Magic Trials (Half-Blood Academy #1)(36)

“So what if I was late for a few classes?” I said. “I’m not a morning person. I like to sleep in. It’s been my lifestyle for twenty years, and I’m not going to change it overnight.”

“You will change your bad habits and attitude overnight. In fact, you’ll change them now. You’ll follow the rules like everyone else, and you’ll learn discipline. If I have to beat it into you, I will. Try me and see who wins this game in the end. I look forward to our second round.”

He shoved me away. I stumbled and nearly slammed my face into the fa?ade of a cabinet between the bunk beds. I threw a hand out, grabbed an open drawer, and thus avoided a broken nose.

I wheeled toward him and hissed. “You fucker!”

“You have no fear, no respect, and no sense of self-preservation,” he said, his face hard. “But I’ll pound all those things into your skull in no time.”

A sudden alarm buzzed in me. Axel had threatened that if I kept giving him headaches, he’d dole my punishments out to Jasper and Circe, knowing they were my weakness. What if Paxton had learned about my vulnerability? He wouldn’t hesitate at all to exploit it.

I didn’t wait for him to go there, just grabbed the sheet from Yelena’s bed and wrapped it around my chest.

“Get yourself cleaned up and attend class,” he said, steel in his voice. “You have three minutes.”

“Where’s Axel?”

“Miss him?”

“I’d take him over you any minute of the day,” I said.

A muscle twitched in his jaw. I’d hit a nerve. It seemed there was a rivalry among the demigods.

“He isn’t available, Princesa. You’re stuck with me today.”

“How tragic,” I sneered. “Axel likes me. He’d have been more pleasant.”

“He may be smitten with you for now. Even so, his father, the god, is more important than a simple girl like you. Ares summoned him to the city.”

“Which city?”

“Paris, of course. Ares stays in Paris most of the time.”

The unexpected response distracted me from my irritation. “I don’t blame him,” I said with longing. “I always wanted to go to Paris. I heard their crème brulee is top notch.” I licked my lips. “I really want to try it someday.”

“Like that’s going to happen,” he snorted, but he was looking at my lips.

I wouldn’t put it past him to do his worst to take all the good fun out of my life.

“I heard Axel calling his father when the ritual went wrong with me,” I pried.

“He did,” Paxton said dismissively. “They have a mental link. But Ares was in the middle of a negotiation with Lucifer.”

I’d once speculated that the God of War might have a dirty deal with the devil, or else how could Earth have been split so evenly into two evenly realms, one belonging to Ares and the other to Lucifer?

Politics were all dirty anyway. There were never good guys, only the lesser evil. And I still wasn’t exactly sure which one was the lesser evil since I hadn’t met either the god or the devil.

I arched an eyebrow. “Negotiation for what?”

The Demigod of Sea sent me a harsh look. “That’s none of your business.”

Probably not.

I shrugged just to irritate him. His gaze landed on my bare shoulders as if he wanted to remove the sheet from me and run his hands over my bare skin.

A shiver passed over me as heat rose between my thighs.

For a second, I must have looked confused. How could I still feel attracted to this demigod? He was an utter ass.

“Did Ares ever get back to Axel about the reason the ritual went awry with me?”

“Am I your messenger boy?” he hissed.

I sighed. As I’d said, an utter ass. But I didn’t need this hostility so early in the day.

“What about Zak?” I asked hopefully. “He can’t be away, too, right? He should have come to get me instead of you.”

A dark light flashed through Paxton’s eyes, turning the violet color to deep purple as the sea demigod grew angrier.

“Why am I even answering your questions?” he grated. “No one dares to question a demigod. No more stalling, Marigold. You’re going to class, and you have two minutes left now. If you aren’t ready by then, I’ll drag you across the campus whether you have clothes on or not.”

He wasn’t kidding. He was ruthless.

I rolled my eyes, but I started searching for my name tag among the rows of drawers in the cabinet. My clothes should be inside one of these.

My mood was foul by the time I’d found the name Marigold, pulled open the drawer, and yanked out a uniform along with a pair of new boots.

I hoped that they got my size right, especially the shoes.

I didn’t spare the demigod a glance as I took my uniform to the public bath chamber half a block away from my dormitory.

He didn’t follow. I hoped that he’d leave while I changed.

For a second, I thought about running, but I gave up the idea before a plan formed.

I cleaned myself in record time, put on my uniform of blue and gray, and stood in front of a mirror before the sink.

I hadn’t really looked at myself in a long time.

And now, a woman who hadn’t completely lost the roundness in her cheeks stared back at me. She had elegant, long eyebrows that didn’t need to be plucked into shape. Her lips were pink and full. Under her dark, thick eyelashes, her green eyes had the color of an untamed forest and the energy of a firestorm. There was so much life I stepped a pace back in shock.