of anyone touching him.

"I'm sorry," Lily apologises, "I shouldn't have done that."

"It's fine," Zion accepts, "I'm not used to being touched by anyone, I didn't expect it." He puts his top back on correctly and remains where he is.

"Expect the unexpected an all that." Lily jokes.

Lily goes quiet again conflicted by her emotions, after what he told her she should believe that he was dangerous, that he might hurt her, but she didn't. Instead she felt curious and intrigued about him but also overwhelmed, why had he told her that? Trusted her with it?

Suddenly feeling too overwhelmed to talk about it further she asks, "is it okay if we watch TV for a bit, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by all this, it's a lot to take in."

"You're not gonna ask me to leave?" Zion questions shocked by how she's taking all this, he'd expected her to run, or at least be scared, but even though she seems overwhelmed he doesn't detect her fear or an urge to flee.

"I'd like it if you stayed," Lily replies, "maybe after my head's cleared up a bit I could ask you some more questions."

Zion nods deciding that right now he'd done enough talking, he didn't expect any of this to happen, it wasn't a part of the plan, but putting all that aside he waits for Lily to climb under the covers before laying himself on top of the covers next to her.