In the end, I’d gone to bed alone. The three guys had gone to sleep on the floor of the same bedroom. But when I woke up, all three of them were on the vast bed with me. They sprawled around me with their trousers hanging low around their perfect hips. Apparently they’d all climbed into the bed in the middle of the night.
They were all gorgeous men who could melt any girl’s panties anytime of the day, but they hadn’t melted mine—I’d checked.
But I’d ogled all of them, taking in their cut chests, taut muscles, and every defined ridge.
Zak and Axel didn’t know that Héctor and I had shared wild passion in a dream. All three of them had reached an agreement at the dinner table that they should court me first and take things slow to show me their gentlemanly sides.
As if I needed to see that side over their smoldering wild ones.
But then I’d also decided not to sleep with them, to the best of my ability. I had sympathy for Héctor, though. He hadn’t touched anyone for millennia, except for sending his foes to an agonizing death with a touch.
And now I turned out to be the only woman he could touch, yet he paddled back just to show me he would be worthy of me, though his every gaze told me how he wanted to explore every inch of me.
If any girl in my position believed that the demigods actually held a chivalry code, then she was a fool—even if they believed in and were pleased with their noble intentions. But I’d bet all my money that the taking-it-slow and courting-Marigold-first deal had everything to do with their rivalry and their ancient pact.
None of them wanted the others to have me first. So they’d labeled me as forbidden fruit and placed me on a high pedestal.
I tore my irritated thoughts from the demigods and refocused on my friends.
I told them how I’d fought demons and Héctor had rescued me, then flown me to his Manhattan apartment.
I didn’t and couldn’t tell them everything, especially not the awful, worrisome part where the demon captain had insisted I was the “Lost One” and put a mark on me.
Nat and Yelena blinked really hard.
“The Demigod of Death touched you and flew you around and you’re sitting here with us?” Nat demanded.
I grinned. “He isn’t that bad.”
“He’s panty-melting hot. I get it,” Yelena hissed. “But no one touches him and lives.”
Nat nodded in agreement. “He’s the number one hottie at the Academy—probably on Earth—but even I wouldn’t want to tempt death.”
So I dropped the bomb. “He helped bathe me in his Jacuzzi before Zak and Axel showed up.”
Nat and Yelena widened their eyes, then narrowed their eyes in unison.
“Nothing really happened, though,” I explained. “It was just a bath. He was a gentleman, so he focused on getting me clean.”
“Wake up from your daydreaming, girlfriend,” Yelena said with a wince as if it pained her to say so. “You’ll need to be in the right frame of mind for your first class, considering your past classes didn’t go so well.”
Nat studied me. “Marigold is anything but delusional. Normal things don’t happen to her. Extraordinary things happen to her. The demigods have been drawn to her since they saw her. And remember how the Ritual of the Runes reacted to her?”
Yelena sighed. “So you touched the Demigod of Death and survived. Who are you really, Marigold?”
“I’m the same ol’ girl you helped climb up the stairs because my feet hurt,” I said.
Or was I?
“If you get involved with any one of them,” Nat said, “the news will soon be all over the demigods-controlled hemisphere.”
“It’s not just one,” I sighed. “It’s three of them.”
Yelena rubbed her temples, not knowing how to solve this headache for me.
“Actually,” she peeked at me cautiously, “There are four.”
I put down half-eaten toast and pulled my lips back in a snarl. “I dare the fucker to come near me for a rematch. I wasn’t able to burn the pig last time, but I’m ready, well-rested, and fully-charged—”