Strength

by Jane Washington

  “You chose us, dweller baby,” Coen said, moving closer so that his body was almost touching mine. “Whatever force brought you into our lives, did so for a reason. You could not have formed a soul-bond with the five of us if it wasn’t meant to be.”

  “You belong with us,” Siret added, drawing my gaze to his glittering green eyes. The gold slashing through them in bright arcs drew me closer. He lowered his head so that our lips could touch, and I felt Aros tighten his grip on my hand. But he didn’t do anything else to stop the kiss.

  I lost all thought then. When we finally pulled apart, I struggled to catch my breath. The pure sweetness of that kiss had been like nothing I’d ever felt before. Looking down, I blinked at my hand, which was clearly no longer being held by Aros. A quick look around the main room of the cave told me that Siret and I were now alone. It was considerably darker, but my eyes were quick to adjust. Someone had closed the door.

  Turning back to him, the raw emotion on his face had my heart thudding hard and fast. “Where did they go?” I whispered, already pushing closer to him, moving up onto my toes and trying to fit myself snugly against his body.

  One of his arms wrapped around my back and his movements were rougher as he swept me in. “They’re giving us some privacy. If that’s what you want?”

  Holy shit. I’d never thought they would share so well, but if ‘keeping it even’ meant that I got Siret all to myself in this moment, I was all for it.

  To answer his previous question, I pressed my lips against his, grateful that he was holding me high enough that I could reach them with ease. This time there was nothing sweet about the kiss—it was hot, hard, and delicious. My body was already aching to be touched. I needed more than what we had right now. I needed everything.

  Pulling my mouth from his, I inhaled deeply and wiggled back so that I could try to pull his shirt up. I’d dreamed about touching Siret’s chest like this and I couldn’t wait another moment. Siret moved to set me down, but I didn’t let go of him, keeping my legs locked around his waist. “You’re not going anywhere,” I muttered.

  His only response was a rumble of his chest and then his lips were on my neck, trailing down my throat. My body tensed and relaxed in the same instance, my legs sliding down to the floor. Siret straightened then, towering above me as both of his hands went out to brace against the stone wall behind me, framing my face. His right hand slid across my dress and I felt his Trickery energy follow that path. When I looked down, my blue dress was melting away. It was hard to see in the dim light, but the colour also seemed to be shifting, growing a deeper, darker shade of … purple. The material shrunk away until it was a set of underwear: a silky purple bra and panties.

  “Your turn now,” I said breathlessly, my hands already scrambling to get his shirt off. Siret moved back just enough so that he could reach over his shoulder and grab the back of his shirt, pulling it up and over his head. Every single cell in my body was happy that he did the undressing the dweller way. His power, while convenient, took some of the fun out of it. I was pretty much panting by the time he was done. Siret’s body was a work of art. Golden, cut muscles—long lines for my eyes to trace over and over.

  “Pants now, too,” I ordered, leaning back against the stone like I was the powerful god and he was only there to serve me.

  Green eyes twinkled at me, a smirk in place, and he reached for the button on his pants. “Are you sure about this, Soldier? There’s no other layer to take off once these go.”

  Holy gods yes. I nodded, smiling. “Pretty sure.”

  He kicked his boots off, one at a time, drawing out my pleasure—and torture—as he slid his black combat pants down his body. I didn’t know where to look, mostly because I wanted to look everywhere. And touch everywhere. I moved forward until there was only a fraction of a breath separating us. He raised a hand to cup the side of my face and I let out a shuddering groan.

  His head ducked down, his lips inches from mine again, but just before I was lost in another heated, dizzying kiss, a flash of silver caught my eye from over the top of his right shoulder. I pulled back an inch, my gaze flicking to the side. It was entirely dark, except for the sprinkling of silver dots scattered about a single wall.

  No … not dots.

  Stars.

  I was looking at the night sky. But how?

  Siret began to pull away, but my hands found their way to his shoulders, hanging onto him, keeping him close. I needed the warmth of his body. I was confused at the vision of the sky, and there was a coolness to the air that also battered at my mind. Something wasn’t right and it was begging for my attention, but Siret was right there, and he was hot enough to banish the cold. He was perfect enough to pull my attention away from the stars.

  “There’s something wrong with this room,” he muttered distractedly, his lips brushing over mine. He’d noticed as well, but just like me, it wasn’t quite enough to pull our attention from each other.

  I went up on my toes, allowing my hands to travel into his thick, slightly wavy hair, threading my fingers through the strands, before grabbing two handfuls to force his mouth harder against mine. He laughed, but the sound ended on a groan as I opened my mouth to him, his leg pushing between my thighs, his hand at the small of my back, arching me into him.

  “I need you,” I gasped, releasing his hair so that my hand could slip between us. I didn’t have a whole lot of sexual experience, but I was more than willing to bow down to my instinct. I wanted to touch him, I needed to experience his reaction to me.

  His breath grew heavy as my fingers gripped his hard length, his palms once again pressed to the stone wall behind me, on either side of my body. When he seemed close to reaching his limit, he encircled my wrists, pulling them away and moving them behind my back, trapping them there and pressing me flush against him. His other hand brushed slowly down my front, a glittery intention in his eyes, visible in the dim light. I should have paused to figure out where exactly the light was coming from, since it had a flickering quality to it, indicating a bare flame nearby. I should have been asking many questions, but I was done with thinking.

  It was time to forget about everything else. The urge to gather my Abcurses around me and forge us into a tighter, closer link was almost overwhelming. I had no idea why it was happening, but I was past the point of questioning it.

  The further down Siret’s hand travelled, the more I could sense his magic slowly rolling over me—not that I needed to actually feel his magic to know that I was now naked, because his fingers didn’t pause in their downward motion, travelling over my belly, my hip, before pushing between my legs. I lifted up onto my toes, my arms stretched behind me, held at the base of my spine. I dropped my face against his chest, my sounds of pleasure caught against his bare skin as my legs went immediately weak. He was taking away my ability to stand while keeping me upright with his grip on my wrists. It was bordering on painful, but I didn’t want to break free or stop him, because his fingers were driving me insane, sending liquid heat through my body.

  There was nothing that I could do to take control of the situation, to drive our encounter in the direction I wanted it to go. If it hadn’t felt so amazing, I would have fought him; I would have tried to gain the upper hand somehow, but I had no strength to fight. I gave in, letting him drive me closer and closer to the edge, before he pushed me mercilessly over.

  I slumped against him as I cried out, emotion welling up inside me, and he immediately released my wrists, cradling me gently in his arms. I didn’t know why, but tears were gathering at the corners of my eyes, a strange elation filling my chest. Undead sex was different to … swimming.

  “Don’t say undead sex,” Siret muttered, laughter in his voice, though it had a roughness to it that only served to remind me that we hadn’t actually had sex, yet. I let my body ride the heavy wave of emotion as I pushed into him. I could feel every inch of his skin beneath me as we sank down to the cold stone floor. I wanted to wonder why the room wasn’t f
urnished, as the rooms had been at Blesswood—why there weren’t rugs and blankets, couches and beds—but as soon as the questions jumped into my mind, they were pushed out again at the feel of Siret’s smooth skin beneath my fingertips. I straddled him, my knees settling on either side of his.

  “Put it in,” I demanded, still struggling a little to breathe.

  “That’s … really not how this goes,” he replied, and I could hear the laughing grimace in his words.

  “You don’t put it in?”

  “No, you do put it in … I meant that you don’t say things like ‘put it in’.”

  “Well I do, because I just did.”

  “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

  I reached down, my hand wrapping around his hardness again. He groaned heavily.

  “Put it in,” I repeated.

  This time there was no laughter from Siret, but his eyes burned. Branding me. Claiming me.

  His hands clenched and unclenched at my waist, until he eventually pulled my hand away from him and grabbed my hips, pulling me onto him. He entered me, our bodies immediately finding a shared rhythm as though we were starved, and maybe we were. I felt deprived of them—all five of my Abcurses. In a way, there was an emptiness between us now, one which had been there since my death. Like we needed to secure the soul-bond between us. It wanted us to acknowledge it—to give ourselves to each other.

  Siret was losing his grip on control, his touch becoming more demanding, his god-strength leaking through his caresses. It wasn’t painful to me the way it might have been before Rau’s curse had hit me—now, I revelled in it. I returned it twofold, until we were finishing together, a pile of limbs and laboured breathing. He never stopped touching me, the entire time his hands gliding, rubbing, soothing. His lips feathered out over my temple before finding mine, and it was the most natural thing in the world to tell him how I felt. I opened my mouth to say the words, but he was already saying them, his voice a husky whisper against my hair.

  “I love you, Soldier.”

  I really had to die more often if this was the reward.

  Six

  Siret was cradling most of my body, his hands gliding across my skin, but still the cold crept inside of me. It was so cold, and I could feel a draught … which shouldn’t have been possible inside a cave.

  “What’s wrong with this room?” I murmured, shivering against Siret.

  Before he could answer, there was a burst of light from across the room. I was on my feet in a flash, hidden behind over six foot of angry god.

  Angry naked god.

  “Oh shit,” a nervous voice exclaimed.

  I peeked around Siret to find a sol standing there. A male, with shoulder-length dirty blond hair pulled back at the nape of his neck, held there by a piece of leather. He had in his hands a single throw, thin, not at all warm looking, and a small pile of clothing.

  “You have less than a click to tell me what the hell you’re doing in here.” Siret’s voice sounded all drawly and calm, but I was touching his rigid back. He was anything but calm.

  “Uh, I’m … this … what.”

  This sol was definitely going to have a heart attack if he didn’t calm down. He also seemed to be spending an awful lot of time staring at the ceiling, and since it was dark and a single-toned stone up there, I couldn’t figure out what was so fascinating.

  “He’s trying not to look at you naked, Soldier,” Siret informed me. “Because then he knows I’ll throw him off this cliff.”

  Right, I had forgotten we were both naked. “They’re just boobs,” I told the sol, still trying to get around Siret, who was still shuffling me back. “We all have them, mine are just bigger than yours.”

  The sol made a choked noise. His face was very red, reflected in the beam of light from the door he’d opened to come into the room.

  “Why are you in here?” Siret barked, having had enough.

  “Thisismyroom,” the sol rushed out. “I didn’t know anyone was in here.”

  Noticing Siret’s pants a few feet away, I quickly leaned over and snatched them up, handing them to him. He pulled them on, turning to still block me, before he ran his hand across my front. My insides tightened, but this time it wasn’t fun touching. He was dressing me again.

  It was then that I finally took the time to absorb my surroundings.

  “There’s no furniture in here.” I squinted at the twinkling lights. “And there’s a huge hole in the side of this room! Someone could just roll out of it during the night.”

  Half of the wall was missing. That had to be a hazard of some kind—namely the falling to your death kind.

  The sol shuffled his feet, looking miserable. “Staviti wants only the strongest to survive. We will be living with less comforts than usual.”

  “Hell no,” I declared, crossing my arms over my chest. “I will not be sleeping with a hole in the wall of my room. On a mountain. That’s tempting fate way too much for me.”

  The sol spoke up again. “Gods are not in this section, it’s sols and dwellers only. The Abcurses will be … somewhere else.”

  Siret, still shirtless and wearing that dark look he only pulled out when he was seriously annoyed, wrapped an arm around me. We started toward the open door.

  “Uh, nice to meet you,” I said over my shoulder. “Thanks for the room.” I really should have been more embarrassed by our situation, but I wasn’t. I’d lived through worse, that was for sure.

  Siret led me down a dark tunnel and then we were in what looked like a central mingling area. It was well lit; there were sols everywhere trying to figure out which death-trap of a cell they were in. Dwellers were scurrying about, directing the sols. The moment Siret stepped into their midst, his beautiful bronze skin on display, absolute silence filled the cave. Wide eyes followed our movements, and I would guess they both feared and craved the god who walked among them. Craving was definitely an emotion Siret brought out in me as well.

  My body already wanted more. From all of my Abcurses. Undead sex was definitely the best. The corner of Siret’s lips quirked up, and when he lowered his gaze to meet mine, my toes pretty much curled in my new Trickery boots.

  “How are we supposed to find your rooms?” I asked to distract us both. “We need Emmy. She’ll know.”

  Before he could reply, a deep voice drifted in from a dark archway. “Here’s my little trouble maker.” White robes swished into view as he stepped forward, looking all dangerous and beautiful.

  “You’re an asshole, I hope you know that,” I snarled at Cyrus. “You threw that girl off a cliff. She’s dead now!”

  He shrugged, like it was no big deal, and I fought against my urge to punch him. Would I actually be able to hurt him now that I was some sort of undead thing?

  “If you don’t hurt him, Soldier, I could try,” Siret drawled casually.

  Cyrus let out an exasperated sound. “This is not the fucking sun-cycle to try me. I’m not supposed to be babysitting all of these pathetic wormers. I have a life. I have duties. I don’t just laze around all sun-cycle doing nothing.”

  I shrugged, mimicking him from before. “Kinda looks like you do to me.” I still wasn’t sure exactly what Cyrus did with his Neutral powers.

  Before he could make whatever disparaging remark was about to come out of his mouth, I interrupted. “We need to go to our rooms, so we can’t really hang about and chat.”

  I might have still been a little cranky about the killing thing.

  Cyrus’s eyes shone, and he looked to be on the edge of doing that really scary thing he did. I had no idea what usually followed after the really scary thing, though, because at that point, I usually ran.

  “Your room is back there.” He pointed toward the round cave.

  “No.”

  He blinked at my blunt reply.

  “I stay with the Abcurses. You know that. And Emmy stays with me.” I took another step closer to him, my finger coming up to jab him in the chest. Siret gra
bbed my arm before I could, edging himself between me and Cyrus.

  I ducked my head out to the side to shoot another glare at him.

  “You and your brothers are in the god-residences a level above,” I heard Cyrus mutter. “If Staviti comes down to check on everything, I will not be covering for Willa being in your rooms.”

  Then, in a swish of white robes, he was walking away.

  Siret reached out and captured my hand, threading our fingers together. We walked hand in hand the rest of the way back to the edge of the mountain, and up several winding steps to a higher level of stone hallways, connecting rooms and meeting areas carved into the mountain.

  “Are you worried about Staviti finding me in your rooms?” I asked when we were almost there. I couldn’t get Cyrus’s warning out of my head.

  Siret snorted, low and with real humour. “Don’t worry about it. You just leave Staviti, and whatever he has planned, for us to deal with. Our family isn’t easily threatened, especially now that we have our parents back in this realm together. We have something other gods lack: a true family. We back each other up, no matter what. Staviti has allies and enemies. Both of which are interchangeable depending on the life-cycle.”

  That made me feel … better. I’d always thought—after hearing the fables of Staviti—that he was a lonely sort of god, always trying to create a family. Trying to control everything. Most of the time failing. I was more than a little lucky to be bonded to the only true god family.

  Leaning in close, because the hallway had begun to narrow, leading off into the separate residences, I whispered, “Do you think Staviti has been deliberately draining Minatsol?” Siret slowed, turning to face me. “He said there are channels, pathways … does that explain why more than half of this world is dead, and Topia is thriving and beautiful?”

  The flaming torches set into little stone nooks high above us were washing warm light over his face. I got lost staring at him for a moment, almost missing his words. “I’m not sure exactly what Staviti did to the worlds, but it’s clear that the balance is off. There is no reason for Topia to be unable to take more gods—we populate a very small percentage of it. Something bigger is going on here.”