Kiss of Frost (Mythos Academy #2)(24)
Author: Jennifer Estep

I lay there on the bed, brooding. Yeah, I’d like to go to the party, see Preston, and have a good time, but I also couldn’t forget that a Reaper was trying to kil me. First the SUV, then the arrow in the library, and now a Fenrir wolf in the snow. Whoever he was, he was definitely serious about wanting me dead, enough to try again here at the ski resort.

This trip was just for Mythos students and staff, both the ones here in North Carolina and those who’d come down from New York, and Daphne had told me the resort was always closed to other guests during the Winter Carnival weekend. That meant the Reaper had been at the academy to start with and not just some random bad guy who’d somehow gotten past the sphinxes on the wal and snuck onto campus. My Reaper stalker was either a student, a professor, or a staff member-maybe even someone that I saw every single day. Helena Paxton, that snotty Amazon girl from the library; Mr. Llew, the calculus prof who bored me to tears with his lectures; Coach Lir, who ran the swim teams and helped out with the weapons training and other sports programs.

The Reaper could be anyone.

Whoever he was, he was real y starting to piss me off.

Yeah, Jasmine Ashton was dead because of me. I had plenty of guilt over her death and the part I’d played in it. But the Valkyrie had been two seconds away from murdering me when Logan had put a spear through her heart.

My mom had kil ed more than one bad guy while she’d been a police detective. She’d told me once that it wasn’t right taking someone else’s life, but sometimes it was necessary to protect other people and yourself. Logan had kil ed Jasmine to save me, even if Jasmine’s family didn’t see it that way, even if the other Reapers didn’t see it that way.

The truth was, I wanted to know who was trying to kil me, so I could take the Reaper down myself. Of course, I wouldn’t discover anything if I stayed here in the room al night, even if it was definitely the safer option. No, the Reaper and his wolf were out there somewhere, and it was time for me to find them. Or at least have enough fun to make me forget about them for the night.

Right now, I wasn’t too picky about which way things went.

I sat up and met Daphne’s eyes in the mirror.

"Al right," I said. "Let’s party."

Chapter 10

"Parteeeee!" a Roman guy standing on top of a table screamed and raised his plastic cup of beer.

"Parteeeee!" al the other kids screamed, lifting up their own cups in response.

Then, with one thought, everyone chugged down whatever was in their cups. In my case, it was some kind of light-colored ale that tasted like sour grass as it slid down my throat. But I drank it anyway, if only to blend in. Nobody here was drinking soda tonight.

I wrinkled my nose. "Yucko. I can’t believe people drink this stuff for fun."

"Not for fun," Carson said above the shouts, giving me a crooked grin and pushing his glasses up his nose. "Just to get drunk."

"And how do you know when you’re drunk?"

His grin widened. "When it starts tasting good." It was just after nine, and Carson, Daphne, and I were at one of the many student parties being held tonight as part of the Winter Carnival.

This one was at Solstice, which was one of the coffeehouses in the alpine vil age next to the hotel.

During the day, Solstice was actual y a coffee shop, the kind of place that charged way too much for espressos, mochas, and lattes, not to mention the muffins, scones, and pound cakes that went along with them. Every once in a while, I got a whiff of the sugar and spices that had flavored the air earlier in the day, although now, the smel s of perfume, beer, and smoke overpowered them.

Tonight, al of the tables had been pushed up against the wal s to make room for a dance floor. Somebody had set up some strobe lights, and the music thumped with a low, steady bass beat through the sound system. Daphne had told me that Samson Sorensen’s dad owned the whole Powder resort complex and always let the Viking have a party here at the coffee shop during the Winter Carnival-

with absolutely no interference from the Mythos professors.

Hence the insanely loud music and the row of kegs that squatted on the counter in plain view of the front windows.

Not to mention the quick glows of orange-red lights in the crowd as some of the kids sucked down cigarettes or something even stronger and more il egal.

As for Samson, he stood in the middle of the coffee shop, a beer in one hand and his arm around a girl from the New York academy. The Viking accepted backslaps from al the guys for throwing such an awesome party, and the girl by his side looked up at him with adoring eyes. No wonder. With his sandy brown hair, hazel eyes, and dimples, Samson was one of the cutest guys at either school.

It wasn’t that late, but more than a few kids were already total y wasted. One guy lay on top of the counter behind the row of kegs, his hand curled around one of them, like it was a stuffed animal he was clutching to his chest. A string of drool oozed out of the side of his open mouth. I could see it, because I was standing at the end of the counter where his head was. I thought he might be snoring, too, but the music was so loud that I couldn’t real y tel .

"Come on. Let’s dance," Daphne said, grabbing Carson’s hand.

He winced. "You should know by now that I don’t dance."

She flashed him a confident, smirking smile. "Don’t worry, babe.

I’l make you look good. I always do." Laughing, Carson let Daphne pul him out onto the dance floor. A second later, the two of them were grooving to the blaring music, with Daphne going about it much more smoothly than Carson, who was al flailing arms and jerky feet. If he wasn’t careful, the band geek was going to stab someone in the eye with his elbow.

Of course, Daphne and Carson dancing left me standing by myself against the wal , with only Drool Guy for company.

I eyed the unconscious kid, who smacked his lips, causing even more spit to trickle out of the side of his mouth.

Disgusting.

I shifted away from the edge of the counter and scanned the crowd, just like I’d been doing ever since we’d gotten here an hour ago, but al I saw were drunk guys, dancing girls, and couples sticking their tongues down each other’s throats. Nobody looked like she could be a Reaper in disguise, and nobody seemed like he wanted to kil me.

As soon as we’d stepped through the door, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to do anything tonight to figure out who was after me. Not that I’d had a real plan to start with, other than to roam around, touch people and their stuff, and see if I got any psycho-kil er vibes off anything. There were way too many kids packed into the coffee shop for me to touch every single one of them. Besides, I doubted that I’d see anything tonight through the beer-soaked haze.