CHAPTER 3
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Blinding light andheat wheeled around me as Ares shifted me out of the Academy, out of the reach of the demigods.
He pressed me against his armored chest. His bulging arms, which wrapped around my waist in an iron grip, contained godly strength. I couldn’t escape.
I gazed up at him in fury. His unmatchable masculine beauty and pleasant cologne didn’t lessen the rage beating in my blood.
But I was at a disadvantage, so I cautioned myself not to go against him while I was alone without backup. Even if my magic well was brimming with fullness, I couldn’t take him down single-handedly, and I needed to refrain from using my fires. The last thing I wanted was for him to figure out who I was.
The elemental had warned me that if the Olympian gods knew I was a child of the supposed Titan king and a demon queen, they’d hunt me to the ends of the universe.
Even my demigods might turn on me if they knew I had demon blood.
“Are you comfortable, Marigold?” Ares asked in a cultured voice that had a hint of a French accent. He’d stayed in Paris for too long.
“Like you care,” I said. “Return me to the Academy.”
“You dare give orders to a god?” He sounded almost amused.
“You’re a kidnapper, dude.”
If I’d thought Paxton was bad, this brute of a god was ten times worse.
I conjured up my power and commanded.Teleport.
I’d teleported myself twice. I imagined landing on the south side of the pond, where I’d been taken from the demigods.
A wave rippled, but then it vanished just as quickly. Light and heat bound me in their cocoon.
“It won’t work,” Ares said. “No one can sift you out from my teleportation, not even Zeus. Now brace for a bumpy landing, a lesson for your insolence.”
He wasn’t joking. The impact from hitting the hard, rocky ground shot pain through my legs. But I was no damsel in distress. Though weaponless, I’d stolen a dagger from the sheath strapped to his thigh.
Before I was steady, before I even registered where I was, I drove the dagger toward his chest, faster than a flash.
He raised his wrist and the dagger’s tip bounced off his arm guard. Next, he gripped my wrist and twisted it backward until pain radiated through my entire arm.
I let go of the dagger. It dropped to the ground with a clanging sound.
“That’s more like it, Marigold,” Ares said. “You and I are going to have fun, the kind of fun I haven’t had in millennia.”
“You bet,” I said as I gazed up at him through my lush lashes, stretching my torso against his hard-muscled body.