Pandora (Book 3) (The Omega Group) Read Online Free Page A

at the awe-inspiring sight of an army of
women stampeding toward her.
    When the first arrow launched, Mirissa followed its path
over her head. Another army, this time male, charged from the opposite
direction. Their armor glistened in the sunlight as they raised their swords
for battle.
    Mirissa’s head swiveled from left to right as the two groups
closed in on her. Their steeds galloped at full speed and would meet in a
bloody confrontation within seconds. Mirissa instinctively covered her head as
the smell of sweat and horses assailed her. She screamed as strong arms grabbed
her shoulders and yanked her back.
    Silence.
    Mirissa opened her eyes to see her father staring at her, worry
etched into his brow. The battlefield, the warriors, the trees, and grass had
vanished. Only the remnants of the ancient city of Pella surrounded her.
    “Tell me what you saw, Mirissa,” her father said.
    Mirissa glanced from one person to another as she fought to
find the words to describe it. “Amazons—hundreds of them—were about to go into
battle against …” She didn’t know who their opponent was.
    “Greeks,” Beck said from a few feet away. She stared at the floor
where Mirissa stood moments before. “Take a look at this, Myrine.”
    Mirissa hesitated to get too close but followed the group.
    “This mosaic depicts the Battle of the Amazons,” her mother
said, pointing to the floor. “It was one of the largest and most brutal battles
in our history.”
    “That was our biggest loss, wasn’t it?” Greco asked.
    Myrine smiled. “Depends who you ask. Amazons were never big
on documenting their battles because they didn’t fight for glory. They fought
against tyranny. The Greeks, on the other hand, documented everything. They
wrote their stories with endings that suited their needs. And since their
accounts are the only ones left, people either believe they defeated us, or
that we didn’t exist at all.”
    “Some things never change,” Mirissa said. “The history books
of the future won’t have any mention of the Omega Group’s escapades.”
    “What I want to know,” Steve said, “is why Mirissa was able
to see any of that. Is it a new ability manifesting itself, or does it have
something to do with whatever’s going on with Daedric?”
    Silence followed her father’s question, and Mirissa gave his
hand a squeeze. “I guess that’s yet another question we don’t have the answer
to.”

Chapter 5
    Flip scrambled up the perfectly manicured grass that covered
the excruciatingly steep path to Ares’s palace. Getting from one place to
another without his powers wasn’t so bad with the humans, what with their
awesome automobiles. On Mount Olympus, where every estate was separated by
miles of gardens, it was horrible.
    When he and Daedric returned to the home of the gods with
the opened box and Eris freed, Ares flew into a rampage. As though it had
somehow been Flip’s fault that the humans dropped the box, Ares punished him by
stripping him of his powers. Not for the first time, either.
    The higher gods generally got their kicks from tormenting
the lesser ones. It seemed to be their favorite source of entertainment since
Zeus decreed they could no longer mess with the humans. When Zeus made the
announcement, every lesser god cringed in anticipation of the suffering they
knew would come.
    None more so than Flip.
    Born to two lesser, virtually unknown gods, Flip clung firmly
to the bottom rung of the deity ladder. Add to that the fact that he stood a
foot shorter than everyone else—including the females—and didn’t possess the
beauty usually ascribed to the gods, and he quickly became the butt of
everyone’s jokes.
    His name certainly didn’t make things any easier. Every
god’s name had a meaning. Adonis meant “lord.” Prometheus meant “forethought.”
Hades meant “the unseen.” Flip, on the other hand, meant “friends with horses.”
He’d stopped counting thousands of years earlier the amount of