Touch of Frost (Mythos Academy #1)(36)
Author: Jennifer Estep

Daphne snorted again and stomped off in the direction of her dorm, leaving the two of us standing there by the firelight.

"Don’t forget to call Carson," I called out in a helpful voice. "The two of you have a date tomorrow night, remember?"

Daphne turned around and made a rude gesture with her hand, telling me exactly what I could go do with myself. But she had a smile on her face while she did it. I found myself grinning back at her. Daphne Cruz was okay, even if she was a rich, spoiled, wannabe Valkyrie princess.

Logan looked at me. "You going to stomp off into the dark, too?"

"Oh no," I said, remembering the way that the prowler had licked its lips and hissed at me. Another shudder rippled through my body. "I’m more than happy to let you walk me back to my dorm."

We left the amphitheater behind and set off across the lower quad. A few people milled around the bonfire, but everyone else was wrapped up in their own little worlds beneath their blankets, macking on their hotties, and nobody paid any attention to Logan and me.

Good thing, since the Spartan was pretty much covered with black blood from head to toe. I winced when we passed by the fire and I saw exactly how much of it there was on him. Logan looked like he’d taken a bath in the prowler’s blood.

I couldn’t help but wonder what had made him follow me up to the library, and most especially what had made him step in between me and that horrible monster. Yeah, I knew that he was a Spartan and killing bad things was basically what he did, what he was here at Mythos learning how to do.

But there had to be more to it than that. Maybe if I’d been prettier, richer, or more popular it would have made sense. I wasn’t exactly the kind of girl that guys tripped over themselves to help. Did Logan think that I’d be so grateful that I’d change my mind about him and just fall into his arms?

My eyes moved over his face and down his muscled body. Well, okay. That would have had some serious appeal, if he wasn’t so icky looking right now. Okay, okay. It still had some serious appeal, even if he was all blood covered and nasty.

Logan saw me staring at him. "What are you looking at, Gypsy girl?"

This time, a flush crept up my cheeks. "Nothing," I muttered, and looked away from him.

We didn’t speak as we left the light and warmth of the bonfire behind and stepped onto one of the cobblestone walkways that wound around the lower quad and led to Styx Hall.

"So," Logan finally said. "You’re trying to figure out what happened to Jasmine, huh? Who killed her and took the Bowl of Tears?"

I shrugged. "Something like that."

"Why?" Logan asked. "Why do you even care? As you’ve probably guessed by now, Jasmine wasn’t exactly the best-liked girl at Mythos. Sure, she was popular, but she terrorized people to get that way. People were afraid of her, and she was basically a coldhearted bitch. Why would you want to find out what happened to someone like that?"

Once again, I thought about Paige Forrest. She’d been a lot like Jasmine, well, except for the coldhearted bitch part. Paige had been pretty, popular, and sweet, but no one had known about the awful thing that was happening to her. Even now, I could still see her stepfather making Paige lie back on her bed while he touched her. My stomach turned over at the memory, and I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself.

I couldn’t tell Logan all that, of course. That in some weird way Jasmine reminded me of Paige and that I wanted to help the Valkyrie like I had the other girl. It was too long of a story, and it probably wouldn’t make sense to him anyway. Sometimes, my Gypsy gift and all the flashes, vibes, and feelings that went along with it didn’t make much sense to me either. But my mom had always told me to trust my instincts, and that was what I was going to do.

"Because somebody should at least care what happened to her," I said in a quiet voice. "Somebody should be sorry that she was murdered, even if nobody really liked Jasmine deep down inside."

"Maybe," Logan said. "But Metis, Ajax, Nickamedes, and everyone else think that a Reaper killed Jasmine and stole the Bowl of Tears. The guy, whoever he is, is long gone."

I shrugged. "Maybe. But something about this whole situation just doesn’t feel right to me. Maybe it’s because my mom was a cop. She always told me to listen to my instincts."

"Was?" Logan asked in a quiet voice, picking up on the past tense.

"She died six months ago," I said. "She was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver. That’s what the police said, anyway."

My throat closed up as I said the words, and I blinked back a wave of sudden hot tears. Once again, my pain, anger, and guilt over my mom’s death twisted my heart, like a snake curling tighter and tighter around its victim until all the life had been squeezed out of it. That’s how I felt right now. I couldn’t even breathe without it hurting so much.

"I’m sorry," Logan said.

I nodded at him, but I didn’t trust myself to speak.

We reached Styx Hall a couple of minutes later. The light burned over the front door, but the dorm was quiet. Everyone else must have still been over at the bonfire. I walked up the steps to the patio that wrapped around the dorm, and Logan followed me.

Logan drew closer to me until all that I could see, feel, and hear was him. Black hair, icy blue eyes, square chin, solid chest. He looked the same as always, a total bad boy who knew exactly how sexy he was. But somehow, Logan seemed nobler to me now, braver and stronger. Like there was so much more to him than just his killer smile, easy charm, and rumored ability to get rid of a girl’s bra in under five seconds and her panties in another ten.

Maybe that was because Logan had saved my life tonight. That kind of thing would have made any girl think highly of him. Or maybe it was just part of who he was, part of his Spartan heritage, part of becoming the fierce warrior that he was so obviously meant to be.

I thought about the way that he’d so coolly faced that Nemean prowler, the way that he’d actually smiled when fighting the awful creature. Logan made me believe that there was some kind of purpose to all this. At least for tonight, anyway. That yeah, the Chaos War and Reapers and Loki were real, but that there were also good guys like Spartans and Amazons and Valkyries who were ready to stand up and fight the bad guys, too.

Whatever it was, the sudden feeling made me shiver, even as heat blossomed in the pit of my stomach like a flower slowly unfurling and stretching toward the sun. Just the way that I found myself wanting to reach out to Logan, to touch him, no matter how weird, wrong, or stupid it might have been.

"Can I ask you something?" Logan said, tilting his head to one side and looking at me.