Jennifer Estep - Kiss of Frost

As always, to my mom, my grandma, and Andre

Any author will tell you that her book would not be possible without the hard work of many, many people. Here are some of the folks who helped bring Gwen Frost and the world of Mythos Academy to life:

Thanks to my agent, Annelise Robey, for all her helpful advice.

Thanks to my editor, Alicia Condon, for her sharp editorial eye and thoughtful suggestions. They always make the book so much better.

Thanks to everyone at Kensington who worked on the book.

Thanks to everyone who read the rough draft of Kiss of Frost and helped me with a plot point. Your comments were insightful and greatly appreciated.

And, finally, thanks to all the readers out there. Entertaining you is why I write books, and it's always an honor and a privilege. I hope you have as much fun reading about Gwen's adventures as I do writing them.

Happy reading!

Logan Quinn was trying to kill me.

The Spartan relentlessly pursued me, cutting me off every single time I tried to duck around him and run away. Swipe-swipe-swipe .

Logan swung his sword at me over and over again, the shining silver blade inching a little closer to my throat every single time. His muscles rippled underneath his tight longsleeved T-shirt as he smoothly moved from one attack position to the next. A smile tugged up his lips, and his ice blue eyes practically glowed with the thrill of battle. I did not glow with the thrill of battle. Cringe, yes. Glow, no.

Clang-clang-clang .

I brought up my own sword, trying to fend off Logan before he separated my head from my shoulders. Three times, I parried his blows, wincing whenever his sword hit mine, but the last time, I wasn't quite quick enough. Logan stepped forward, the edge of his sword a whisper away from kissing my throat before I could do much more than blink and wonder how it had gotten there to start with. And Logan didn't stop there. He snapped his free wrist to one side and knocked my weapon out of my hand, sending it flying across the gym. My sword somersaulted several times in the air before landing point down in one of the thick mats that covered the gym floor.

"Dead again, Gypsy girl," Logan said in a soft voice.

"That makes twelve kills in a row now."

I sighed. "I know. Believe me, I know. And I'm not any happier about it than you are."

Logan nodded, dropped the sword from my throat, and stepped back. Then he turned and looked over his shoulder at two other Spartan guys who were sprawled across the bleachers, alternately texting on their phones and watching us with bored disinterest.

"Time?" Logan asked.

Kenzie Tanaka hit a button on his phone. "Forty-five seconds. Up from thirty-five seconds the time before." "Gwen's lasting a little longer at least," Oliver Hector chimed in. "Must be the Wonder Woman T-shirt finally adding to her awesome fighting skills."

My face flushed at his snide tone. Okay, so maybe I had worn my favorite longsleeved superhero shirt this morning in hopes that it might bring me a little luck, which I seriously needed when it came to any kind of fight. But he didn't have to mock me about it, especially not in front of the others. Oliver grinned and smirked at me. I crossed my arms over my chest and gave him a dirty look.

Kenzie looked at the other Spartan. "I think it's cool that Gwen likes superheroes."

Oliver frowned. He didn't like Kenzie sticking up for me, but he didn't say anything else. I didn't know what Oliver's deal was, but he always seemed to go out of his way to annoy me. Maybe he thought he was being charming or something. Some guys at Mythos Academy were like that — they thought being total jerks was super-cool. Whatever. I had zero interest in the Spartan that way. Oh, Oliver was cute enough with his sandy blond hair, forest green eyes, bronze skin, and lazy grin. So was Kenzie, with that glossy black hair and those dark eyes. Not to mention the obvious muscles the two of them had and the lean strength that was so evident in their bodies. The only problem was that the two Spartans weren't Logan Quinn.

Logan was the one that I was interested in-even if he had already broken my heart back in the fall. Thinking about my stupid, hopeless, unreturned feelings for Logan soured my already grumpy mood, and I stalked across the mats toward my sword.

The gym at Mythos Academy was about five times the size of a regular one, with a ceiling that soared several hundred feet above my head. In some ways, it was completely normal. Bright banners marking all the various academy championships in fencing, archery, swimming, and other froufrou sports dangled from the rafters, while wooden bleachers jutted out from two of the walls. Mats covered the floor, hiding the basketball court from sight. But then there were the weapons.

Racks and racks of them were stacked against another wall, going up so high, there was a ladder attached to one side to get to the weapons on the top rows. Swords, daggers, staffs, spears, bows, and quivers full of curved, wicked-looking arrows. All of them razor sharp and ready to be picked up and used by the students, most of whom took exceptional pride in showing off their prowess with the sharp, pointed edges.

The weapons were one of the ways in which Mythos Academy was anything but normal.

I reached for my sword, which was still wobbling back and forth, reminding me of my old piano teacher's metronome slowly ticking from side to side. I reached down, but before I could tug the sword out of the mat a round silver bulge on the hilt snapped open, revealing a narrowed, angry eye.

"Another bloody defeat," Vic muttered, his displeasure giving even more bite to his British accent. "Gwen Frost, you couldn't kill a Reaper to save your bloody life." I narrowed my own eyes and glared at Vic, hoping he would get the message to shut up already before Logan and the others heard him. I didn't want to advertise the fact that I had a talking sword. I didn't want to advertise a lot of things about myself. Not at Mythos.

For his part, Vic glared right back at me, his eye a curious color that was somewhere between purple and gray. Vic wasn't alive, not exactly, but I'd come to think of him as that way. Vic was a simple enough sword-a long blade made out of silver metal. But what made the sword seem, well, human to me was the fact that the hilt was shaped like half of a man's face, complete with a nose, an ear, a mouth, and a round, bulging eye. All put together, it looked like a real person had somehow been encased there in the silver hilt. It all added up to Vic, whatever or whoever he really was.

Well, that and his bloodthirsty attitude. Vic wanted to kill things-Reapers, specifically. Until we're both bathed in their blood and hungry for more! he'd crowed to me more than once when I was alone in my dorm room practicing with him.

Please. The only things I could kill with ease were bugs. And even then only the tiny ones. The big ones crunched too much and made me feel all guilty and icked out. Doing the same to Reapers of Chaos, some seriously 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.