Seduction

by Jaymin Eve

  “Miss,” he greeted, glancing at me. “You’re the one needing the bullsen? Seven bullsen?” His voice hitched on the last word, indicating that the request was going to be a problem.

  “No,” I quickly assured him, casting a look toward Emmy. “I don’t think we really need to take so many. You don’t have any carts available?”

  “They’re strictly for the use of the sacred sols, Miss.”

  He just looked confused now, his eyes flicking up over my shoulder to take in the last few sols that scrambled down the path from the arena to the dorms. Several of them appeared to be injured. “A tough arena match this sun-cycle? I could hear the screams from here.”

  “That’s what we need the carriages for,” Emmy insisted. “Several of the top sols are injured, and I’ve been directed to organise their transport to Dvadel, as the Blesswood healers are overrun. Please don’t make us wait any longer, or the repercussions will not just land on us.”

  He nodded, jerking his eyes away from the arena. “Of course, Miss. Wait right here, I’ll prepare the carriages. Will two be enough? I only have one spare driver—”

  “These two women have been asked to drive,” she quickly intercepted, nudging my mother to stand behind me. Luckily, the dweller hadn’t paid much attention to her, yet. “The dweller committee felt it best that our representatives travel with them, as the families of the sols will need to be notified of their healing progress in a … diplomatic manner. You know how these sol families take failure in battle …” She let that trail off suggestively, while the dweller nodded a few more times.

  “Of course.” He hurried back into the stables and we both turned in complete synchronisation to face my mother.

  Her expression didn’t change, but her eyes moved quickly from me to Emmy, and back.

  “Who sent you here?” Emmy asked.

  “Staviti,” she replied. “Our great and humble Creator. The Father of our Realm. The Benevolent. The Wise—”

  “We get it,” I muttered. “Why did he send you here?”

  “He said: Donald, I would like you to stand in the arena when they call your name. Try not to fall over.”

  “That’s all?” Emmy pressed, apparently frustrated.

  “He said I was not to injure the Sacred One,” my mother added.

  “Which sacred one?” I puffed out a breath. “There are so many.”

  “You, Sacred One.”

  “Oh. Cool. Why can nobody hurt me?”

  “He would like to meet with you. He does not like when people bleed on his rugs. He was very clear that creating rugs was a chore he liked to avoid, so if I could prevent people from bleeding on the rugs—”

  I placed my hand over her mouth to stem the tirade of unhelpful explanations. “He clearly hasn’t told her anything important. I can take her with us. Are you going to come, or stay?”

  “You know I need to stay.” The expression on Emmy’s face was sad, but her shoulders were squared, determined. “The dwellers need a leader—someone steady that they can trust, someone who can help to rally them. I won’t leave them in this mess. Especially with Evie still injured. Once you and the Abcurses leave, the sols are going to try and take back control of the academy. They’re going to send the dwellers so far into the ground that we’ll forget what sunlight looks like. I need to stay and help.”

  Evie. I had forgotten about her. I shouldn’t have forgotten about her considering I was part of the reason she got burned. Cyrus was most of the reason, but it was still my Chaos, and I needed to accept my role. There was no time to ask more about her, though. Not right now. “I should stay and h—”

  “You need to leave,” Emmy insisted, lowering her voice as the dweller began to lead one of the carts out. “The longer you stay, the more everyone here will suffer the fate of Staviti’s punishments for you. You need to get as far away from all of these innocent people as you can.”

  Her words would have probably filled me with pain and guilt, if I hadn’t already shut myself off to everything. I continued with my very practical, analytical train of thought. “You’re right, and I think I know a place. Will you watch mu—Donald? I need to get the guys out of the arena so we can leave. Before things get even worse.”

  “I’ll watch her.” Emmy pried my fingers from our mother’s arm, and opened her mouth to speak, but the dweller was now directly behind us, fiddling with the bullsen reins. She waited a click, until he returned to the stable, and then quickly rushed out: “She’ll be safe with me. I promise. Go!”

  I wasn’t going to wait for any more encouragement; I spun and ran back toward the arena entrance, searching along the ground for where I might have dropped my broken spear. I didn’t see it anywhere, of course, but it didn’t matter. I could maybe use Chaos. Probably. Hopefully.

  “Found her!” a familiar voice shouted out, and I noticed Aros standing right beneath the arena gate, two stolen spears gripped in his hands and blood smeared up his arms.

  “Gods.” I lurched to a stop before him, reaching for one of his arms. “Is this yours?”

  “No.” His eyes were heavy on my face, trying to dig into me, to measure how I was feeling. “Sorry, Willa. We had to hurt some of them.”

  I turned to the arena, where the others were still fighting, though Siret was now breaking free from the centre of the death-circle, swiping servers out of his way. The bodies were piled up all around them. And … they were still fighting.

  “Where the hell are they all coming from?” I asked, flinching as Siret kicked another server out of his way.

  “Don’t know,” Aros grunted, shifting one of his spears to a holder at his back.

  I could see Rome in the center of the mass, trying to knock people away from him without doing any serious damage—and mostly failing. I could see Coen, too, causing people to crumble around him, their screams of pain echoing over to me.

  “Where’s Yael?” I shouted, as Siret drew closer, kicking away another server.

  “Went to find you. Figured we’d need to send Persuasion to convince your ass to stop being a hero.”

  “Ah. Well, I have returned. Just in time to rescue you.”

  Aros snorted, using his second spear to tap me on the shoulder. “We could have been done with this fight half a rotation ago—figured you wouldn’t want us killing too many of them, though.”

  “Thanks, Three.” I wanted to pull him into my arms and wrap around him, but I had to fight the urge off. I was forcing all of my emotions away. I needed to.

  “Found her!” The shout came from behind me, but I didn’t have time to spin around before two arms locked around me, drawing me tightly against a broad chest. “There’s a dweller-Emmy outside the arena with Willa’s mother and a couple carriages. Apparently, Willa is trying to rescue us.”

  “That’s what she said,” Siret confirmed, before turning and running halfway back to the death-circle. I could hear his shout still, from where I stood. “Hey Pain! Strength! Willa would like to rescue us now!”

  “Now?” Rome bellowed back. “Can it wait a bit? We have a bet going!”

  “What a bunch of shweeds,” I muttered, before summoning an internal reprimand to project into all of their heads.

  We need to get the hell out of Blesswood before Staviti tears the place to the ground in his attempt to punish us.

  “She has a point!” Coen yelled across the arena. “Be there in a click! I’ve almost beaten his body count!”

  “Ye-ah,” I drawled sarcastically, rolling my eyes toward Aros. “They’re trying really hard not to hurt anyone, aren’t they?”

  “Let’s um … go and see the carriages?” Siret reached forward and grabbed a hold of my shirt, attempting to pull me out of Yael’s arms.

  It didn’t work; Yael only tightened them around me, lifting me up off the ground.

  “Mine,” he grumbled. “Let’s go see the carriages.”

  Siret’s eyes narrowed, and I started to realise that they were possibly all a little riled up from t
he fighting. I tapped on Yael’s arm, and wriggled a little until he loosened them, allowing me to stand again. We didn’t have time for a god-brother-fight, so I reached out and caught Siret’s hand, and led them both from the entrance. Aros followed behind, a small smirk on his face as though he found my intervention a little bit funny.

  Outside, the pandemonium was continuing to die down as the final few stands of people fled the arena. I wondered if the sols were finally starting to re-evaluate their burning desire to become gods. I would have been thinking twice if my perfect, benevolent, wonderful gods had sent a bunch of warrior-Jeffreys down to try and wipe me out.

  It didn’t matter if it had all been meant as some sort of message or punishment for me and the Abcurses. In a way, being nothing more than unimportant collateral was probably even worse.

  “There they are!” I pointed toward Emmy, who was wearing a frustrated sort of expression.

  She was staring at my mother, who stood before the two carts, two bullsen tethered to the front of each. I barrelled forward, dragging Siret and Yael with me, Aros keeping pace with no effort. Emmy’s head snapped up as I reached her side, and I saw her swallow hard. “Is … Donald okay?” I asked, my voice hesitating over the name.

  She nodded, blinking rapidly. “Fine. Donald is perfectly content and fine and in love with Sta … the gods.”

  I was the one nodding and blinking now, up and down, my movements mechanical. “Wonderful. Donald is really making someone proud.” Not us, but someone.

  I couldn’t bring myself to look at her—at the face that was so familiar. Bodies pressed against me, sinking in on either side, with Aros stepping up behind me. They didn’t have to ask: they knew my pain as well as they knew me. They didn’t say a word, but when I tilted my head back to take them in, their expressions said a lot. There were flames burning in Yael’s eyes, like tiny pricks of green ember. Siret wore no smile, and for him that said everything. I couldn’t find much humour in the situation either, but I needed to continue pretending that everything was okay, otherwise I would break down completely. Just another sun-cycle in the life of Willa Knight.

  Aros’s chest expanded, the scent of burning sugar drifting across to me. He seemed to be burning up or something, as heat burned from his body, radiating through my spine.

  “You okay?” I asked him, his reaction the most potent.

  He seemed to tear his gaze from my mother with reluctance. “Are you okay?” His voice lowered, his hand pressing into my cheek as he tilted my head back to meet his molten gaze.

  I tore myself away before he could make me cry, and practically threw myself into the cart. Of course, the step was higher than I had expected, so I tripped and head-butted the bullsen instead. The beast kicked out, and if a strong grip hadn’t wrapped around my middle and yanked me back, I would have probably lost half my face to a bullsen hoof. Siret’s arms were so warm and familiar; his energy tickled against my senses in a calming way, but I didn’t allow myself to stay in his arms for long. There would be time to fall apart, but that time wasn’t now. For now, I would keep my barrier erected. I would deal with the situation at hand.

  “Into the cart, Donald,” I ordered, pushing myself off the broad chest and turning with a deep breath.

  “As you wish, Sacred One.”

  She clambered up with ease, her gait still robotic, but capable.

  “See you soon, Em,” I murmured. “Stay safe.”

  She nodded, and then in a flash she wrapped her arms around me, yanking me in with her crazy strength and squeezing me too hard before she let me go and ran off toward the nearest building. Back to her job as the dweller-saviour of Blesswood.

  I attempted to climb into the cart again—a hand on my butt making sure that I actually made it this time. “Thanks, Five.” I didn’t bother turning my head; I knew it was him.

  Why I had chosen the same cart as my mother, I had no idea. Maybe I wanted to punish myself, because everything that had happened was because of me. Not that I had been the one to actively do this to her. That was all Staviti: the asshole who liked to play with dwellers and sols and even gods as though they meant nothing.

  “Do you want to move to the other cart, Willa-toy?”

  I shook my head at Yael. “No, my moth—Donald is my responsibility. I need to keep an eye on her.”

  My mother was across from us, sitting upright on the seat, staring around. Siret settled in next to her as Yael sat on one side of me and Aros on the other. I was directly facing Siret, his twinkling eyes locked on my face.

  “Will Staviti try and bring her back?” I asked him. “Can he just poof her out of here or something?” The whispered words rattled from my chest, my eyes flicking to my mother’s blank face.

  Aros lifted his arm over the back of our bench seat, settling me in against his side. Yael had his hand on my thigh, his hold somewhere between gentle and firm. Siret was the one to answer me.

  “No,” he said. “She’ll only leave if she receives an order from him, or someone who ranks higher than us. If he didn’t give her instructions to return, then she’ll wait until she gets them.”

  A heavy weight dipped the cart—knocking me forward a little—followed by a second, even heavier dip.

  “Coen and Rome are driving,” Aros murmured in my ear as we started to move forward. “I think you got a little carried away trying to save us, sweetheart. We only need one cart.”

  He was right. The five of us fit just fine in the back, with the two biggest bodies up the front. Apparently, I hadn’t counted everyone right … but there was no point in admitting that out loud.

  “It was actually a preventative measure,” I told him, as the others sat in tense silence. “I told the dweller working in the stables that I needed the carts to transport injured sols. It made more sense to ask for two.”

  “Lie,” Siret muttered from the other seat. “She crinkled her nose.”

  “I saw it too,” Yael added. “Definitely a lie.”

  Aros grinned at me. “You were so busy saving us you overreacted a little, huh?”

  I chose to ignore him, turning away from Siret as well—which left only my mother to look at. She stared at the window, oblivious to our conversation as she watched the scenery. Except … her eyes weren’t moving. She wasn’t really watching the scenery. She was simply staring. Sitting. Part-way existing. I couldn’t bring myself to look away from her, all the while wishing something else would happen as a distraction. I would have gladly dived back into a discussion about the number of carts I overcompensated with, but everyone was staying silent.

  As if he’d heard my desperate mental plea, Aros tightened the arm which was still draped behind me, before spinning me to face him, finally tearing my gaze from my mother.

  “Sweetheart,” he murmured, his sugary scent washing over me.

  I snuggled in even closer, pushing my body into his, and his hands slipped around me, helping me further. I somehow ended up on his lap, facing him, both of his hands pressed into my back.

  “This isn’t your fault,” he continued to whisper, the words meant solely for me.

  I bit my bottom lip to stop it from trembling. “I know.”

  That didn’t change anything though. Even though I hadn’t been the one to kill—change my mother, it still didn’t reverse the fact that it had been done. I couldn’t even mourn in a normal way, because there was nothing normal about this. She was technically gone … but she was still right there. She even still had her hair. I thought that she maybe even smelled the same, but that was possibly only because the chemical scent of the guardian’s cave wasn’t so different from the strong alcohol scent that had always clung to my mother’s clothing. Aros tilted his head and pressed a kiss just below my ear, followed by another, closer to my cheek.

  “Close your eyes,” he said, and I immediately obeyed, caught up by him.

  He wasn’t blasting me full-force with his power, but he was certainly slipping me low, intermittent doses. A few more pressed
kisses, the final one ending at the corner of my mouth and I became completely boneless.

  Another hand joined Aros’s at my back, and I knew from the possessive way it hooked into the dip of my waist that it was Yael. No doubt I should have been embarrassed by what they were doing in front of my mother, but I knew they wouldn’t take it too far, and I needed the contact. The distraction.

  Or … maybe I was just a terrible decision maker, and they brought out the unthinking worst in me.

  Yael’s hand hooked in tighter, tugging on me, and Aros released me almost without a fight. They were working together, for me, because I needed them.

  “Relax, Rocks.” Yael’s rich voice slid over my skin, and unlike Aros, he was hitting me hard with his gift.

  Darkness hovered on the edge of my vision, and even though I could have attempted to fight it—I wasn’t that far gone yet—I didn’t want to. I wanted to give in to them. I wanted them to look after me, even if it was just this once and I had to spend the rest of my life pretending to rescue them.

  Just this once …

  Arms tightened around me, and then his persuasive voice filled my head.

  “Sleep, Willa-toy.”

  The rhythmic movement of the cart stopping was the first thing my subconscious registered, and I didn’t linger any longer in my escape. It was time to face the music. My face felt a little numb, like it had been pressed to a hard surface for a long time, and when I finally pried my eyes open, I realised why. I was still on Yael’s lap, his arms banded tightly around me, my face pressed into his chest.

  “You drool,” he said.

  “And snore,” Siret added.

  “Do not,” I protested, my voice a little raspy. “I sleep with you guys all the time. You can’t try telling me that now.”

  I lifted my head from the soft material of Yael’s shirt, which did appear to have a small wet patch on it.