And the last one, the one with the chocolate brown hair, tattoos, dark eyes and at least five silver rings on both hands, was currently looking straight at me. Percy. Ares zodiac. I’d been told he was dangerous. Looking at him from across the room with his arms crossed over his chest and his expression absolutelynotwelcoming, I believed it completely. He radiated bad-boydon’t fuck with mevibes.
Little did he know, I could match it.
I held his gaze for long enough to establish dominance, a little smirk stretching my lips that made his eyes narrow, and then I turned and walked toward the corridor as if I’d never seen him at all.
Behind me, I heard nothing to indicate they’d noticed. That was fine. Tomorrow they’d know exactly who I was, and after that, everything was going to get significantly more messy. The Assembly wanted me to bond with their shield. To become their axis if possible, but something told me these four men wanted nothing to do with that plan.
Dinner with Tyeand Lydia was just what I needed, and I was fucking starved. The dining hall had long tables and warm lighting and the smell of homemade food rather than the Doordash I was used to ordering. Tye had somehow already found a corner table that he’d clearly been holding for the last thirty minutes since texting me. He stood up when he saw me and pulled me into a hug that lifted me half off my feet, because he was six-foot-two and built like a damn linebacker, with the same dark eyes as his sister.
“Jupe,” he said, setting me down. “You look terrible.”
“I look amazing, thank you.”
Lydia, across the table, was already laughing, her curly dark hair piled on her head. “I already got you food because I knew you’d forget to eat breakfast.”
I sat down and discovered that she had, in fact, gotten me food, which was a bowl of something that smelled like it had garlic in it and therefore was already my favorite thing about Dominion.
“How’s Noodle?” she asked.
“Imperious. Unimpressed. Sleeping.”
“So, unfazed.”
“Damn freeloader is what he is.”
Tye told me that he’d already mapped the training schedule and Lydia told me that she’d made friends with someone in the Aquarius dormitory who seemed interesting. I told them about my walk-through of the building and my conversation with the registration woman, and at some point I said, quietly enough that it was just for them, “I saw the Nightfall Shield today.”
They both went very still for a moment.
“And?” Tye said.
“And they look exactly as advertised.” I stabbed something with my fork. “The Ares one stared at me like I shat in his soup.”
“Percy,” Lydia said. “He’s hot as fuck. They all are.”
I scoffed. “Most zodiacs are hot as fuck. Magic kind of has that effect on people.”
Tye was looking at me with narrowed eyes. “You ready for tomorrow?”
“Nope.”
“Jupe…”
“What? You asked.” I shrugged. “It’s not like I have a choice. I just need to get through it without someone freaking out and attacking me or something.”
The dining hall filled around us as the evening went on. I watched people arrive and find seats, finding friends they grewup with at some of the boarding schools rich parents sent their kids to. I never went to one of those schools. My parents did alright financially, but I’d always gone to public school.
The Nightfall Shield arrived as a group and took a table in the far corner that faced the room. I watched every head in the hall track them as they passed. Women stared at them with longing in their eyes, probably holding out hope that they would show enough magical promise this year that they would choose her as their axis. Not likely. They sat down and didn’t look at anyone and ate, and nobody approached their table.
Nobody except a pretty girl with red hair who leaned down to say something to Aiden, and he turned to look at her with an expression so blank and unimpressed that she straightened back up and walked away, looking like she was seconds away from bursting into tears.
Assholes, the lot of em.
THREE
Aiden
The cracklingfire sent shadows dancing across the clearing as I stood at the edge of the woods, far enough from the party to have some privacy but close enough to keep an eye on the rest of the shield. Percy was watching Draco like a hawk as he flirted with a girl from the Libra dorm, drunk as fuck already and pissed off after talking to his mother. Eris was holding court by the keg, regaling a group of first-years with exaggerated stories of our missions.
