Free Crimson Frost by Jennifer Estep

your deal?” I asked.
    “My deal?”
    I shrugged. “Your deal. You know, where you’re from, what kind of warrior you are, why the Protectorate would assign a kid my own age to guard me.”
    Alexei studied me, as if he couldn’t decide whether or not this was some kind of trick to get supersecret Protectorate information out of him. Heh. If I wanted to do that, all I would have to do was touch him. Unlike me, Alexei wasn’t wearing gloves. His hands hung bare by his sides, instead of being tucked into his coat pockets like they should have been on such a chilly morning. Maybe the cold didn’t bother him. Some of the Mythos kids had magic that made them immune to extreme temperatures.
    Even though I’d decided awhile back not to use my magic to pull secrets out of people unless it was absolutely necessary, I couldn’t help eyeing his hands and wondering if I could yank off my gloves, touch him, and flash on him with my psychometry before he realized what I was up to. Probably not without an Amazon’s quickness.
    Still, the temptation to try was so strong . I wanted to know what Alexei, and more important, the Protectorate, knew about me. I especially wanted to know what they knew about my touch magic—and if they’d realized that I’d killed Preston with it.
    I shivered, but it wasn’t because of the chill in the air. A guy’s face filled my mind. Once, it had been a handsome face, but now it was twisted with pain, and his blue eyes were cold, dead, and empty—all because of me. Metis and Grandma Frost had always told me that my magic would keep growing, that I’d be able to do other things with it besides just touch objects and see memories, but I never thought I could actually kill someone with it. But that’s what I’d done to Preston. I’d used my psychometry to kill him so that I could live. That was bad enough, but the worst part was that I knew I could do the same thing again—to anyone, at any time. I could feel the magic, the power, the knowledge deep inside me, a dark whisper that rasped along in time to the beat of my heart. Use me, use me, use me . . .
    “I’m from Saint Petersburg, Russia,” Alexei finally said. He must have decided that my questions were harmless after all. “However, I attend the London academy since that’s where my dad spends most of his time with the Protectorate these days. I’m a Bogatyr warrior, and I’m not your age. I’m eighteen, a third-year student.”
    I rolled my eyes. Yeah, yeah. I knew that all the academies all over the world had the same structure, with first-year students who were sixteen or so all the way up to the sixth-years, who were around twenty-one. Second-year, third-year, it wasn’t that big a difference.
    “I’m here to guard you because my father is a senior member of the Protectorate, and I’m training to be a member too someday. And also because I’m . . . familiar with some of your classmates.”
    I raised an eyebrow. “Familiar how? And what’s a Bogatyr?”
    “We’re going to your weapons training now, yes?”
    I nodded.
    “You’ll see.”
    And that was all he said. He didn’t explain anything else about himself, who he was, or why he was here. Okay, okay, so he wanted to be all dark, brooding, and mysterious, something that his cool Russian accent definitely helped him with. Whatever.
    We walked the rest of the way to the gym in silence. I pushed through the double doors that led into the main space and headed for the bleachers on the far side, but Alexei stopped a moment to look around. I didn’t see what was so interesting. Bright banners dangling from the ceiling, polished wooden bleachers jutting out from the walls, thick mats covering the floor. The gym looked like any other—except for the racks of weapons.
    Since Mythos was a school for the descendants of ancient warriors, gym class was a little more strenuous than just running laps and shooting hoops. Here, gym was really weapons training, where Coach Ajax and