Kiss of Frost

bad guys, was totally out of the question.

'What are you going to do when a real Reaper attacks you?' Vic demanded. 'Run away and hope he doesn't chase after you?'

Actually, that sounded like an excellent plan to me, but I knew Vic wouldn't see it that way. Neither would Logan, Kenzie, or Oliver, since the guys were all Spartans, descended from a long line of magical, mythological warriors. Killing things was as natural as breathing to them. It was what they'd been trained to do since birth, along with all the other kids at the academy.

For the most part, the guys at Mythos were either Vikings or Romans, while the girls were Valkyries or Amazons. But tons of other ancient warrior types attended the academy, everyone from Samurais and Ninjas, to Celts, to the Spartans in front of me.

Killing was definitely not natural to me, but I'd been thrust into this twisted world back at the start of the school year. That's when I'd first started attending Mythos, after a serious freak-out with my Gypsy magic back at my old public high school. Now the academy-with all its warrior whiz kids, scary Reaper bad guys, mythological monsters, and an angry, vengeful god-was a place that I just couldn't escape, no matter how much I would have liked to. Especially since there was a goddess counting on me to do something about all the Bad, Bad Things out there in the world-and the ones hidden here on campus too. 'Shut up, Vic,' I growled, tugging the sword free of the mat.

I felt Vic's mouth move underneath my palm like he was going to give me some more backtalk, but then he let out a loud harrumph and his eye snapped shut. I sighed again. Now, he was in one of his moods,which meant I was going to have to cajole him to open his eye and speak to me again later in the day. Maybe I'd turn on the TV in my dorm room and see if there was some kind of action- adventure movie playing. Watching the bad guys get theirs always seemed to bring Vic out of one of his funks, and the bloodier the movie, the better he liked it.

'Who are you talking to, Gwen?'

Oliver Hector's voice sounded right beside me, and I had to clamp my lips together to keep from shrieking in surprise. I hadn't heard the Spartan come up behind me. 'Nobody.'

He gave me a look that said he thought I was a complete freak, then shook his head. 'Come on. Logan wants you to practice shooting targets next.'

I looked around, but Logan had disappeared while I'd been talking to Vic. So had Kenzie Tanaka. They'd probably gone to get an energy drink out of one of the vending machines outside the gym, leaving me alone with Oliver. Great.

Even grumpier than before, I stalked behind Oliver over to the other side of the gym, where an archery target had been set up. The Spartan headed for one of the weapons racks while I kept going toward the bleachers. The four of us had dumped our bags on the bleachers when we'd first come into the gym at seven this morning. I'd only been going to Mythos a few months, and I hadn't had the lifelong warrior training that the other students had. Now, I was struggling to catch up, which meant schlepping over to the gym every morning for an hour's worth of work with Logan and his friends before my regular classes started.

Out of all the kids at the academy, the Spartans were the best warriors, and Professor Metis had thought that they could whip me into shape in no time flat. It wasn't working out that way, though. I just wasn't warrior material, no matter what some people-goddess included-thought. I slid Vic into his black leather scabbard and laid him flat on one of the bleachers, so he wouldn't fall off. I'd already dropped the sword enough times today. Then I reached into my gray messenger bag for a mirror and brush, so I could pull my hair back into a tighter, neater ponytail, since it had come undone while I'd been sparring with Logan. I squinted at my reflection in the smooth glass. Wavy brown hair, winter white skin dotted here and there with a few freckles, and eyes that were a strange shade of purple. Violet eyes are smiling eyes, my mom had always said. I thought of how easily Logan had kicked my ass while we'd been training.

Nope, I wasn't smiling about anything this morning.

When I was done fixing my hair, I put the mirror and brush back into my bag and threw it onto the bleachers. In the process, my bag hit Oliver's and knocked his to the floor because I was just that kind of total, uncoordinated klutz. And of course the top of his bag popped open, and all kinds of stuff spilled out, tumbling over the mats. Pens, pencils, books, his iPod, a laptop, some silver throwing daggers.

Sighing, I got down on my knees and started scooping everything back into the bag, careful to use the edge of my sleeve so as to not actually touch anything with my bare fingers. I had no desire to see into the inner workings of Oliver Hector's mind, but that's what would happen if I wasn't careful.

I managed to get everything back into the bag except for a thick red notebook. A couple of the metal rings had been bent out of shape, and they snagged on the fabric every time I tried to slide the notebook back into the bag where it belonged. I just didn't have a long enough sleeve to bend all the metal down, and I couldn't get a good grip with the soft cotton anyway. Exasperated, I took hold of the metal with my sleeve, so I wouldn't scrape my skin, then grabbed the bottom of the notebook with my bare hand.

The images hit me the second my fingers touched the red cover.

A picture of Oliver popped into my head, one of the Spartan leaning over the desk in his dorm room and writing in the notebook. One by one, the images flashed by, giving me a condensed, high-def version of Oliver alternately doodling, drawing, and scribbling furiously in the notebook.

After a few seconds, the feelings kicked in, and I started experiencing Oliver's emotions, too. All the things he'd felt when he'd been writing in his notebook. The dull boredom of doing class assignments, the annoyed frustration of trying to understand some of the complicated homework, and then, surprisingly, a soft, dreamy fizz that warmed my whole body-

'What are you doing? That's mine,' Oliver snapped in a harsh voice.

I shook off the images and feelings, and looked up. The Spartan stood over me, his features tight and pinched. 'Sorry,' I snapped back. 'I didn't think a guy like you would be so protective of his notebook. What's in here that's so supersecret? A list of everyone you've slept with?

Let me guess. You don't want me to know who you've been hooking up with. You want to tell everyone yourself because that's what all the guys at Mythos do-brag about their stupid conquests, right?'

Oliver's face actually paled at my words. Seriously. He just went white with shock. For a second, I wondered why, but then I realized he must have heard about my psychometry-about my magic.

I wasn't a warrior like the other kids at Mythos-not exactly-but I wasn't completely without skills, either. I was a Gypsy, a person gifted with magic by one of the gods. In my case, that magic was psychometry, or the ability to touch an object and immediately know, see, and feel its history.

My Gypsy gift, my psychometry, was actually cooler-and a little scarier-than it sounded. Not only could I see who had once worn a bracelet or read a book, no matter how long ago it had been, but I also could feel that person's emotions. Everything she'd been thinking, feeling, and experiencing when she'd been wearing that bracelet or reading that book. Sometimes everything she'd ever felt, seen, or done over a whole lifetime, if her attachment to the object was strong enough. I could tell if a person had been happy or sad, good or bad, smart or dumb, or a thousand other things.

My magic let me know people's secrets-let me see and feel all the things they kept hidden from others and even themselves sometimes. All their conflicting emotions, all the sly things they'd done, all the things they only dreamed about doing in the deepest, blackest parts of their hearts. Maybe it was dark and twisted of me, but I liked knowing other people's secrets. I liked the power that the knowledge gave me, especially since I didn't have any of the wicked cool fighting skills the other kids at Mythos did. Knowing other people's secrets was sort of an obsession of mine- one that had almost led to me getting killed a few weeks ago.

It was also the reason I held on to Oliver's notebook now. I'd totally expected the boredom and the frustration I'd sensed. Those were both emotions I'd felt many times before when I'd touched other kids' notebooks, computers, pens, and all the other ordinary, everyday objects they used to do their schoolwork.

But that warm, soft, fizzy feeling? Not so much. I knew what it was though: love. Or at least like- serious like.

Oliver had a major, major crush on someone, enough to write about that person in his notebook, and I wanted to know who it was. Since, you know, secrets were my own form of crack.

I concentrated on the notebook again, on that soft, fizzy, hopeful feeling, and a hazy image started to form in my mind, someone with dark hair, black hair-