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That was fine. At least they didn’t get in my face and didn’t get in my way.
I hadn’t come to the Academy to make friends, and I had no ambition to make a great career here. Plus, I had two loyal friends already, which was good enough.
I brushed off the heavy weight of all the stares, and the sound of my footsteps ricocheted off the unwelcome silence as I jogged closer to the east wing.
Nat and Yelena weren’t comfortable with the attention, especially Yelena, but they managed to ignore the collective and stay close to me.
We reached the invisible line that separated the two distinct Academies, just as Nat had told me. I now saw it with my own eyes that the Olympians didn’t associate with the supernaturals from the Other Academy. Even this mix and mingle dinner didn’t smooth over their relations.
“Mari! Marigold! Here! We’re here!” Circe’s excited shriek reached me.
Then she was sprinting toward me.
“Circe!” I shouted in joy.
We crashed into a tight hug. When we pulled apart, we both had tears in our eyes.
“I’ve heard so many rumors about you,” Circe said. “Jas and I have been so worried.”
Jasper stood by a table, waiting for me, a happy grin on his face.
Right, he was with his new friends. As a teenage wolf shifter, he felt the need to appear cool.
I reached him and we bumped fists, then I introduced my new friends to my old.
After the brief introduction, I surveyed his tablemates, who occupied the full table.
My sensors spiked up as I sensed witches, shifters, and even vampires among them. The group was mostly made of shifters, though—Jasper’s new pack, I assumed.
The guys wore the Other Academy uniform of blue, green, and red, which symbolized the primary colors of Earth, since supernaturals drew magic from Mother Earth.
While we had our crest of an eagle piercing lightning, with water and death’s key at the bottom, they had the symbol of a pentagram within a circle. Runes for five elements—fire, earth, metal, air, and water—were embroidered in the five spaces separated by the pentagram lines and the circle.
Their girls’ skirts were also different than ours. The witch and shifter girls’ skirts stopped right above their knees. Yelena’s and mine weren’t half so modest. Our white shirts hugged our curves, and our brown skirts barely covered mid-thigh.
No wonder the guys were all checking out my ass.
“Look your fill, gentlemen?” I purred and snapped my fingers in front of my face to remind them where they should actually look.
They chuckled, not offended at all.
“This is the Marigold I told you about,” Jasper said, holding a smile, then he looked at a muscled, gorgeous guy, who was built bigger than anyone else around the table, before dropping his gaze. “Alpha Clayton, I’d like Marigold and her friends to sit with us.”
I snapped my head toward the alpha, but I wasn’t going to lower my gaze. I didn’t even lower my gaze for the demigods.
“Why do you have to ask anyone for permission to sit with me, Jasper?” I hissed. “Aren’t I part of your pack? Or has your loyalty shifted so fast?”
“I’m in a new pack now, Mari,” Jasper said. “I’ll defend you with my life, but I also need to follow my new pack’s rules.”
“Things are different in the Other Academy than how it used to be for us, Marigold,” Circe chimed in. “We’ve had to adapt to survive.”
“I don’t give a shit,” I said, my jaw clenched. “Things should never change between us.”
“Are you the chick whose balls are big enough to go up against the Demigod of Sea, Marigold?” the shifter alpha asked. “Or did I hear wrong?”
“The swimming boy had me beaten within an inch of my life. I won’t forget that,” I said, my gaze hard, and I tilted my head to look him in the eye. Yet again, he wasn’t offended, to everyone’s surprise. Then I realized that Clayton was treating me as an alpha female. “I don’t have big balls. In fact, I have no balls, unlike you dudes, but that didn’t stop me from showing Pigston that the sun doesn’t shine out of his ass.”
The table roared with laughter.
