Touch of Frost (Mythos Academy #1)(29)
Author: Jennifer Estep

And they were totally making out.

My mouth dropped open. I knew that Jasmine had suspected that something was going on between her best friend and her boyfriend, but it was something else to see it for myself. Especially when they were so obviously, um, enjoying themselves. If Morgan’s tongue went any deeper into Samson’s mouth, it would come out the back of his head. And Samson’s hands were all over Morgan, squeezing and stroking everything he could touch-and she let him touch everything. Add to that the fact that Samson was just wearing a pair of swimming briefs and flip-flops and you had the makings of a  p**n o. Mythos Coeds Gone Wild.

Finally, after a minute, the two of them broke apart, both breathing hard.

"Come on, baby," Morgan cooed. "Let’s go to our usual spot in the locker room. I’m dying to put my hands all over that hard body of yours."

I snorted. It looked to me like she’d been doing that already, given the fact that she was plastered to him tighter than his wet Speedo was.

Samson gave her a grin but shook his head. "Sorry. Coach Lir is in there right now tearing into Kenzie Tanaka because his time dropped two seconds in the relay. You’ll just have to wait until later tonight at the bonfire. Besides, it’s not a good thing for us to be seen together right now, remember? I mean, Jasmine’s only been dead a few days. How would it look?"

Morgan raked her nails down his bare chest, making green sparks of magic flicker up into what little air there was between them. "I don’t care how it looks. I’m tired of sneaking around. You should have just broken up with her when she was alive."

My eyes widened, and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Had the two of them actually done it? Had they murdered Jasmine so they could be together? That seemed kind of extreme to me, even here at Mythos Academy where very little made sense.

"Yeah, well, whoever killed her did us both a favor," Samson said. "You know that she was never going to let me go. She told you that herself. She thought we were going to get married and live happily ever after, when she wouldn’t even sleep with me."

Morgan raked her nails down Samson’s chest again. More green sparks fluttered in the air and her nails left welts behind on his skin, but Samson didn’t seem to care.

"Jasmine also told me that she thought you were cheating on her with someone else." Morgan snickered. "She just never suspected that it was me."

Wrong, I thought. Jasmine had known that Morgan was screwing her boyfriend. Jasmine must just not have been able to do anything about it before she’d been murdered in the library.

"So I’ll see you tonight at the bonfire?" Morgan cooed, and wrapped her arms around Samson’s neck once more.

"Absolutely. And after, too. We’ll sneak away and have our own private party."

Samson gave her another sly grin. He dipped his head, and the two of them started kissing again-

A hand clamped over my shoulder, fingers digging into my skin through the fabric of my T-shirt. Somehow, I bit back a surprised yelp and turned around to find Talia Pizarro glaring at me.

"What are you doing out here?" Talia demanded. "We’re supposed to be sparring, remember?"

"I was taking a break for a second," I lied.

I walked toward her, forcing her to move back several steps. I didn’t want Morgan and Samson to know that I’d been spying on them.

I made a show of gathering my brown hair up and waving my hand in front of my face, like I was trying to cool off. "In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s like a hundred degrees in the gym."

My explanation seemed to satisfy her, although Talia still gave me a dirty look for making her stalk all the way out here after me.

I fiddled with my hair some more, using that as an excuse to look back over my shoulder, but Morgan and Samson had disappeared from their love nest. Maybe they’d gone on to the locker room for their quickie after all. Still, I wasn’t too disappointed. I knew where they’d be tonight. And I was going to crash the party.

Because there was definitely something going on between the two of them-and I was willing to bet that it had a lot to do with Jasmine’s death.

"Come on, Gwen," Talia snapped again. "I want to get a couple more rounds of sparring in before class ends."

Satisfied for now, I let the Amazon drag me back into the gym.

Chapter 12

A bonfire was scheduled for that evening. Apparently, it was an academy tradition and the event was always held the night before the homecoming dance. The dance, of course, would be staged in the dining hall. Even at Mythos, the Powers That Were couldn’t think of anywhere better to have the dance than the cafeteria. Some things stayed the same, no matter which school you went to.

Normally, I wouldn’t have gone to the bonfire, as I hadn’t been to any of the other after-school social events. It wasn’t like I had any friends who were just begging me to go. Or like I was popular enough for people to care whether or not I put in an appearance at the Big Event. And it certainly wasn’t like I was dating anyone and wanted to snuggle with him under a blanket by the fire.

But Morgan and Samson had made plans to meet at the bonfire, and I wanted to see what they were up to. Hopefully, it would be something more interesting than dry-humping each other.

Maybe it was stupid, but I just couldn’t shake off this feeling that the two of them had something to do with Jasmine’s murder. Maybe they hadn’t killed Jasmine, but there was something that just seemed wrong about this whole thing. Besides, it wasn’t like I had any other Big Plans for the night, besides sitting in my room, eating junk food, and reading comic books.

The bonfire was being held in the outdoor amphitheater on one of the lower quads just down the hill from the Library of Antiquities. I took a shower, threw on some clean jeans, a T-shirt, and a purple hoodie, and walked over there. It was after seven now and already dark on this October night. The air was chilly, but not unpleasantly so, and the stars twinkled like the sequins on a prom queen’s dress in the black velvety fabric of the sky.

A series of long, flat, shallow stone steps that doubled as seats made up the top of the amphitheater. The steps formed a semicircle as they gradually spiraled down to the raised dais that served as the stage. Unlike the stones of the other campus buildings, all the stones here were bone white and flecked with shimmers of opalescent color-sky blue, pearl pink, soft lilac. Four columns towered over the stage area, each one topped by a chimera crouching on a round globe, clutching the sphere with its curved claws and glaring out at where the crowd would sit.

By the time I arrived, the stage had been removed and a small fire had already been built in a ring of white stones in the very bottom of the amphitheater. I’d expected the other kids to be laughing, talking, and halfway to drunk by now, but for once, everyone was quiet, somber even. Instead of forming their usual cliques and gossiping, the students stood single file in a line that snaked up the amphitheater steps. Since I wasn’t sure what was going on, I hung back, staying away from the line and well out of the flickering firelight.