Page 48 of Dark Gods

“That’s the thing about not being guilty. You don’t have to claim anything,” he said, taking a step toward me. “But that is thinking quite highly of yourself, to assume seeing the two of you together is enough to push me to murder.”

“Am I supposed to believe it was a coincidence?”

“It doesn’t really matter what you believe,” he said calmly. “I could’ve shot him in the head in front of the entire administration if I so chose, and they’d look the other way.”

“Now who’s thinking highly of himself?”

He flashed his pearly whites at me in a smile that probably would have killed half the girls in school on sight. “The difference is, I can back it up. And I hate to break it to you, but I didn’t kill Phrixus.”

“Maybe not, but this school is full of sycophants who’d do anything to curry favor with you, and I wouldn’t put murder out of the realm of possibility.”

He seemed to be considering it and the fact that his final verdict was an apathetic shrug made me hate him all the more. “Maybe not, but they’d have to know about what happened for that.”

I watched him carefully, narrowing my eyes. “You mean you haven’t told anyone?”

“What, that my fiancee got eaten out in the galley by a petty god whose only claim to power is producing his own lube?” he snorted. “No, I wasn’t eager to rush to the Olympian Chronicle with that one.”

“You must’ve told the Triad.”

The stony look on his face gave the answer away and I couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, well, well.”

“What?” he snapped.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were actually jealous.”

Hades rolled his eyes. “You’re a liability. Don’t mistake damage control for giving a shit about you, but if you want my advice?” He tilted my chin toward him and I smacked his hand away, but he didn’t seem phased.

“Not particularly.”

“Keep your nose out of places where it doesn’t belong,” he said in a dangerous tone. “Whatever happened to Phrixus, whomeverisresponsible, I can guarantee they have better standing in this world than you do. You’re already on thin ice with the administration, and when all this is said and done, I’d rather not have to say my Queen was an Academy dropout.”

“And yet you’ve made my time heresoeventful.”

He smirked, turning toward the door. “It keeps you occupied, doesn’t it?”

I flipped him off and he pretended not to notice as he left the room.

I sank back onto the edge of the bed, more exhausted than I was willing to let on in front of him. My head was still spinning, and I found myself grasping onto a hundred loose threads with no more of an idea of which of them belonged tied together than I’d had before. All Hermes’ appearance had done was reaffirm what I’d known from the beginning…

Nothing at the Academy of the Gods was what it seemed.

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