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Chapter 1

THE MANSION was as silent as I wished the inside of ed inhale of breath or a whispered word Truly blissful

Peaceful

The scenery was a whole different story

Frorand staircase, the opulent, open-floor design of the first level looked like a truck had backed up to the bronze double doors and du was splattered with red and gunk, like a fleet of cannons had shot an endless streas--lots of chunks of lots of different types of ed inside a body

I’d never look at a can of Chef Boyardee the saain

However, there wasn’t a drop of blood on me My black boots were shiny; the black tactical pants and Under Armour shirt, the standard uniforore I had skillz-- aze flickered over the room below This had to be, by far, one of my best Remediations--as in, search out hideouts and destroy the traitors who over a year ago had supported Ares when he’d attempted to take over the mortal world

Their sorry asses didn’t have a chance in Hades

Good old, averagelay dead a of the Olympians But most of those who littered the floor beloere pure-bloods Their official name was Hematoi I rolled ested They were the products of two de it on Their blood was considered pure compared to their counterparts, the half-bloods, which hat happened when a pure and a enetics, halfs eaker than the pures They had less aether in them, the substance that surrounded Olympus and was also the very life force that flowed in the blood of the gods and all their creations The aether hat enabled us to sense each other The pures had more aether in them than halfs, which hy pures could wield control over the eleods, but the halfs couldn’t Our society had been stratified for thousands of years, because the pures always held the theenetically carried more aether

But in death, they were all the saaze shifted back to the gaping double doors Sentinels were here I could feel their wariness to enter the building, taste their anxiety on the tip of ht smile lifted the corners of my lips They kneas here They could feelfar different than them

I was a half-blood, but I was also the Apollyon, a child of a pure and a half, a union that had been forbidden for thousands of years because an Apollyon was more powerful than any pure or half could ever hope to be

And I always got to the traitors’ hideouts before they did, so the Sentinels were usually left with the cleanup, which I was sure absolutely thrilled them