Crimson Frost Read Online Free PDF Page A

My dread ballooned up in my stomach and rose into my throat, threatening to choke me from the inside out.
    Logan noticed the men’s movements, and he quit arguing with his dad long enough to turn around. Alexei stepped in front of the Spartan, holding up his hands.
    “I don’t want to fight you, Logan,” Alexei said. “But you know I will.”
    Logan looked at me, panic flaring in his blue eyes. Apparently, he knew what was about to happen—and that it wasn’t anything good.
    “Dad,” he said. “Gwen hasn’t done anything wrong. You have to believe me. Don’t do this. Please.”
    Linus stared at his son, his face expressionless. Then, he turned away from Logan.
    “Make sure that she stays still and quiet through this,” Linus said. “I don’t want any interruptions.”
    Inari and Sergei clamped their hands on my arms and dragged me forward, heading toward the steps that led up onto the stage. And I suddenly realized what the mysterious assembly was about—me and my supposed crimes against the Pantheon.

Chapter 3
    Inari and Sergei marched me across the amphitheater, up the steps, and onto the stage, with Linus following along behind us. The three men’s heavy boots slapped against the wooden boards, and the dull sounds almost seemed to chant to me. Doom, doom, doom . . .
    We stopped in the middle of the stage, and I stared out at everyone who made up Mythos Academy—students, professors, staff members. I looked at Daphne, who had her hands up over her mouth in horror. Carson had a similar stunned expression on his face. Oliver Hector, Morgan McDougall, Savannah Warren. My gaze went from one familiar face to another. All the kids in my second-year class were here, along with the ones who’d apparently rushed back from the coffee shop for the assembly. Kenzie Tanaka, Talia Pizarro, Helena Paxton and her mean-girl friends. They must have raced up to the library, then hurried down the hill so they could get the last remaining seats at the very top of the amphitheater.
    “Those guys have on Protectorate robes!”
    “Hey, isn’t that Gwen Frost? That weird Gypsy girl?”
    “What’s she doing on stage? What’s going on? Why are they guarding her like that?”
    More murmurs and questions rippled through the crowd, louder and sharper than before, but I shut them out of my mind and kept scanning the faces. Finally, I spotted Professor Aurora Metis standing off to the left side of the stage, along with Nickamedes, Coach Ajax, and Raven. The four of them made up the academy’s security council and were responsible for keeping students safe at Mythos. I thought that had included me too, but it didn’t look like that was the case—at least not anymore.
    I stared at Metis, wondering if she’d known this was going to happen, if she’d tried to stop it. Worry filled her green eyes behind her silver glasses. Her face was tight with tension, and the tendons in her neck stood out against her bronze skin, like bowstrings about to snap. Beside her, Nickamedes was frowning, his black eyebrows furrowed together in thought. Ajax had his arms crossed over his big, burly chest. Only Raven seemed unconcerned, letting out a wide yawn and fiddling with her white hair, as though she was bored by the whole spectacle.
    “Stay quiet through this, and it will go a lot easier on you,” Linus murmured to me.
    I glared at him, but he was already striding over to a podium topped with a microphone that had been set up in the middle of the stage. He stood there, waiting for the crowd to quiet down, before leaning forward and speaking into the microphone.
    “Hello,” he said, his voice rolling out like thunder from the bottom to the top of the amphitheater. “My name is Linus Quinn. Some of you may know me as the head of the Protectorate, the group charged with hunting down Reapers of Chaos. I’m also on the academy board of directors.”
    So Linus was one of the Powers That Were at Mythos. I knew there were folks who watched over