Spartan Destiny

by Estep, Jennifer

  Logan shook his head. “Nope.”

  I blinked. That wasn’t what I’d expected him to say. “Why not?”

  “Because you’re a Spartan, Rory, the same as me,” he said in a serious voice. “In a lot of ways, I would say that you’re exactly like me.”

  My eyes narrowed. “And what ways would those be?”

  Logan reached up and rubbed his neck, just like he had earlier at the briefing table. And once again, he realized what he was doing, dropped his hand to his side, and curled his fingers into a tight fist. He let out a breath and forced himself to slowly relax his hand. Then he lifted his head and looked at me again.

  “We’re both scared to death of becoming Reapers. Of being controlled. Of being someone else’s puppet. And we’re especially scared of hurting the people we love.” His last few words came out a hoarse whisper, but pain reverberated through each and every one of the soft syllables.

  “What was it like?” I asked. “When Agrona snapped that gold collar full of Apate jewels around your neck? When she took control of you and ordered you to kill Gwen?”

  This time, both of Logan’s hands curled into tight fists, his jaw clenched, and his blue eyes grew dark and distant with memories. The seconds ticked by, and he stayed like that, as though he was frozen in place by the awful thoughts running through his mind, just like I had been when I had looked at the spot where my parents were murdered.

  I didn’t think he was going to answer, but Logan finally reached out and tapped his index finger on the glass case that contained the black Chloris box.

  “It was a lot like being an artifact.”

  I frowned. Again, that wasn’t what I’d expected him to say. “What do you mean?”

  He tapped his finger on the glass again. “For the most part, I still had all of my own thoughts, feelings, and memories. But it felt like everything that was really, truly me was trapped inside a glass case, and that the person who was in control was this other me, this other Logan, the one Agrona was ordering around. I fought as hard as I could, but no matter what I tried or how much I struggled, I just couldn’t break free of that damned glass case.”

  His mouth twisted. “At least, not until Gwen used her psychometry power on me.”

  Gwen’s psychometry magic let her touch any object and automatically know its history, but her power also let her touch other people and either take emotions and memories out of them or push them right back in. That was what she’d done to Logan when Agrona had ordered him to kill her. Gwen had used her magic to remind the Spartan who he really was and how much he loved her.

  “That sounds horrible,” I said. “Being stuffed in a glass case. Not being…yourself.”

  Logan tapped his finger on the glass a third time. “It was horrible. It was the most horrible, helpless feeling in the whole world, especially for a Spartan like me. And then, afterward, to realize what I’d done, that I had actually stabbed Gwen, that I had almost killed her…” His voice trailed off, but his pain echoed in the silence all around us.

  Neither one of us spoke for several seconds. Then I cleared my throat.

  “Covington has almost turned me into a Reaper twice now. Once with an Apate ring at the Cormac Museum and then again a few weeks ago with a red narcissus seed at the Idun Estate. I’m afraid that the next time he tries, he’ll finally succeed. That he’ll turn me into his Reaper puppet. That he’ll make me hurt my friends. That he’ll make me kill them.” This time, my voice was the one that came out as a hoarse whisper.

  Logan nodded, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. He understood my fear, probably better than anyone else ever could.

  I studied the black Chloris box again. “The Apate ring was strong enough, but the red narcissus seed was even more powerful. It scared me. I still have horrible nightmares about its black thorn crawling around under my skin and poisoning me with its burning venom. And that was just one seed. The Narcissus Heart is even more powerful. If Covington ever gets his hands on it…” My voice trailed off, and I couldn’t finish my awful thought.

  “So you took the artifact and hid it from everyone, including your friends,” Logan said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I understand why you’re so afraid, why you’re so worried, but do me a favor, Rory.”

  “What?”

  Logan stared at me, his face completely serious. “Don’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t shut out your friends. They care about you, and they can help you through this. All of it.”

  “I know.”

  “But?”

  I let out a breath. “But I’m Sigyn’s Champion. I’m the one she picked to battle Covington. Besides, I’m the one he hates, the one he wants to control, so I should be the one to face him. And if I can’t stop him, then I should be the one to suffer, not my friends. Never my friends.”

  “And?” Logan asked, knowing there was more to it than that.

  I let out another breath. “And Covington killed my parents, murdered them for trying to leave the Reapers, for trying to leave him. I want to hurt him for that, for taking them away from me. I want to kill him for that.”

  Logan’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded again, and no judgment or condemnation flashed in his blue gaze. He knew what it was like to want revenge on someone who had hurt you, and he knew what it was like to finally get that revenge, since he had killed Agrona during the Battle of Mythos Academy in North Carolina.

  “Well, then, don’t let me stop you.” He gestured at the cuff still in my hand.

  “You aren’t going to tell your dad what I’m doing? Or Takeda?”

  He shrugged. “This is your academy and your fight, so I’ll play by your rules. Besides, Gwen believes in you, which means that I do too.”

  Sincerity filled his voice, and his words touched me more than I would ever admit to anyone. Logan freaking Quinn was a legend in the Mythos world, just like Gwen was, and knowing that he believed in me helped me to believe in myself too. I nodded, accepting and thanking him for his trust, then slid Aphrodite’s Cuff into my bag, hiding it from sight.

  “But don’t forget what I said about getting help from your friends, especially Ian. He fights well.” Logan paused. “For a Viking.”

  I snorted. “Don’t get too arrogant, Spartan. He almost took you down tonight.”

  “True.” Logan grinned, and a teasing light filled his eyes. “Although I would say that fighting isn’t the only thing he does well, judging from the smile on your face whenever you look at him.”

  I rolled my eyes, reached out, and lightly punched his shoulder. “Ian does a lot of things really well. Although I don’t see how that is any of your business.”

  Logan held up his hands in mock surrender. “Believe me, I know that it’s not any of my business, but Gwen wanted me to check on you two. She said she sensed some sparks between you and Ian the last time she was here.”

  I gave him a smug smile. “More sparks than the two of you have.”

  Logan’s grin widened, and his eyes softened. I could tell that he was thinking about Gwen and how much he loved her. “I think this is one case where we’ll just have to call it even between us.”

  My own smile widened in response. “I can live with that.”

  * * *

  Logan and I left the shelves and went back to the briefing table. By this point, everyone had packed up their things and left the room. I walked over and grabbed Babs, who was still perched in her chair.

  “Finally!” she grumbled. “I was wondering if you’d forgotten about me.”

  I held Babs up so that I could look her in the eye. “I would never, ever forget about you.”

  Her hilt quivered, as though she was trying to nod her half of a head in agreement. “Good. Although I am rather unforgettable, aren’t I?”

  I grinned. “That you are, Babs. That you are.”

  Logan scooped up Nyx, who was still sitting in the chair as well, and we headed down the hallway and squeezed into the elevator with the others,
who were waiting for us.

  We rode the elevator up to the second floor, then walked down the stairs to the first floor. Takeda locked the library behind us, while Mateo used his tablet to reset the alarms and security cameras. Then we all went our separate ways for the night.

  Takeda, Linus, Logan, and Nyx headed toward the gym parking lot, so Takeda could drive the Quinns to their hotel. Zoe said she still had homework to finish, and Mateo volunteered to walk her to her dorm before going to his own to get some sleep.

  That left Ian and me standing alone outside the Library of Antiquities. A few feet away, a statue perched on either side of the main library steps. Both figures were shaped like gryphons with lion bodies and eagle heads and wings. I nodded to the two stone gryphons, and they winked back at me, the way they always did.

  Ian waited until our friends had vanished, then turned to me. “Feel like a moonlit walk?”

  I smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  I hooked my arm through his, and we left the library.

  The Library of Antiquities was one of five buildings on the main quad, along with English-history, math-science, the dining hall, and the gym. It was after midnight now, and darkness cloaked the buildings. Not even the silvery glow from the full moon and the stars above could penetrate some of the shadows, but I didn’t mind the quiet blackness.

  Not when I was with Ian.

  The two of us strolled along one of the paths, which was lined with several old-fashioned iron streetlights, then left the quad and headed down the hill toward the student dorms. The night air quickly cut through my layers of clothes, but I drew in a deep breath, enjoying the chill. Fall was my favorite time of year, although it was all too brief, and it wouldn’t be too much longer before we had our first snow of the season.

  We reached the student dorms. Lights burned in the windows in both the girls’ and the boys’ dorms, but I didn’t see Zoe and Mateo, even though they’d only had a few minutes’ head start on us. They must have already gone to their respective dorms. And since it was so late, no one else was moving across campus, not even another girl or guy sneaking back to their dorm after spending the evening in someone else’s room.

  “So…” Ian said as we left the dorms behind and walked on. “You never told me how close you are with Logan Quinn.”

  The tension in his voice made me look up at him. Ian’s lips were pressed into a tight line, and a muscle ticked in his jaw. He seemed upset. I frowned. Why would he care that I was friends with the other Spartan—

  “Wait a second. Are you jealous?” I laughed. “You have absolutely no reason to be jealous of Logan Quinn.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Ian muttered. “The guy is a fantastic warrior. One of the best I’ve ever seen. Right up there with you. He cut me down tonight without even breaking a sweat.”

  “And I got taken down by a Fenrir wolf pup. You know as well as I do that it’s not always the best or the most skilled warrior who wins a fight. You can train and train and train, and you can still lose because of something completely unexpected.”

  “Yeah.” Ian sighed. “I know that.”

  “But?”

  “But Logan Quinn is still a fantastic warrior. And he’s smart and charming and funny. And he looks like a freaking movie star,” Ian grumbled. “Who wouldn’t be jealous of him?”

  I stopped walking and turned toward him. “And you, Ian Hunter, are an amazing Viking warrior who is also smart and charming and funny and who also looks like a freaking movie star. You have nothing to be jealous of. Trust me.”

  Ian shifted on his feet, and a bit of uncertainty flickered in his eyes. “But you and Logan are both Spartans. You both have the same skills and abilities. You both think the same way, especially when it comes to fighting.”

  I shrugged. He was right. Logan and I were both Spartans, so we did think about fighting and battles the same way, and we both had fierce, competitive spirits. I couldn’t change that, and I wouldn’t want to anyway. It was nice to have a friend like Logan who understood my Spartan magic, skills, and killer instincts.

  “Plus, you guys have this amazing connection. I could see it when you were fighting each other in the library,” Ian said. “It was like you and Logan were in this zone all by yourselves, even though the rest of us were there too, watching you. So yeah, it did make me a little jealous, that he is close to you in a way that I’m not.”

  “You’re right. Logan and I do have a connection. Part of it is because we’re both Spartans, and part of it is because of all the battles we’ve been through together. He’s been a good friend to me.” I stepped closer to Ian, reached out, and grabbed his hands. “But I don’t…care about Logan like I…care about you.”

  But I don’t love Logan like I love you.

  That was what I had been about to say, and the words burned on the tip of my tongue, wanting to be spoken.

  The sudden rush of emotion surprised me. I loved being with Ian, but with everything that had been going on with the Reapers, I hadn’t thought too much about our relationship or exactly how deep my feelings for him were. After all, I had only known him for a couple of months, and we had only been together for a few weeks. Was that long enough to fall in love with someone?

  Maybe. Probably. Okay, definitely, when that person was Ian Hunter. If I was being honest with myself, I had fallen in love with him weeks ago, the night we had gone to the Eir Ruins, when we had shared with each other just how much our Reaper relatives had hurt us. And I had fallen even deeper in love with him a dozen times since then.

  Like when he had used Pan’s Whistle to summon the Eir gryphons to the Cormac Museum to save me from the Typhon chimeras. Or when he had given me the whistle afterward, along with the potted winterbloom that I kept on my desk in the Bunker. Or when he had stepped in front of Drake, his own brother, and had taken a sword to the stomach to protect me.

  Yes, I loved Ian Hunter, but I didn’t say the words to him. Because as soon as I did, something awful would probably happen.

  Maybe Mateo was right. Maybe I was far too superstitious, but just when it seemed like things were going great in my life, something horrible happened that completely derailed everything. Like my parents being murdered and everyone at the academy learning that they were Reaper assassins. Or Covington escaping from prison. Or the times over the past few months when he had tried to turn me into a Reaper.

  Either way, I didn’t want to jinx what I had with Ian. Not tonight, so I swallowed the words, although I still felt my love for him, growing stronger and stronger with every beat of my heart.

  Ian frowned, wondering at my long silence, so I cleared the emotion out of my throat and spoke again.

  “We have a connection too, you know. Something that’s just between the two of us, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

  I squeezed Ian’s hands and stared into his eyes, letting him see just how much I cared about him, just how much I loved him, even if I was too much of a coward to say the words.

  Ian’s fingers curled into mine, and he gave me a sheepish grin. “I’m being silly, aren’t I?”

  I grinned back at him. “Totally.”

  “Well, now I feel like an idiot.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe you were a little bit of an idiot.”

  “But?”

  “But it’s okay. We’re all idiots every now and then.”

  Ian stepped even closer to me and dropped his hands to my waist. The heat from his fingers soaked through my clothes, driving away the chill, and his warm breath brushed against my face, making me shiver with anticipation. I lifted my head and focused on his beautiful gray eyes, which glimmered like stars. I reached up and brushed a bit of his blond hair back from his forehead, then slid my fingers down his cheek and rested my hand on his strong, broad shoulder.

  “Do you still feel like kissing this idiot?” Ian asked in a low voice. “Because he desperately wants to kiss you.”

  My grin widened. “Kiss away, Viking. Kiss away.�
�

  He grinned back at me, then leaned forward and lowered his lips to mine. I closed my eyes and wrapped my arms around his neck, kissing him back and letting all my fears and worries melt away in the heat of his embrace.

  Chapter Four

  My alarm went off way too early the next morning. I groaned and rolled over, but it kept blaring, and I had no choice but to get up.

  I took a long, hot shower to help me wake up, then threw on my usual long-sleeve green T-shirt, black jeans, and boots, along with my dark green leather jacket. I pulled my black hair back into a ponytail, dabbed some powder onto my face, and put some raspberry balm on my lips.

  Babs was still sleeping in her chair in the corner of my bedroom, so I felt safe enough to check on my stash of stolen artifacts. The Narcissus Heart was secure in the tunnels underneath the academy, but I’d hidden the rest of the artifacts in my bedroom.

  Hermes’s Sandals in a shoebox in my closet. Thrud’s Necklace and Benzaiten’s Ring in my jewelry box. Hephaestus’s Apron in my sock drawer. Veritas’s Diary with the other books on the shelf along the wall. The artifacts were exactly where I had left them.

  I thought about taking Aphrodite’s Cuff out of my messenger bag and hiding it with my other jewelry, but the bag was on the chair next to Babs, and I didn’t want the sword to wake up and realize what I was doing. I would hide the cuff later.

  I made sure that my own artifact, Freya’s Bracelet, was secured around my wrist, then grabbed my bag and a still-sleeping Babs and left my room.

  I headed into the kitchen. A woman with the same black hair and green eyes as mine stood at the stove, stirring food in pots and pans. She was wearing white pants and shoes, along with a white chef’s jacket, marking her as part of the academy’s dining-hall staff.

  “Mmm.” I set my bag on a chair at the kitchen table and propped Babs up in her usual seat. “Something smells good.”

  Rachel Maddox, my aunt, smiled at me. “You’re in a good mood this morning. How was the training mission last night?”