Spartan Frost

CHAPTER ONE

I was going to kill her.

I wanted to kill her — more than anything else.

“Logan. Stop! It’s me! Your Gypsy girl!”

Gwen Frost said those words to me over and over again. Cajoling. Begging. Pleading. She shoved her wavy brown hair back off her face, then stretched out her hand as if she could stop me just by touching me.

I frowned and paused the vicious attack I’d been about to unleash on her. Maybe she could, given her psychometry magic, the strange power she had that let her learn about people and objects simply by touching them. Maybe all it would take to free me from this horrible, pounding agony in my head was a mere brush of her cool fingers against mine.

An angry snarl rose in the back of my throat, and my fingers tightened around the hilt of my sword, my hand wrapped so hard around the metal that it felt like a spike digging into my palm. Well, I wasn’t going to find out. I didn’t want to find out. All I wanted to do was kill her.

Gwen’s lips pulled up into a soft smile, as if my not immediately attacking her was some sign that her silly, stupid, tearful pleas were actually working. I made myself smile back at her, although I could feel how terribly twisted my face was, as though I was wearing a rubber mask stretched tight over my own skin.

Gwen crept a little closer to me … and then a little closer still …

Her sneakers squeaked, and the wooden floor of the stage creaked as she kept easing toward me one small, careful step at a time. For a moment, I stared past her, looking at the rows of padded seats that ringed the stage and wondering why the auditorium was empty. There had been plenty of people in here earlier. My dad. My uncle Nickamedes. Coach Ajax. Oliver. Kenzie. Carson. Daphne. Professor Metis. Students who were members of the Mythos Academy band. I remembered seeing all those people and more.

My eyes swept over the seats once again, but they were just as empty as before. For some reason, everyone else had vanished, leaving me alone with her.

“Logan,” Gwen said, so much love, so much sympathy, so much hope in that one soft whisper.

My gaze snapped back to her. She gave me another tentative smile, then stretched her hand out toward me again —

I swung my sword at her, trying to take her head off with one blow.

Gwen jerked back at the last second, the blade barely missing slicing into her neck and shoulders. The hopeful smile slipped off her face, and sadness sparked in her violet eyes.

For a moment, I almost felt what she did. I almost felt her disappointment. I almost felt her deep, aching sadness. I almost felt how wrong this was. But the emotions seemed like smoky whispers that I couldn’t quite hear, and the more I concentrated on them, the softer and more indistinct they became until they faded away altogether.

Then, the thing inside me rose up once more, clawing its way to the surface of my mind, ripping and tearing and shredding through all my fight, all my resistance, all my attempts to stop it.

No, not it, not a thing — Loki.