There was a moment of silence, and then before I could track his movements Coen slammed his fist into his brother’s face. Siret flew back with a loud crash into the wall behind us. He was back on his feet in an instant and then it was on.
Coen and Siret clashed in a fury-of-the-gods kind of way, trading heavy blows. The sounds were loud and aggressive as they echoed along the hall.
“You let sols and dwellers look at her like that?” Coen’s words were low and angry. Filled with power and pain. “They saw her dressed in almost nothing! It’s bad enough when she loses her clothes through whatever special magic she possesses, but this was you. You allowed this to happen!”
Siret deflated then, not even bothering to lift his hands and defend himself. Coen got one more hit in before a dead silence filled the space. I realised then that Aros held me tightly, both arms wrapped around my middle. When I glanced down, he said, “You were trying to get between them and one hit could have killed you. You have a death wish, Rocks.”
He was probably right. “They’re not fighting now, so let me go.” I struggled for only half a click, to no avail, before Aros finally released his hold. Coen and Siret were still in a standoff, their anger palpable. Siret had blood pouring from a busted lip. I crept closer, my movements slow and exaggerated so that I didn’t take either of them by surprise and cop a smack to the mouth. Aros was right, a solid hit and I wouldn’t survive. There was a Siret-sized hole in the wall behind him.
Lucky they were gods. As I had that thought, I noticed that the cut was already healing on Siret’s face, and his bruises were fading out too. I was guessing that if they had been in Topia, there would have been no injuries to see at all. Here on Minatsol, they probably healed a little slower.
I was just about at Coen’s side when Siret broke. “Shit, man.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I screwed up. You know that I can’t resist a good illusion trick. It didn’t sit right with me either, but I had already given Willa my word, so I followed through on it.”
Coen wasn’t softening. If anything, this enraged him even more. With a final curse in my direction, he spun on his heel and strode away. In a few angry movements, he was inside his room, the door closing behind him with a resounding bang.
It looked like my skill in pushing people away was reaching epic new heights. I was down to three Abcurses now, and none of them looked very happy with me. I drew myself up again, trying to search for Independent Willa. She surged forward and I let her confidence wrap around me. This was about the pact. I had followed their orders. I had hidden my nakedness from them. I had proved the point that needed proving … hadn’t I?
I frowned, my attention skittering over Yael and Aros, before coming to a rest on Siret. There was blood marking his face, but his injuries had completely faded away. Now I understood why they never pandered to the demands of the gods during their arena fights. They had to end the fights as quickly as possible—or better yet, without a real fight at all. If they got injured and healed themselves in front of every sol at the academy, surely people would become suspicious of them. They were gods. And I was not. I was just the pain-in-the-butt who attached herself to them and started causing drama.
“I just need a click,” I heard myself saying, my eyes running over to Rome’s door, and then to Coen’s.
I didn’t hear the triplets move, but the pain in my chest increased, and it was enough to convince me that they had respected my wishes and retreated into their own rooms. I appreciated that they hadn’t pushed me.
But something deep inside me stung. Burned. Bled.
I was already pushing them away, just like Emmy had said I would.
But …
They were letting me.
Six
I was back inside the cleaning closet, huddled up in my underwear with my arms looped over my knees. I guessed it was close to six rotations after sunset, but I had no way of really monitoring that. The halls had grown quiet several rotations ago and the glow of sunlight beneath my door had dimmed to blackness. I could barely see my hands as I held them up before my face.
I had several options.
I could hunt down one of the Abcurses—whoever was least likely to be angry at me—or I could skip the secret meeting with the dwellers. I didn’t like either option, so I continued to sit inside the closet for a while longer, practising my evasion skills. When a soft knock at the door sounded, I knew that one of them had come for me, and guilt immediately swept through me. The old me would have ignored the knock, burrowing deeper into the darkness of safety and denial, but I realised in that moment that I wasn’t actually the same person anymore.
I thought the old me was a bit of a brat, and I really didn’t like her methods of dealing with shit.
“I’m sorry!” I exclaimed, jumping up and throwing the door open.
“I know a way you can make it up to me.” Fakey stood on the other side, smirking.
She was wearing loose, dark pants, paired with a flowy dark top and ass-kicking boots. I was immediately suspicious of her clothing, because they were far too loose and flowing for a Blesswood sol. Only sweet village dwellers were allowed to wear clothes like that. Preferably while they were out in the fields picking flowers for their grandmothers. On Fakey, it just made me wonder what she was hiding beneath.
Or, more specifically, how many weapons she was hiding beneath.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” I needlessly told her, peeking around her for a moment. No sign of the Abcurses. They were still giving my stupid, arrogant ass the space I apparently needed.
“They’re all tucked up safely in bed,” she told me, her smirk growing. “Sorry about the fight you guys had. Looked nasty. Siret seemed to heal up nicely though, don’t you think?”
My mouth dropped open a little bit, and my mind immediately flickered with an image of the little jewelled beetle that was crawling around in a jar in my ‘room.’ Elowin had planted it in my hair, and it had somehow made me invisible to sols. I had no idea how the magic of the beetle worked, which was precisely why it was locked securely away in a jar, being fed lettuce leaves—not that it was eating the lettuce leaves, but that was another matter.
“Have you been using an invisibility bug to sneak around on us?” I asked Fakey, my eyes narrowing a little. I was trying to look both unthreatening and suspicious all at once. I was pretty sure I just looked like I was having vision-difficulties.
“An invisibility bug?” She snorted. “Do you mean a jewel-skin?”
“Nope.” I shook my head. “I definitely mean an invisibility bug. You know the one. The one Elowin put on me? The one that made me invisible and stuff—”
“The one that’s called a jewel-skin?” she cut me off, mocking my questioning tone.
“Let’s agree to disagree.”
She growled, looking like she wanted to stab me, so I quickly slipped past her, ducking out of the closet. I was starting to think that trapping myself in a closet with Fakey was a great way to get killed.
She turned, tracking me with her eyes. “I’m not going to attack you, idiot. I’ve been thinking things through.” The smirk slipping back onto her lips. “I’m not anywhere near as stupid as you are.” She punctuated that statement by dropping her eyes over my near-naked body. “Killing you was one thing, but now I’m starting to see that if I fail and make you bleed without killing you, the Abcurse brothers will hunt me down and break my neck the same way they broke Elowin’s neck.”
“First of all, I’m not an idiot. I just don’t know all the fancy names of all the fancy invisibility bugs—”
“You’re standing in the middle of the hall in your underwear.”
“I’m a naturalist.”
Fakey closed her eyes, pulling a hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose. She looked like she was trying not to get a headache.
“A what?” she finally asked.
“A naturalist.”
“That’s not a thing.” She was still focussing on her apparently-loomin
g headache, which allowed me time to back up a few steps down the hallway.
“It wasn’t a thing a few sun-cycles ago,” I permitted, “but it’s a thing now. I’m making it a thing.”
“Well then what does it mean?” she snarled, her eyes snapping back open.
I immediately stopped trying to creep backwards. “It means I like to be naked. It’s a thing, dammit. I’m owning it.”
“I’ll be sure to pass that onto Scar.”
“Scar …?” I drew the name out a little, my tone questioning.
“Scarlet. My friend. You met her before. Although she looks different right now. Kind of like you. Or …” She broke off in a chilling laugh. “I guess you could say she looks exactly like you. I now realise where my performance as you was lacking, but I’m afraid I just don’t have the skills required to pull it off a second time. Not now that I know exactly what is required to fully become you.”
“Ok.” I held both of my hands up. “You’re talking in ominous circles, and it’s kind of freaking me out.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“I’m not an idiot! But can you maybe … like … simplify it a little?”
Fakey laughed again, flicking her silken curtain of ebony hair back over her shoulder. She took three long strides until she was right in my face, and then she bent down so that she was level with me, needing to plant her hands on her knees.
“You. Are. A. Filthy. Dweller. Slut.” She said the words slowly, enunciating each one so that the last word managed to fly out of her mouth and land across my face like a heavy slap.
I reeled in my reaction, folding my arms over my chest. “And you looked much better when you were bleeding from the face.”
She straightened up, touching her finger to my nose. “And you still haven’t figured out that Scar is inside one of your guys’ rooms right now, in your preferred naturalist state, doing terrible terrible things.”
Her red lips stretched wide, making her grin a formidable thing to behold, and then she was brushing past me, back towards the common area. How was this freaking possible? Two sols gifted with the rare shape-changing ability? And they were friends? I should have expected that. My head felt numb and my palms were tingling. It took me a few moments to figure out what my reaction was.
Panic.
I was panicking almost too severely to move.
“Better hurry!” Fakey called out over her shoulder. “If she sleeps with one of them, the others will never forgive you!”
If she sleeps …
I was finally going to murder a sol, and it wasn’t even going to be an accident. I marched back into the supply closet, hunting through the small, glass bottles of chemicals until I found one that smelled particularly bad, and was labelled with a warning sticker. Armed as such, I marched toward the closest room, kicking open the door. Empty. The bed-sheets were still tucked in firmly, and the room was swimming in darkness. I moved around with my chemical weapon, lighting the wall-lanterns. Still no sign of Siret—not that I really expected him to be huddled up in a dark corner or anything.
Leaving that room, I entered Yael’s in the same fashion—throwing open the door and marching in as though it was my right. After a moment, I realised that I had my eyes closed. I forced them open, just a tiny crack. When I didn’t immediately see a sex-party, I allowed them to open fully, taking in the cold, dark space. Neither Siret nor Yael had been in their rooms that night. The sigh rushed out of me, making my legs feel a little weak. I had no idea how my body was going to handle the adrenaline of checking all five rooms, but I forced myself on to Aros’s door anyway.
I paused there, my hand curled around the handle, as the dread rushed back into me with a renewed vigour. The pain in my chest from our strained mental-link was almost gone. At least one of the Abcurse brothers was on the other side of the door. I braced myself, pushed it open, and stepped into the room.
The first thing I saw was my own naked ass.
Not that I knew what my naked ass looked like, but the wild blond curls falling down the back above the ass were unmistakable—as were the boots on my—her—feet. She was completely naked, except for the boots. For some reason that struck me as funny—and this was so not a funny situation. I had to stifle a kind of panicked laughter as it threatened to burst through my lips. Of course, as she leaned over a sleeping, golden god, all mirth deserted me and I was back to murderous.
Aros was reclined on the couch, one arm tossed up over his face. His wide, bare chest was rising and falling in a soft rhythm, one of his feet still planted on the ground as though he hadn’t planned on falling asleep there.
Scar was going straight for the crotch like a lady, and Karyn had called me a slut. She was fast too, her hand slipping beneath the waistband of his pants in a click. Aros grunted in his sleep, and my whole world darkened with rage. I unscrewed the lid of my … whatever I was holding, before jumping forward and splashing it into her face. She screamed, pulling back from Aros, her hands scraping down her face. The illusion flickered—the wildness leaking out of her curls, the blond colour darkening. Her features shifted, giving me a glimpse of a wider nose and a wider mouth, before she was sprinting for the door.
She was laughing and swearing in pain. One after the other. Ha! Shit. Haaaah! Fuck!
I looked down at the glass bottle in my hand. “What the hell is this stuff?” I asked nobody in particular. It was like I’d hit her with something that both burned and tickled unbearably all at the same time.
The door slammed on my question and a golden hand gripped my wrist, drawing all of my attention. Aros was pulling himself into a sitting position, his eyes on the now-closed door. “Did I just see …?”
“Yeah.” I swallowed, settling my eyes on his face. Which was extremely difficult when all of that golden chest was on display. “Fakey strikes again … or more accurately, Fakey The Second. Apparently there’s another girl with the same creepy disguise-ability. Just a … more confident version.”
His frown deepened and he stood, darkness pulling around him. “Did she touch me?”
“Er … touch you how?” The falsely innocent question was out of my mouth before I could stop it. I wasn’t sure why I was pretending not to have seen Scar trying to sneak her hands into Aros’s pants.
I probably didn’t want him knowing the reason why I had thrown some kind of cleaning acid into another girl’s face. In fact, I definitely didn’t want him knowing that, because my free arm—the one he wasn’t holding—was twisted behind my back, hiding the glass bottle from him.
His eyes swung from the door, slamming into me. I almost dropped the bottle.
“Willa.” He released me. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
I inched my way back a little, hoping that I would get near the basket where the trash went. If I could drop the bottle there, he might not realise exactly how close that crazy sol had been to him. Before I could even take a single step, Aros’s hand snaked out and re-captured the same wrist that he had been holding before.
I scowled. “So not fair using your god powers on me.”
My complaining would distract him. Right?
He shook his head at me, before slowly easing me closer to him. Inch by inch he pulled me into his heat. I tried hard to resist him. I even shook my head once, and the word no might have slipped out. Then the glass jar fell with a light thud to the ground and somehow my hands were pressed against his chest.
“Willa …” his tone held a warning, but his arms were already around me. Somehow our bodies were pressed together, and since he wore nothing but a pair of soft shorts, and I was in my usual—almost nothing—there was a lot of bare skin touching. He leaned down into me, and my breath pretty much choked out of me as my head got light and dizzy.
Then the sneaky ass ducked behind me and snatched up the glass, leaving me to collapse in a heap on the thick rug. Groaning, I flopped over onto my back. “I want my soul back. Give it to me. You don’t deserve it any longer.”
A
ros’s goldenness increased as he loomed over me, shiny teeth assaulting my senses as his grin spread even further. “You don’t mean that, Rocks.”
He was probably right. But I would die before I admitted it. He reached down and lifted me up with his free arm, the other holding my chemical bottle. He then dropped me down onto the end of the bed, taking a seat beside me. “Tell me everything, and I’ll fill you in on where the others are.”
Shit! I’d totally forgotten about their empty rooms. What if Fakey got to them?
Aros shook his head, answering my thoughts. “Karyn can’t touch us.”
Uh, yeah … sort of not true.
His gaze was back to being dark then, and I realised he wasn’t going to let it go again. “Tell me what happened. We would never have left you alone if we thought she was going to come back so soon. We were giving you space.”
I wanted to shout I hate space, don’t give me space any more, but that seemed like a weird thing to do, so I settled for saying, “Stop reading my thoughts!” Although, to be fair, they seemed to be picking up on less lately. Or at least they were mentioning it less. “Alright, I’ll tell you what happened. I was in my cupboard, because I’ve totally claimed it as my little wallowing hole, and Fakey ambushed me again. This time it wasn’t to kill me, though, she just wanted to see my mental torture when she informed me that her friend was also a Fakey, and she was currently masquerading as buck-naked-Willa, off to have sex with my sols.”
My explanation was a nervous rush: stumbling, and punctuated with lots of jabbing fingers as I got fired up again. “I couldn’t find Siret or Yael, then when I came into your room she was standing over you, naked … well, sort of. She had boots on.” A snort of laughter fled from me, and I lifted my hand to stifle it. Aros looked a little confused, and I tried to continue. “Bare ass and boots.” Another snort of laughter, and before I knew it the giggles were slipping out no matter how hard I pressed my lips together.
Persuasion (Curse of the Gods Book 2) Page 8