AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Smirk hanging off his lips, he spread out his hands. “I’m sitting right here, waiting for you to make me.”
Hondros advanced on him—fist raised to unleash a punch or his power, I couldn’t tell.
“Stop!” I jumped up, toppling my chair. “It’s my fault. I should’ve read my textbook. I knew I didn’t know any of this stuff, and I shouldn’t have assumed you’d teach the basics— Ididn’t think,” I rushed out. “I will answer the next question right, or I’ll do ten scrolls for each one I’ve missed.”
He turned on me, eyes bulging. I couldn’t even be sure he heard a word I said. “You, yourprotector”—he spat the word—“and the entire class will give me twenty scrolls if you respond incorrectly.”
“Oooh. Mean little son of Anteros, isn’t he?” Selene laughed a strange,tsking chuckle. “Fitting that a man of such misfortune should be host to the god of unrequited love. I’m sure torturing my little child of fate does make his blood run south. Surely no man or woman has given him the honor.”
I tried to mute her nastiness, focusing on the question that would seal my fellow novices’ hatred. “Agreed.”
“Where do mermaids make their home?”
Discomfort prickled the back of my neck. Everyone was staring at me.
“Help me,” I whispered, barely moving my lips.
“Why should I?”
“Because it’ll be hard to look for you if I’m buried under scrolls for the next year.”
“What was that?” Hondros demanded. “Speak up, girl.”
A sniff sounded in my ear. “Very well.”
I repeated her reply word for word. “Mermaids do not exist. Olympia was founded by people from many lands, and their history, myths, and traditions molded with those of ancient Greece to create something that is entirely their own. But there were never mermaids in Olympia. The closest creature is the half-woman, half-bird sirens who build their nests on rocky, uninhabited islands.”
A tense silence followed my response. Though we were locked on each other, I felt the eyes pinging from me to Captain Hondros.
“Correct.”
I didn’t have to breathe a sigh of relief. Half the class and all my friends did it for me.
“That just leaves the twenty scrolls on the monsters Barba answered for you.” My chest tightened. “That applies to everyone. On my desk first thing tomorrow morning. Get to work!”
“Fuck’s sake,” shouted a boy I didn’t know. “You’re pissed that you got it up the ass for boot-licking around Alex, so now you’re messing everything up for the rest of us.”
My face caught fire. I was hardly boot-licking around Alex! What was with these jerks?
Nasty, poisonous glares pinned me to my seat.
“Why did you do that?” I asked Sebastian.
“You’re welcome.”
“I didn’t say thank you!” I took out the scrolls, quills, inkwells, and other wildly old-fashioned stuff Luca put in my pack. Cell phones clearly didn’t like it in this world, but that was no excuse for not having pens. “I also didn’t ask for help.”
He chuckled. “I’m not one to sit by silently while a pretty girl is getting bullied by a grown man.”
“Don’t try that sweet, flowery, flirty shit on me. It doesn’t work.”
His smirk didn’t go anywhere. “Have we met before? Because I’m sure I’d remember if we did. What’s with all the hostility?”
I sniffed, snapping open my textbook. “No hostility. I’m just not fond of guys who smile to your face but play games behind your back. What was with all that yesterday? Refusing to show everyone your real powers? Saying that you run the school now?”
“These are my real powers. Anyone saying otherwise can prove it,” he replied, shrugging. “And I do run the school.”
“You couldn’t run your way out of a paper bag.”
