My gaze shifted to my stepfather. He stared back at me blankly. I didn’t know what to feel as Seth continued, or maybe I was feeling too much. This man may’ve loathed the ground I walked on, as I was a constant reminder of my mother’s only true love, but to know what Ares planned to do and be okay with it? Had he not felt even a sliver of compassion for me? Nothing?

You need to be broken. Lucian had said that to me once before. Well, if he agreed with what Ares had done, he had succeeded. I had been broken.

Lucian laughed. Seth’s voice twisted up my insides. He laughed, and in that moment, I couldn’t do this any longer. When Ares returned, I told him I was going to find you and transfer your power to me. That you’d be weak enough for it to work, and that I was bringing Lucian to talk to those who were here and sway them to our side. Ares believed me. Seth laughed out loud, the sound as dry and shattered as broken twigs. “I’m a lot like him.”

“Ares?” I whispered, aware that everyone who had cognitive control was staring at us.

He gave a curt nod. “I get my…blinding arrogance from him. He wouldn’t dare think that I’d disobey him. Well, he will soon, very soon. I doubt he’ll be happy.”

“Wait,” Marcus said, stepping forward. “You two need to stop with the covert conversations. What the hell is going on?”

Seth ignored him and took a step toward me. He didn’t make it very far before Aiden’s gun pressed against the back of his head. “One more step,” Aiden warned, eyes flashing. “And we’ll find out how an Apollyon survives a head wound.”

“You have no idea how badly I want to find that out myself,” Seth replied, one side of his lips curling up. “Did I tell you about the time I slept—”

“Seth,” I snapped, drawing his attention back to me. “Can you take Lucian out of the compulsion, or did you fry his brain?”

“I didn’t fry him.” His eyes met mine again. “I figured I’d leave that to you.”

I didn’t need to ask Seth to release Lucian, because a second later, Lucian stumbled forward, dragging in air as if he’d been underwater. His dark eyes cleared as his gaze took in his surroundings.

“What is going on?” he demanded, pulling himself away from the two Sentinels. His hands pressed into his chest. “Seth?”

“How many Sentinels do you have with you?” I asked Seth, staring at my stepfather.

“Hundreds,” he replied, his voice weary. “An army of them, all loyal to me.”

Lucian’s head swung toward Seth. “What? Yours? Seth, what are you doing?”

“And he laughed?” Tears filled my eyes, but they did not fall. The hurt inside me twisted into something ugly and violent.

“Yes,” came Seth’s reply.

There was always a chance Seth was playing me, but I had no doubt in my mind that what he had said about Lucian was true. My stepfather had known what Ares was going to do. And he had laughed. To me, there was nothing more evil than that. Seth wasn’t a completely innocent bystander. He’d made his own decisions, but Lucian had aided that process. He’d led Seth down that road. Maybe he hadn’t held his hand, but who knew where all of us would be if Lucian hadn’t had friends in higher places and hadn’t used Seth the way he did.

I didn’t feel calm, but there was an acceptance that slipped into my bones, mixing with the coldness inside of me. The only thing that was warm as I stared at my stepfather was the cord connecting me to the First.

In my head there were two outcomes. Being the bigger person was one. Revenge was the other. Two options, and that cold voice inside me told me there really wasn’t any choice between the two.

Aiden shifted warily. “Alex, what’s going on?”

Moving lightning-fast, I drew the Glock and fired one round.

Lucian didn’t make a sound.

Falling over backward, he landed in a motionless heap—his black eyes fixed sightlessly on the cloudless sky and his dark hair spilling out around him like an inky puddle of blood—with one small, titanium-laced bullet hole in his forehead.

Grandma Piperi had said I’d kill the ones I love. She’d been right and wrong in this case. I did kill Lucian, but I’d never loved him. I would’ve, maybe at one point in my life, if he hadn’t treated me like the antichrist or, later on, an object.

Aiden swore under his breath, but he kept his gun leveled on Seth.

“Gods.” Marcus exhaled hard as he stared at the Minister. “Alexandria…?”

I stepped back, legs shaking. “That takes care of one problem, doesn’t it?”

My uncle shook his head slowly, and in those deep, forest-green eyes, there was fear. I couldn’t bring myself to be that affected by it.

Seth stared at me, almost like he hadn’t really believed I’d do what I did. I don’t know what he thought I would do. Pat Lucian on the head? Smack him, and have that be all? But that tortured tautness to Seth’s expression deepened until I felt stronger stirrings of unease.

“Alex,” Seth whispered, and that single word was heavy and sad.

Had I done the wrong thing?

It was a little too late now to be questioning that, I supposed.

The gun was still hot in my hand as I slipped it back into the holster. I turned to Seth. “I still don’t completely trust you.”

“I didn’t think you would.” The glyphs seeped into his skin, disappearing. “So what do we do now?”

Aiden snapped forward, cracking the butt of the pistol off the back of Seth’s head with enough force to kill a mortal. Seth slumped over. Apollyon or not, that was going to take him out for a couple of hours. Aiden met my wide eyes. “I’m not taking any chances, either.”

CHAPTER 8

Seth was taken to one of the cells under the main Council building. The bars were made of titanium and the Guards stationed to watch him were pure-bloods, but if Seth wanted to get out, he was going to get out. We didn’t have Titan blood or Hephaestus to build an Apollyon-proof cell, so we were taking a huge risk by housing Seth. But we really had no other option. We also had hundreds of Sentinels loyal to Seth on the other side of the gate, and who knew how long they’d remain there if they didn’t hear from him. Only good news was that he’d be out for a while, but when he came to, well. I’d deal with that when I had to stampede that bridge.

Right now, I needed to shower.

Sweat slicked my skin like leftover residue from the adrenaline that had coursed through my veins upon seeing Seth, but it was more than that. I felt grimy and grubby inside and out, like I hadn’t bathed for days.

I felt dirty—like, morally corrupt.

My heart was pounding a little too fast as I scrubbed until my skin turned a bright pink. I squeezed my eyes shut and took several breaths.

Had I been wrong?

Had killing Lucian been the wrong thing to do? Morally speaking? Duh. It was wrong, but hadn’t he deserved it? Hadn’t he had it coming to him?

“As a Sentinel, I’ll kill daimons. That’s not the same as playing jury and executioner.”

The spongy loofah fell from my suddenly limp fingers, landing with a wet thud against the shower floor. My stomach roiled as I bent at the waist, nauseated. Water beaded across my back, but I barely felt it.

When I had pulled that trigger, I hadn’t felt a damn thing. There had been anger right before that, even a brief welling of sadness in response to Lucian’s cruelty, but nothing when my finger squeezed. As if taking a life was an insignificant action.

There was something wrong with that—wrong with me.

It seemed like yesterday when Seth had wanted to kill Head Minister Telly and I’d told him it was wrong. That even as the Apollyons, we couldn’t make those kind of decisions.

But I had.

I had killed Lucian.