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I blinked at him. “You’re touching me, Zak.”
“This is harmless,” he said before putting my hand to his lips and kissing the back of my knuckles to display just how harmless he was—to me, anyway.
As I’ve said, the demigods considered themselves above the rules.
“This meeting is going longer than we expected,” Axel said, ignoring Héctor’s scowl. “There’s no need for Cookie to tire her legs.”
Héctor darted his gaze to where I sat, but there was no room to accommodate him, which I’d bet had been exactly Axel’s design. Héctor stormed to a nearby chair and sank to it.
I didn’t retrieve my hand from Zak’s while his thumb ran slow circles on the back of my hand to massage me. The touch was pleasant, appeasing. Faint lightning sparked between us, thrilling and energizing me.
Axel seized my other hand and put it into his pocket along with his. I didn’t protest that either when pleasure crept up my arm.
“Stay wherever you want, demigods.” Esme heaved a sigh. “You don’t want to ship Marigold to the Academy in Paris where Ares resides.”
A dark warning resonated in her tone. I didn’t know what the deal was with the God of War, but goosebumps prickled over my skin, and my hackles rose in alarm.
It felt as if Ares was more of a danger to me than Lucifer and his demons.
“Agreed,” Zak said, and no other demigods objected.
Okay, so this Ares dude might really be bad news.
“Isn’t Ares in Manhattan negotiating a deal with Lucifer?” I blurted out. Paxton had leaked that intel before he dragged me to class. “Isn’t he going to visit here since he’s nearby?”
“He intended to,” Esme said, “especially after Axel told him how the Ritual of Blood Runes went awry with you. That’s never happened before.” Her eyes trained on me sharply. “I was part of Ares’s negotiating team.”
Wasn’t she something? Even the demigods weren’t invited to the negotiation table with the devil. I wondered if Lucifer had horns. Rumor said he was incredibly beautiful—the once brightest star fallen to Earth.
“The meeting wasn’t conclusive or productive,” Esme continued. “And Ares had to return to Paris right away due to a crisis there. Somehow, the Paris Half-Blood Academy was breached. Lucifer is probably playing another game.”
I was a first-year nobody in her first week, yet the headmistress shared the classified information in front of me as if I was someone as important as the demigods. I had a feeling it wasn’t because she saw that three of them favored me and one hated me.
An unsettling feeling crept into my head, and a warning slithered up my spine. My senses always spiked when I was in danger. I’d thought it was because I was faster and smarter than most people. Now, though, I knew I wasn’t a human and had magic in my blood.
It seemed like the headmistress knew something about me that even I didn’t know.
She shifted her firm gaze to the demigods. “This is stillmyAcademy. I have a final say in Marigold’s education and training. She’ll stay here and have special courses tailored to her needs, as we all agreed before her arrival.”
“Agreed on what?” I asked, not liking it.
“Be patient, Rosebud,” Zak said with an affectionate smile. “We’ll get to it.”
“Asking my Cookie to be patient is like asking a scorpion not to sting,” Axel said.
I glared at him and tried to take back my hand from his grasp, but he wouldn’t let it go.
“I’m not a scorpion!” I said. “I sting only when someone attacks me first. It’s all self-defense. What’s wrong with defending myself? I refuse to put up with someone else’s shit.”
“Axel, I want you to apologize to my lamb,” Héctor said.
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way, Cookie,” Axel said with a disarming smile. “I like scorpions a lot. They have personality.”
“It’s surely an excellent way to flatter a woman,” Paxton commented sarcastically.
“What do you know?” Axel dropped his smile and barked back. “From what I can tell, you’re only good at hitting women.”
Paxton hissed, but Zak raised a finger toward him to stop him from further aggravating Axel and me.
