Kiss of Frost by Jennifer Estep Read Free Book Online Page B

about what food items could and could not be brought into the library, I got to work. Mostly, I sat behind the counter, checked out books, and looked up other ones in the computer system.
    In addition to studying, the library was one of the main places on campus where students came to Hang Out and Be Seen. And that wasn’t the only reason kids gathered here—lots of them liked to sneak off into the shadowy stacks to hook up. Occasionally, Nickamedes made me dust and clean the bookshelves, along with the glass artifact cases hidden back among the stacks. Every single time I’d find more used condoms than I did crumpled-up pieces of paper and lost pens. Yucko. I wouldn’t want to do it in the library where anyone could walk by at any second, but at Mythos, it was considered some sort of thrill. Whatever.
    Tonight, more kids than usual crowded into the library, since everyone was trying to get their homework done before taking off for the big weekend getaway. All the gossip was about the Winter Carnival. I heard more than a few excited comments as I moved through the library shelving books. Everyone seemed excited about making the trek over to one of the area ski resorts—and all the fun they had planned for when they got there.
    “Did you hear? Samson Sorensen is throwing another massive party, just like he always does. There’ll be at least five kegs there, maybe more.”
    “I know a guy who says he can get his hands on some primo pot.”
    “I wonder how many guys Morgan McDougall will sleep with during the weekend. Two? Twelve? Twenty?”
    That last comment was made by Helena Paxton, an Amazon from my English lit class with sleek, caramel-colored hair and eyes. It was followed by a round of vicious snickers and sharp, sly looks over at Morgan, who was studying by herself at a table close to the checkout counter. With her black hair, hazel eyes, and curvy body, Morgan was one of the most gorgeous girls at Mythos—and she also happened to be the academy’s most notorious slut. Seriously. Everyone knew that Morgan had been sleeping with Samson, even though he’d been dating her best friend, Jasmine, at the time.
    “Well, my money’s on twenty,” Helena answered her own catty question. “Since Morgan likes to keep herself so busy.”
    More snickers filled the air. Morgan had her back to the group of Amazons, but I could see the anger and humiliation that flushed her face. She bent down over her books a little more, but she didn’t give the other girls the satisfaction of turning around and glaring at them. Still, I felt sorry for her. I knew what it was like to be an outcast.
    Maybe it was almost getting run over by that SUV, but suddenly, I wasn’t in the mood to be nice and quiet and blend into the background like I usually did, especially not when it came to the subject of Jasmine Ashton.
    I stalked over to the table of giggling Amazons. “Hey,” I snapped. “Why don’t you guys shut up? Because you have no idea what Jasmine was really like. How mean and twisted and evil she really was. Trust me, Jasmine was not a sweet, innocent girl.”
    Jasmine might have been the prettiest, richest, and most popular girl in my second-year class, but the Valkyrie had also been a Reaper of Chaos. In fact, her whole family were Reapers, and Jasmine had faked her own death as part of a scheme to sacrifice Morgan to the evil god Loki.
    Helena stopped laughing and looked at me. “And who are you?”
    Another one of her friends spoke up. “The weird Gypsy girl. The one who found Jasmine after she was murdered.”
    The Amazon was right. I was the one who’d found Jasmine’s body one night while I was working in the Library of Antiquities. I didn’t know at the time that it was just an illusion, just a part of Jasmine’s Valkyrie magic and her plan to make Morgan pay for screwing Samson behind her back.
    I’d been stunned by Jasmine’s supposed death and even more so by the other kids’ blasé reaction to it. Deaths