Touch of Frost

Page 14

A goofy, dreamy sort of grin spread across Daphne's face. Then, she realized that I was still watching her, and she pressed her lips together into a tight line once more.
"You know what, Gwen? You might be okay, for a total geek with absolutely no fashion sense."
With those words and a small, sly smile the Valkyrie turned and left my bedroom. The strangest thing was that I found myself grinning back at her as she closed the door.
Chapter 11
I didn't get much sleep that night, mainly because I was still feeling the aftereffects of touching the ripped-up photo, still feeling the echoes of Jasmine's rage and the massive migraine it had given me.
Maybe I should have known better by now. After all, my Gypsy gift had let me see and feel a lot of things over the years-the good, the bad, and the just plain awful. But I still couldn't believe that Jasmine Ashton, the pretty, perfect rich girl who seemed to have everything, could feel that much rage at her best friend. Even if she did think that Morgan had something going on with Samson. Guys. They so weren't worth the drama.
My lack of sleep put me in a grouchy mood the next day, especially when it was time for my fifth-period gym class.
I hated gym class.
Going to a school full of the descendants of mythological warriors was bad enough. But the Powers That Were actually expected me to be coordinated, too. Gym class at Mythos was completely different from what it had been back at my old school. There were no basketballs, softballs, or volleyballs in sight.
There were too many weapons crowded into the gym for that.
Like everything else at Mythos, the gym was enormous, with a ceiling that soared several hundred feet into the air. Colorful banners announcing various academy championships over the years dangled down from the rafters, while glossy wooden bleachers ringed the gym on two sides. Thick mats lined the floors, hiding the squeaky basketball court from sight, and racks of weapons butted up against one of the walls. Swords, daggers, bows, staffs, and other things that I didn't even know the names for but that looked like they would cut you to the bone if you so much as touched them.
The point of gym class at Mythos wasn't to score the most or run the most laps like it had been back at my old school. Oh no. Here? You were actually supposed to learn how to use all the weapons on the wall. How to kill, maim, and torture your opponent, whoever it might be.
At the moment, though, I was the one being tortured.
"Hee-yah!" the girl in front of me screamed before darting forward, raising her sword high, and bringing it down toward my head with every intention of killing me dead, dead, dead.
I winced, backed up, and raised my own sword. Her weapon hit my blade, the sharp clanggg of it reverberating all the way up my hand and into my shoulder. The sword slid from my suddenly numb fingers and thumped onto the mat, the way it had five times already in the last five minutes.
"You're supposed to block my blow and try to hit me back. Not drop your sword every single time I hit you." Talia Pizarro rolled her eyes at me. "Geez, Gwen. You really suck at this."
"Tell me something I don't already know," I muttered.
At the start of gym class, we drew names to see who would fight whom. Talia had the misfortune of being my sparring partner today. She was an Amazon with ebony skin and short black hair who was almost six feet tall. Talia also happened to be the captain of the girls' fencing team and could make a pincushion out of me with her sword if she really wanted to. Like all the other Amazons, she was gifted with supernatural quickness. Talia looked like a blur when she moved. One second, she was in front of me. The next, she'd hit me with her sword six times already.
"Let's go again," Talia barked. "You might not get anything out of this, but I want to be able to pass my advanced weapons test next week."
Oh yeah. There were tests, too. I was actually being graded on how well I could chop off someone's head or put an arrow through his eye. I'd prided myself on my perfect 4.0 GPA at my old school, but gym was one class at Mythos that I was definitely going to fail this semester and every other one. Students were required to take gym and all the weapons training that went with it every single semester until they graduated. Yippeeskippee.
Since Talia was looking at me with murder in her eyes, I sighed and picked up my sword again. I also used the lull in the action to look over to my left, where Morgan McDougall was sparring with her own partner, another Valkyrie girl.
Gym was the only class that I had with Morgan, and I'd been watching her all period long. Maybe it was nothing or maybe I was just crazy and grasping at straws, but I felt like there was some connection between Jasmine's murder and that ripped-up photo of Morgan and Samson. Something obvious that I just wasn't seeing.
I wasn't the only one interested in Morgan. Half the guys in the gym kept sneaking looks at her, since Morgan filled out her tight, white T-shirt quite a bit better than most of the other girls did theirs. And Morgan totally knew that the guys were watching her. Ten minutes ago, she'd accidentally-on-purpose spilled water all down the front of her shirt, plastering the fabric to the black sports bra that she had on underneath.
Morgan and her partner finished their latest round of combat. Then, Morgan looked down at her diamondencrusted watch, said something to the other girl, and slipped out one of the side doors of the gym.
My eyes narrowed. Class wasn't even halfway over yet. So where was the Valkyrie going?
"Hold this," I said, passing my sword to Talia and hurrying after Morgan.
"Hey! Where do you think you're going?" Talia hissed, but I paid no attention to her.
It wasn't like I even needed to be in gym class. I wasn't descended from a long line of mythological warriors, and I certainly didn't have anything to do with the Pantheon, Reapers, or the Chaos War. But I did want to find out what had happened to Jasmine, which was something that spying on Morgan might actually help me with.
I kept to the edges of the gym, so I wouldn't draw attention to myself and the fact that I was trying to sneak outside in the middle of class. Since everyone else was absorbed in beating the crap out of each other, nobody noticed me.
Not even Logan Quinn, who was on the other side of the gym. Logan and Oliver Hector, another Spartan, were getting some pointers from Coach Ajax. The big, burly coach barked out some instructions, and the two guys bowed to each other before falling into crouching positions. Ajax held up his hand, then dropped it, and the two Spartans went at each other.
Smack-smack-smack!
The two staffs blurred together as Logan and Oliver fought, each turning, twisting, and doing his best to smash the other's skull in with the blunt weapon. The fight lasted maybe thirty seconds before Logan did some kind of fancy move, used his staff to sweep Oliver's feet out from under him, and darted forward, putting the edge of his staff against the other guy's throat. Winner: Logan Quinn.
Ajax barked out something else and clapped his hands, apparently happy with his star pupil. Logan smiled and stepped back casually, elegantly twirling the staff in his hand like it was a cheerleader's baton instead of a deadly weapon. Of course, he would love gym class. Beating up people was something that he seemed to excel at. Especially if you believed all the rumors about Logan and how wild, violent, and crazy he and the rest of his Spartan friends were.
And he looked good doing it. Logan wore a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, exposing the muscles in his arms. The deep blue color of the shirt also brightened his icy eyes, making them seem like they were almost glowing in his face, even all the way over here on the opposite side of the gym. Logan raised up the end of his T-shirt to wipe the sweat off his face, exposing his flat, muscled stomach.
For a moment, I stopped, completely mesmerized. Just ... wow. All that and washboard abs, too. Ones that put Samson Sorensen's to shame. I wondered if all the other Spartans at Mythos were as dangerous and sexy as Logan was or if he'd just been blessed with all the bad boy charm-
An arrow thunking into the target behind me snapped me out of my reverie. I shook my head and moved on. I wasn't here to ogle Logan. I had a Valkyrie to spy on.
I hurried on and slipped out the same side door that Morgan had. The door led out to a small courtyard that connected the gym to the indoor swimming pool that was also part of the academy's massive stone sports complex.
In addition to a variety of hyacinths and lotus trees, the courtyard featured a round fountain with marble nymphs that sprayed water up into the air in a continuous stream. Like all the other academy statues, the nymphs seemed a little too lifelike to me, as though they were a breath away from leaping out of the water and stabbing whoever was closest with their sharp pointed tridents. Through the long tendrils of their seaweedlike hair, their sly, narrowed eyes all seemed to turn in my direction, watching me. Creepy. Especially since they were all naked. Yucko.
I scanned the courtyard, but I didn't see Morgan anywhere. Had she gone over into the pool area for some reason?
A soft giggle caught my attention, and I walked forward. A low voice murmured something, and the giggle came again, a little louder and a little flirtier this time. I slipped into the row of trees that lined one wall of the courtyard and followed the sound over to the far side, where a tall, twisting lotus spread its wide branches over the entire area. I drew in a breath and peeked around the tree.
Morgan McDougall and Samson Sorensen stood about twenty feet away from me, up against the back wall of the courtyard, half-hidden by a low bush.
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 porno. 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.