“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Leon said.

“What’s up?” Aiden asked evenly.

Leon spared at glance at me. He didn’t suspect anything.

Why would he? Aiden was a wel respected pure and I was just a half-blood he was training. “Did she hurt herself?”

“She’s fine. What did you need?”

“Marcus needs to see us.”

Aiden nodded. He started to fol ow Leon out, but he stopped at the door. Turning back to me, he was al business again. “We’l talk more about this later.”

“Okay,” I said, but he was already gone.

My gaze went back to the painting of the goddess of love. I swal owed hard and my grasp on the little jar tightened. There was no way—absolutely no way—I was interested in Aiden in that way. Sure, he was swoon-worthy and real y nice, and patient and funny in a dry kind of way.

There was a lot about him to like. If he were a half-blood, then there wouldn’t be anything wrong. He didn’t work for the Covenant, so there wasn’t a student hooking up with a teacher kind of problem, and he was only three years older than me. If he were a half-blood, I’d probably have thrown myself at him already.

But Aiden was a freaking pure-blood.

A freaking pure-blood with wonderful y strong fingers and a smile that… wel , made me feel like there was a nest of butterflies in my stomach. And the way he looked at me—

how his eyes shifted from gray to silver in a heartbeat—

affected me even now. My stupid little heart leapt in my chest.

CHAPTER 10

SPRAWLED ACROSS THE MATS, GOING THROUGH

THE motions of the cool-down stretches a couple of days later, Aiden decided to let me in on why Marcus had wanted to see him.

“Lucian is coming.”

I stared up at the ceiling, disappointed. “So?”

Instead of looming over me like he usual y did, he dropped down beside me on the mat. His leg brushed mine, causing a tightening in my chest. You’re being ridiculous, Alex. Knock it off. I moved my leg away from his.

“He’s going to want to talk to you.”

Pushing my weird attraction to him out of my mind, I focused on his words. “Why?”

He bent his knees and dropped his arms over them.

“Lucian is your legal guardian. I suppose he’s curious to see how your training is coming along.”

“Curious?” I kicked my legs into the air. Why? I had no clue. “Lucian has never been interested in anything that had to do with me. Why would he start now?”

His expression tightened for a moment. “Things are different now. With your mom… ”

“That doesn’t matter. It has nothing to do with me.”

He stil looked strange as he continued to watch me point my toes at the ceiling. “It has everything to do with you.” He took a deep breath, seeming to choose his next words wisely. “Lucian is dead set against you returning to the Covenant.”

“Good to know Lucian and Marcus share that in common.”

His jaw tightened. “Lucian and Marcus share nothing in common.”

There he went again, trying to convince me Marcus wasn’t the douche I believed him to be. He’d been at it for weeks, talking about how concerned my uncle had appeared when my mom and I had disappeared. Or how relieved Marcus had seemed when he’d notified him I was alive. Nice of Aiden to want to repair the relationship between us, but Aiden didn’t realize there was nothing to repair.

Aiden reached over and pushed my legs back down to the mat. “Do you ever sit stil for five seconds?”

I grinned, sitting up. “Nope.”

He looked like he wanted to smile, but didn’t. “Tonight, when you see Lucian, you need to be on your best behavior.”

I rol ed to my feet, laughing now. “Best behavior? So I shouldn’t chal enge Lucian to a fight, I guess? I’d win that one. He’s a total wimp.”

The severe frown that graced his face was a clear indication he wasn’t amused. “You do realize your stepfather can overthrow Marcus’s decision to al ow you to stay here? His authority supersedes your uncle’s?”

“Yes.” I planted my hands on my hips. “Since Marcus is only al owing me to stay if I prove myself capable of returning to classes in the fal , I don’t see what the big deal is.”

Aiden came to his feet swiftly. For a moment, I was struck by how quickly he moved. “The big deal is if you mouth off at the Minister like you do with Marcus, you won’t get a second chance. No one wil be able to help you.”

I tore my eyes away from him. “I’m not going to mouth off at him. Honestly, there’s nothing Lucian can say to me that wil get me riled up. He means nothing to me. Never has.”

He looked doubtful. “Try to remember that.”

I threw him a grin. “You have such little faith in me.”

Surprisingly, Aiden grinned back at me. It made me feel al warm and stupid. “How’s your back?”

“Oh. It’s doing okay. That… stuff real y helped.”

He stalked across the mats, silver eyes focused on me.

“Make sure you put it on every night. The bruises should fade in a couple days.”

You could always help put it on again, but I didn’t say that . I backed up, keeping a space between us. “Yes, sensei.”

Aiden stopped in front of me. “Better get going. The Minister and his Guards wil be arriving soon, and al of those at the Covenant wil be expected to meet him.”

I groaned. Everyone would be wearing a Covenant-issued uniform of some sort and no one had given me one.

“I’m going to look like a—”

Aiden placed his hands on my upper arms, obliterating my critical thinking skil s. I stared up at him, entertaining a vividly wild scenario in which he pul ed me against him and kissed me like the barrel-chested men in those smutty books my mom used to read.

He picked me up and put me on the floor a few feet off the mats. Crouching down, he started to rol up the mats.

There went my fantasies. “You’l look like what?” he asked.

I ran my hands over my arms. “What am I supposed to wear? I’m going to stick out and everyone wil be looking at me.”

He glanced up at me through heavy lashes. “Since when are you bothered by everyone staring at you?”

“Good point.” I grinned at him, and then bounced away.

“See you later.”

By the time I made it to the common lounge, everyone was buzzing about tonight.

It wasn’t Lucian that had Caleb pacing the length of the room. Even Lea seemed wound up as she twisted a strand of hair around her fingers. None of us halfs cared much about Lucian personal y, but as the Minister of Court he exerted a high level of control over the pures and the halfs.

No one could figure out why a Minister would come to the Covenant during the summer, when the vast majority of students were absent.

I was stil busy picturing Aiden as a pirate, sweeping me off my feet.

“Do you know anything?” asked Luke.

Before I could answer, Lea chimed in. “How would she know? Lucian barely claims her.”

I looked at her blandly. “Was that supposed to hurt my feelings or something?”

She shrugged. “My stepmother visits me every Sunday.

Why hasn’t Lucian visited you?”

“How would you know?”

Her look was sly. “I know.”

“You are so screwing one of the Guards, aren’t you?” I frowned at her. “That explains how you always know so much.”

Lea’s eyes narrowed, much like a cat did when it spotted a mouse.

Snickering, I placed my bet on Clive, a younger Guard who’d been present the first day I’d arrived at the Covenant.

He was good-looking, liked to check out the younger girls, and I’d seen him around the dorms a few times.

“Perhaps Lucian is coming to remove you from the Covenant.” Lea studied her nails. “I always thought you’d fit in better with the slaves.”

Casual y, I leaned forward and grabbed one of the thick magazines. I chucked it at Lea’s bent head. With half-blood reflexes, she snatched it before it made contact. “Thanks. I needed something to read.” She thumbed through it.

As it neared seven, I headed back to my room to get ready. Folded on the coffee table was an olive green, Covenant-issued uniform. My eyes widened as I picked up the uniform and a smal note fel out. I opened it with trembling fingers:

Had to guess your size.

See you tonight.

Smiling, I looked inside the pants and discovered they were my size. There was no stopping the wealth of heat spreading over me. What Aiden had done meant the world to me. Tonight I’d look like I actual y belonged at the Covenant.

Instead of the black uniforms the trained Sentinels wore, the students donned green outfits of the same cut—

reminiscent of army uniforms. And they had al the nifty pockets and hooks meant to carry weapons, which I real y liked.

liked.

I took a quick shower, and after I put on the uniform I felt a rush. Years had passed since I’d worn this, and there were times when I didn’t think I’d ever get to wear it again.

Turning in front of the mirror, I had to say I looked good in dress greens.

Excited, I pul ed my hair up in a ponytail and left to meet up with Caleb. Together, we headed over to the main campus and a funny surge of nostalgia coursed through me as we entered the largest academy building.

I’d avoided the academy section of the campus since I’d returned, mainly because that was where Marcus had his office. It also seemed unfair to subject myself to al the memories if he decided in a month or two to not let me stay.

Of course, Caleb thought things were going great and Marcus would al ow me to stay, but I wasn’t so sure. I hadn’t even seen him since the day he’d stopped by the gym and I’d made an idiot out of myself. I felt confident that had made a lasting impression. Come to think of it, no wonder Aiden was so worried about what I would say to Lucian.

Shaking my head, I glanced around the crowd of people that fil ed the grandiose lobby of the school. It seemed like every Guard and Sentinel was in attendance, standing under the statues of the nine muses. The Olympian nine, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, or whoever it was that he hooked up with. Who real y knew? The god got around.

The Guards lined every corner and blocked every exit, looking stony and fierce. The Sentinels stood in the middle, appearing vicious and battle ready.

Not surprising, my eyes found Aiden at once. He stood between Kain and Leon. In my opinion, those three were the most dangerous-looking out of al of them.

Aiden looked up then, his eyes meeting mine. He gave me a little nod, and even though he didn’t say anything, his eyes spoke for him. That one glance held a measure of pride and fondness. Maybe he even thought I made the cadet uniform look good. I started to smile, but Caleb led me past them, to the left of the Sentinels where the students belonged. We managed to squeeze in next to Caleb’s secret obsession—Olivia. How convenient.

She smiled. “I was wondering if you guys were going to make it.”

Caleb said something incoherent, cheeks flushing a ruddy color. I turned away from secondhand embarrassment and I couldn’t even look to see Olivia’s response. Poor Caleb.