I know. Tell her I’m sorry. Again.
The phone beeped back a few seconds later. Come tell her yourself, Spartan.
I sighed. I couldn’t do that, and Oliver knew it. Still, he asked me when I was coming back to the academy every time we texted. I sent him back a reply saying that I had to go, then stuffed my phone into my jeans pocket. Even though I’d lost much of my appetite, I made myself eat another piece of pizza, just so Dad and the others wouldn’t realize that anything was wrong.
Dad, Sergei, and Inari grabbed some plates, napkins, and forks, along with their own slices of pizza and some sodas from the fridge. Sergei and Inari took seats in the middle of the long table, and I grabbed a fourth slice and sat across from them. Dad was the last one to come over, and he hesitated, his eyes once again flicking to his usual seat. But after a moment, he came around the table and took the chair next to mine. He gave me a tentative smile. I grinned back at him.
The mood was much lighter than it had been when the four of us had been in the kitchen this morning, and I soon found myself relaxing and talking and joking with the others. We all knew we’d beaten the Reapers—for today, at least.
For once, everything felt like it was finally getting back to normal—until Dad’s cell phone rang about halfway through dinner. Then again, that was pretty normal too.
He leaned over, picked it up, glanced at the number, and frowned. He looked at me, then started to set it down like he wasn’t going to take the call.
“It’s okay, Dad,” I said in a quiet voice. “You should probably get that.”
“Are you sure? It can wait until after dinner. We were having . . . fun, and I don’t want work to interrupt that,” he said. “Not anymore.”
Sergei and Inari kept eating, although they glanced back and forth between the two of us.
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure. And I’m okay with it too.”
The phone kept ringing, but he still didn’t answer it.
“Take it, Dad,” I said. “Maybe the techs have some info about what the Reapers were doing in the study.”
He stared at me a few seconds longer, before finally nodding and raising the phone to his ear. “Yes?”
The person on the other end of the line started speaking, the words sharp, clipped, and hurried. Whatever was said couldn’t have been good because my dad’s mouth immediately flattened out into a stern line, and he started tap-tap-tapping his index finger on the table, a sure sign he was upset. Inari and Sergei exchanged a glance. They knew that tight, worried look on his face as well as I did.
“When?” he finally barked out. “And how exactly?”
Another flurry of words.
“Can you stop it?” he asked. “Or at least slow it down? What’s your plan of attack?”
Silence. Then, more words, slower and lower this time.
“All right,” he finally said. “I’ll call some other members of the Protectorate and see if there’s any research on it. If we find anything, I’ll let you know immediately. Keep me posted.”
He finally hung up. Dad stared at his phone for a few seconds before setting it off to one side of the table. He’d barely taken his fingers off it before my own phone started buzzing. I pulled it out of my jeans and glanced at the screen. Oliver was calling me about something, actually calling to talk to me. Weird. He usually preferred to text.
“Who’s that?” Dad asked, his voice still sharp.
“Oliver.”
I started to answer the phone, but Dad shook his head.
“I know what he’s calling about,” he finally said. “Something’s happened. In North Carolina. At the academy. In the library, actually.”
Oliver had been in the library earlier—and so had Gwen.
“To Gwen?” An icy fist clutched my heart. “What? What happened? Is she okay?”
“Not exactly.”
Dad filled me in on what had happened, whom he’d been talking to, and what they’d told him about the incident at the academy. Every word he said only added to my anger at the Reapers, especially Agrona, who’d no doubt gleefully planned the whole thing.
In that moment, I made a silent promise to myself that I was going to find my stepmom and make her pay for everything she’d done. Wherever she was hiding, whatever deep, dark hole she was hunkered down in, however many other Reapers she was cowering behind, I was going to track her down and deal with her the way a real Spartan would. Agrona wasn’t going to hurt anyone else that I cared about. Never again, I vowed, my hands curling into hard, tight fists.
Still, the rage burning in my heart was nothing compared to the sudden, horrible, gut-wrenching fear I felt for Gwen and the rest of my friends at Mythos Academy.
Because, now, they were in more danger than ever before—and I didn’t know what could be done to save them.
Author photo: Andre Teague
New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Estep is constantly prowling the streets of her imagination in search of her next fantasy idea. Jennifer writes the Mythos Academy young adult urban fantasy series for Kensington and the Elemental Assassin urban fantasy series for Pocket Books. She is also the author of the Bigtime paranormal romance series.
Jennifer is a member of Romance Writers of America, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and other writing groups. Jennifer’s books have been featured in Cosmopolitan, Entertainment Weekly, Southern Living, and a variety of other publications.
To learn more about her, visit www.jenniferestep.com. You can also sign up for Jennifer’s fan page on Facebook and follow her on Twitter and Goodreads.
What Bad, Bad Things have happened to Gwen and the others at Mythos Academy while Logan’s been gone? Turn the page for a sneak peek at Midnight Frost, available August 2013.
“Now,” Agrona said. “We can finally proceed. If it pleases you, my lord?”
She and Vivian both turned and looked over their shoulders. I’d been so focused on the two of them that I hadn’t realized a third figure was sitting on the steps in the exact center of the amphitheater.
Instead of a robe, shadows wrapped around his body, curling, writhing, and wisping around him like smoke hovering over a fire. Slowly, the darkness began to spread out from him, unrolling like a carpet over the steps, smothering the soft, rainbow flashes of color in the stone, and staining everything a horrible, unending black. All I could see of his features were his eyes—one a vivid blue, the other that burning Reaper red that I hated more than anything else—but I shivered with fear all the same.
Because somehow, someway, Loki, the evil Norse god of chaos, was here at Mythos Academy.
“My lord?” Agrona asked again.
“Proceed,” Loki answered, his voice booming through the auditorium, louder than any clap of thunder. “Kill the Frost girl—now.”
K TEEN BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2013 by Jennifer Estep
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ISBN: 978-0-7582-9477-7
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