Kiss of Frost

Chapter 11

Preston got to his feet and held out his hand. I slipped my bare fingers into his palm, enjoying the smooth feel of his glove on my skin. A second later, my pscyhometry kicked in and showed me an image of Preston sitting in a dark car and pulling on the black gloves.

No big whoop. It was exactly the kind of thing I'd expected to see, exactly the kind of thing I had seen hundreds of times before when touching someone's clothes. Usually, I barely noticed those sorts of flashes, although this time, I felt like there was more to the memory, something hovering right at the edge of my mind. Something important…

Before I could focus on it, Preston pulled me to the right. Instead of going toward the hotel, he was heading around the side of the building and the shadows there. My heart thumped even faster in my chest. If he took me back there and tried to kiss me, I wassogoing to let him-

The door to the coffee shop jangled opened, and Logan stepped outside.

Logan's sudden appearance startled me so much that I let go of Preston's hand. The beginning of the glove memory, whatever it had been, vanished as soon as I broke contact. And of course, I slipped on that stupid patch of black ice again. This time, I managed to catch myself before I fell on my ass.

Logan reached out a hand to help me, but I waved him off. One, because I'd embarrassed myself enough already. And two, because he wasn't wearing gloves. If I touched Logan's bare skin, I didn't know what kind of flash I'd get off him. I certainly didn't want to see him kissing Savannah or something else like that. I'd already witnessedthatenough times in real life. Besides, I might discover how he felt about the Amazon, and if my magic told me that he really cared about her, well, that would only hurt me even more.

Logan saw my wary look at his outstretched fingers. His hand curled into a tight fist, and he dropped it to his side. Not too long ago, the Spartan had tried to kiss me, but just before our lips had touched, I'd realized I'd flash on him when he did-and that maybe I wouldn't like what I'd see.

I hadn't known Logan all that well back then, and I'd been afraid that I'd sense that he was laughing at me or just kissing me because he felt sorry for me, because he thought I was a total loser freak or would be an easy lay. He did have a reputation as a man-whore, after all, and those weren't exactly the sort of things you wanted to feel when you were making out with the cute guy you liked. I had some experience with that, since I'd once flashed on Drew Squires, my first and only boyfriend, and had realized that he was thinking about another girl while he was kissing me. I'd dumped Drew right then and there, but that still hadn't taken away my pain.

So I'd pulled back that night from Logan at the very last second-and I'd hurt his feelings because of it. He'd thought I hadn't wanted to kiss him because he was a Spartan, because they had a reputation for being so vicious and violent. I'd tried to explain about my psychometry magic, but he hadn't understood. From the dark expression on his face, it looked like he didn't understand right now either.

"Gypsy girl," Logan said, staring at Preston instead of me. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Preston. Preston, Logan. Logan goes to the North Carolina academy with me," I said.

Preston held out his hand, which Logan reluctantly took and shook. I'd thought this would be the end of things and that Logan would head back inside to the party and Savannah, but instead the Spartan crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the side of the building. Like he expected Preston and me to stay put and talk to him or something. Weird. Very weird.

"Spartan?" Preston asked, eyeing Logan's relaxed stance.

Logan nodded. He didn't ask what Preston was, which I thought was kind of rude. I might not know all the ins and outs of Mythos Academy, but sharing what kind of warrior you were was one of the main conversation starters between the kids at the different branches. I'd heard tons of them ask each other that question up on the ski slopes today, and I'd chatted with a few of the New York students myself. At least until they'd all started staring at me and asking me what kind of warrior a Gypsy really was and what kind of power I had.

It wasn't exactly a hush-hush secret that Gypsies were people gifted with magic by the gods, but it wasn't common knowledge either. Most of the kids and even some of the professors at Mythos thought I was just a different kind of warrior, which technically, I guess I was. I didn't really understand why so few people had heard of Gypsies before. It was something I kept meaning to ask Grandma Frost or Professor Metis about.

"Well, Logan," I said in a bright voice. "I'm sure you want to go back inside where it's warm. Preston and I were just leaving."

"Oh? Where were you going?" Logan asked. "Maybe I'll tag along. This party's getting a little tame. All the beer is gone already."

I frowned. Why would Logan want to go with Preston and me? I mean, hello, the two of us had been about to disappear into the shadows and totally make out. Logan had to have guessed that. He had plenty of experience in that area. Maybe it was the way the Spartan stared at Preston, with icy, narrowed eyes, but suddenly, the strangest thought filled my mind. Logan wasn't-he couldn't be-there was no way that he wasjealous. Was he?

Preston looked at Logan, then back at me. His eyebrows shot up in his face. He realized something was going on between Logan and me. I wish he'd clue me in on exactly what it was, because I had no idea.

"Actually, I should go check on my friends. They're over at another party across the village." Preston turned to me and grinned. "But I'd love to see you tomorrow. Maybe we can have lunch?"

My heart lifted, and a matching grin curved my lips. He wanted to see me again. Maybe he really did like me after all. I felt like doing a happy dance, but of course, I was way too cool for that. I'd at least wait until I got back to my hotel room, alone, where no one would see.

"It's a date," I said.

We pulled out our cell phones and swapped numbers.

"Just text me when you want to hook up, okay?" I told Preston.

He nodded, then gave me another killer smile. "I will. I had fun tonight, Gwen."

I smiled back at him. "Me, too."

For a second, Preston hesitated, like he was going to lean forward and kiss me on the cheek, but then his gaze cut to Logan, and he thought better of it. Preston nodded at me, stuffed his gloved hands into his jacket pockets, and set off across the alpine village.

As soon as he was out of sight, I whirled around and stabbed my finger at Logan, not quite poking him in the chest. "What the hell was that about?"

"What are you doing, Gypsy girl?" Logan asked in a soft voice, instead of answering my question. "You don't even know that guy."

My mouth dropped open, and anger burned through my veins, chasing away the chill of the falling snow. "Oh, cut the double-standard bullshit. I'd say I know just as much about Preston as you do about all the girls you've slept with. How many mattresses have you signed at Mythos, anyway? I'm willing to bet it's more than Preston has up in New York."

Logan's jaw tightened, but he didn't deny any of it. We both knew he had a reputation as a man-whore, whether or not it was actually true.

"What was I doing? I was trying to have somefun," I snapped. "That's what we're all here for this weekend, remember? To get totally drunk, wasted, and hook up with random kids from the other academy. According to Daphne, it's a yearly tradition. Besides, what do you care? You came here with Savannah tonight-not me."

Logan stared at me, emotions flickering in his bright blue gaze. "I do-I do care," he finally said, running his hand through his dark hair and melting the flakes of snow that had gathered there. "More than I should. Way more than I should."

These were the words I'd wanted him to say to me for weeks now, ever since I'd asked him out back in the fall. Even now, they made my whole body quiver with happiness. But I was so angry at him for coming between Preston and me-for butting in when he shouldn't have and ruining the moment. Who I talked to was none of his damn business. Ditto for who I made out with.

The happiness and anger battled for control in my chest like a pair of ancient Greco-Roman wrestlers. It didn't take long for the anger to put the happiness in a headlock.

"You care? Really? It sure doesn't seem like it to me, since every time I turn around, you're sticking your tongue down Savannah Warren's throat-right in front of me."

Logan grimaced. "You don't understand. I like Savannah just fine, but you're-you're different, Gypsy girl. Special. You always have been, ever since that first day when you ran into me out on the quad and gave me a piece of your mind."

I arched an eyebrow. "Different? Special? Really? If I'm sospecial,if I matter somuchto you, then why did you turn me down when I wanted to go out? Huh, Logan? Why would you do that if you weresointo me?"

He didn't answer, but I could see the anguish flickering in his eyes. The hurt in his face made me want to reach out, to comfort him somehow, but I pushed away the feeling and made my heart as cold as the snow falling around us. I had to be ruthless right now, just like he'd been when he told me that we couldn't be together, that we couldn't even go out on one simple date.

"Let me guess. You're still keeping that big, big secret from me. The one you think I can't handle. The one that will make me not like you anymore." I rolled my eyes. "Whatever. I don't want to understand you and your stupid, twisted logic anyway. Just leave me alone, Spartan, and I'll do the same to you."

I whirled around and stalked away, heading toward the hotel.

"Gwen. Stop. Please."

He called me by my name, which meant he was serious. That was the only time he used my name, instead of jokingly referring to me as "Gypsy girl," the nickname he'd given me the first day we'd met. For once, I was too pissed to care. I kept walking.

But Logan had other ideas. I hadn't taken three steps before he grabbed my arms and turned me around. Stupid Spartan reflexes. He was so much quicker than I was. It just wasn't fair, and his grip was too strong for me to easily break. Before I knew it, Logan had backed me up against the corner of the building. We stood in the shadows, out of sight of the windows and the bright glow of lights spilling out of the coffee shop.

Logan's face was close to mine-so close that his hot breath caressed my cheek. So close that I could see the silvery flecks in his ice blue eyes. So close that I could smell his faint, spicy scent. So close that I could feel the strength of him pressing against me, making me ache for something I knew would be scary and wonderful and heartbreaking all at the same time. Something that made me long to be alone in the dark with him, touching him skin to skin-with no secrets of any kind between us. Just feelings-all these feelings.

The flakes of snow kept pouring down, and clouds of frost filled the air between us, our breaths kissing back and forth. Looking at us from a distance, you would have probably thought we were a couple who'd snuck out of the party early to have a little quiet time together. But we weren't a couple, we weren't those happy people at all, and that realization made me miserable.

Because even now, I wanted him to kiss me-wanted him to want me just as much as I did him.

"Look, I'm sorry," Logan said in a low voice. "I just didn't like seeing you with that other guy. I saw the two of you talking through the window, and when you got up, I knew you were leaving with him."

"You're such a damnhypocrite. You had no right to come out here and get between us," I whispered in a fierce voice. "No right at all. Not while you're with Savannah."

"I know."

He didn't say anything else, and the snow continued to drift down, a curtain shutting out the rest of the world. Even the noise of the party seemed dim and distant now. Or maybe that was because Logan was filling up my senses until there wasn't room for anything else.

The seconds stretched out and turned into a minute, then two. Still, he didn't say anything-he just kept looking at me with his blue, blue gaze.

"Kiss me or let me go," I finally said in a miserable voice, hot tears stinging my eyes. "I don't care anymore."

Logan's face softened. "I never meant to hurt you. That's the last thing I would ever want to do. I care about you too much for that, Gwen."

Gwen. I closed my eyes at the sound of him saying my name. At the faint rumble of his deep, sexy voice. I couldn't bear to look at him. Maybe it was dark and twisted of me, but right now, for this one second, I wanted to pretend that wewerea couple. That we really were out here in the dark — alone-together.

"Gwen," Logan repeated, a faint, pleading note in his voice.

I still didn't open my eyes. Silence. Then-

"Gwen." A husky whisper, full of all the longing I felt.

Logan's breath grew hotter on my face, and I knew that his lips were inching toward mine. My fingers dug into his shoulders, and I waited for him to kiss me. For the images and feelings to fill my mind. ForLoganto fill my mind until there was nothing else-

The door to the coffee shop banged against the side of the building. My eyes snapped open, but Logan had already drawn back. And there was this look on his face of… ofrelief. I knew it was because he hadn't kissed me. Because I hadn't touched him, hadn't flashed on him, which meant that his deep, dark secret-whatever it might be- was still safe.

Giggles filled the night air, along with flashing pink sparks. Daphne and Carson stumbled outside, both of them a little tipsy, and their arms wrapped around each other. Carson's glasses sat crooked on his face, and lip gloss shimmered on one of his cheeks. It looked like he and Daphne had been having averygood time inside at the party. The happy couple took one look at Logan and me, still locked together in the shadows, and their laughter cut off.

"Gwen?" Daphne asked, staring at the two of us. "Is something wrong?"

"Let go of me," I muttered in a low voice.

Logan dropped his arms and stepped back.

"No," I said, keeping my gaze fixed on my friends instead of looking at Logan. "Everything's fine. I'm ready to leave. Are you guys?"

The Valkyrie glanced at Carson, who nodded. "Yeah. We're ready," Carson said.

"Good. Let's go."

I brushed by Logan, so close that I felt his breath kiss my cheek once more, before breaking free and heading toward the hotel. Daphne and Carson scrambled to catch up with me. I didn't look back at Logan, even though I knew the Spartan was watching me the whole time.

I'd be damned if I let him see the tears in my eyes.

"Who does Logan Quinn think he is?" I fumed, stalking from one side of the hotel room to the other. "Can you believe him? He's got some nerve!"

Daphne rolled her eyes and hit a few buttons on her laptop. "Yeah, yeah. That's the same thing you've been saying for an hour now, Gwen. If you don't stop pacing, you're going to wear a hole in the carpet."

After my almost-kiss with Logan, I'd hurried back to the hotel as fast as I could, with Daphne and Carson right on my heels. They'd been worried about me, but I'd forced myself to put on a calm face, even though my emotions ate away at my heart like acid rain dripping everywhere. I'd already ruined their buzz from the party, so I told my friends that I was fine and was going to the room to take a shower. Then I'd gotten in the elevator and left them in the lobby so they could enjoy some time alone together.

Daphne had come up to our room an hour later, lips red, cheeks flushed, her magic crackling like crazy. She looked like a girl who'd just had a hot, intense, totally enjoyable make-out session with her boyfriend. I envied her. Oh, how I envied her.

I'd had some time to think while Daphne had been with Carson, and I'd gone from heartbroken and melancholy to seriously pissed at the fact that Logan had the power to make me heartbroken and melancholy in the first place. Now, I was in a "bloody fit," as Vic would say.

I glanced over at the sword. Vic was safe and snug in his black leather scabbard, and I'd leaned him against the dresser within easy reach. The sword's eye was closed, and his mouth was relaxed in a way that meant he was sleeping. No surprise. Vic usually snoozed whenever Daphne came over to my dorm room. The sword claimed that all the "bloody girl talk" bored him.

"I can't believe the nerve of Logan," I muttered again and resumed my pacing. Since the room was so big, it took me several seconds to stalk from one side to the other.

Daphne pushed down the screen of her laptop and crossed her arms over her chest. Her pink Hello Kitty pajamas matched the stickers that decorated her computer case.

"So what are you going to do about it?" the Valkyrie asked. "Are you going to make a play for Logan and take him away from Savannah? The way he was staring at you outside the coffee shop, I think you could totally do that. He really does like you, you know. You should have seen the look on his face when he was holding you. It wasintense. Even for a Spartan. I've seen some of them in full battlerage mode who didn't look that focused."

"Well, he's got a funny way of showing it." I flopped down onto the bed. "And I'm not going to take him away from Savannah. I'm not Morgan McDougall. I don't go around stealing other girls' boyfriends."

"Morgan doesn't exactly steal them," Daphne pointed out. "She just sleeps with them on the sly."

I thought about how sad Morgan had looked, first in the library earlier this week and then again tonight outside the coffee shop. I felt bad talking about the Valkyrie like she was just the school slut and nothing more. She had feelings, too, just like the rest of us did. "Whatever. The point is that I'm not like her, and I don't want to be. Not even for Logan freaking Quinn."

"So what are you going to do?" the Valkyrie asked again, opening her laptop once more.

I stared up at the ceiling. WhatwasI going to do? Despite everything that had happened tonight, I still had a crazy, crazy crush on Logan. But nothing was ever going to come of it. For starters, he was dating another girl. Sure, Logan said that he cared about me, but he still had this big, bad secret he wanted to hide from me, something that just wasn't possible given my Gypsy gift. As soon as I touched him, my psychometry would kick in and show me his secret whether I wanted to see it or not. I didn't even have to kiss him-just holding his hand long enough would do the trick. Kind of hard to date a guy when you couldn't risk even touching him, especially when that guy was Logan, who I so badly wanted to touch-in all sorts of ways.

And then there was Preston. Before Logan had interrupted us, we'd been having fun getting to know each other. I liked Preston, and I thought he liked me, too- at least enough to want to hang out with me this weekend. He had asked me to meet him for lunch tomorrow.

Maybe-maybe Preston could be my rebound guy. Someone to help me get over this stupid, hopeless crush I had on Logan. In fact, Preston would be aperfectrebound guy, since I wouldn't see him after the weekend and the Winter Carnival were over. He'd go back to the New York academy, and I'd go back to Mythos. So why not have a little fun while we were both here together?

I raised myself up on my elbows. "What am I going to do? I'm going to have lunch with Preston tomorrow like he asked me to and forget Logan even exists."

Daphne grinned. "Now you're talking. You'll have to introduce me to Preston. I really want to see for myself how gorgeous he is."

"You didn't see him tonight? We were sitting right outside the coffee shop."

Daphne shook her head. "Nope, I was too busy dancing with Carson and then keeping this trashy Amazon from getting her hands on him. She was totally making do-me eyes at Carson from across the room, and she tried to horn in on us while we were dancing. Slut. She's going to be sorry she did that, especially since she kept on even after I told her that Carson was taken."

The Valkyrie hit some more keys on her laptop, her black eyes glittering with anger. Pink sparks of magic shot out of her fingertips, like mini streaks of lightning.

I frowned. "Is that what you're doing? Looking up that other girl online?"

Daphne nodded. "The New York academy has a Web site, just like we do, where students can blog and post photos and stuff. Which is why you need to introduce me to your mystery guy. I looked, but there are no Prestons listed on the site. Apparently, your guy decided not to post his photo and set up his online student profile. Ah, there's the Amazon. Calinda Lopez."

Daphne's fingers picked up speed, and she started muttering under her breath. "Come on, baby. We can crack that pesky firewall… "

In addition to being a Valkyrie, Daphne also had some major computer skills. She was in the Tech Club at Mythos, which was really just an after-school group for all the budding hackers at the academy. In fact, Daphne had used her skills to help me break the password on Jasmine Ashton's laptop, back when I'd been investigating Jasmine's fake murder. That was how we'd become friends. Of course, I'd blackmailed Daphne into helping me to start with, but I thought it had all worked out okay in the end.

"Uh, what are you doing?"

Daphne shrugged. "Nothing much. Just erasing all of Calinda's good grades and replacing them with incompletes. Eventually, the administrators will figure out what happened, but I'm making it look like a computer error. Still, I imagine she'll get some nasty lectures from her profs and parents in the meantime."

I shook my head. "Remind me not to piss you off, because you're a total vindictive bitch when you're angry. There are supervillains in my comic books who could learn a thing or two from you."

The Valkyrie stuck out her tongue, then gave me a maniacal grin. "You'd better believe it, Gypsy."

Daphne focused on her laptop and went back to her Internet stalking, hacking, and general mayhem. I crawled under the covers and tucked my pillow underneath my head.

Preston, I thought. Tomorrow, I'd have lunch with Preston, and we'd have a great time together. We'd hang out and laugh and talk and just have fun. I thought about him then, about his blue eyes, his white blond hair, his cute dimples.

But no matter how much I tried to hold on to the image, no matter how hard I concentrated, Preston's face melted into Logan's the second I closed my eyes.