Siret made that noise again, although this time it sounded like it came from even deeper. I stepped into him, needing to feel his body against mine. This time there was no ulterior motive—I clearly couldn’t hide my intentions from these five, they knew me too well. Nope, all I wanted was to touch him. He lifted me against his body and I let out a low breath, melting against him.
“You’re wrong, you know,” he murmured close to my ear.
“Huh?” I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, my brain was mimicking my body. Both were mush.
“You have more power against us than any other being in the worlds. It’s almost scary the things we would do for you, Willa. You never have to worry about Aros and what he’s doing right now. Everything we do is to keep you safe.”
“So he’s not over on some marble platform seducing a goddess?” I’d been planning to force the information from Siret, but now I hoped he would just tell me.
Our bodies shook as he laughed hard.
“How about I change you first, and then we can go and see,” he suggested.
That seemed like a great plan to me, so I nodded, and he pulled back. Just as he was about to set me down, I lifted my upper body and settled my lips against his again. This time it was short and sweet, the kiss just a brief touch of skin before I pulled away.
“That power goes both ways,” I told him. “I won’t let anyone hurt you five. I promise.”
The certainty of that statement came from deep in my … soul, maybe. There was a ring of finality about it, like a promise that I could and would not break. I didn’t know what my new energy was, the one that was lingering just below the surface, but whatever I ended up being, I would use that power to keep my family safe.
Siret didn’t say much after that, but his face was different than usual. No less beautiful. No less god-like. There was just a softness there as he cupped my cheeks in his hands, a softness that I hadn’t seen before. No laughter, just a lot of emotion.
His energy washed across me; it was similar to the way it felt when he changed my clothes, but so much stronger. My head went shaky … almost fuzzy for a moment, and it felt like I was swaying on my feet, even though I knew I wasn’t moving. Mild pain rocked over my skin, like he was inflicting a billion little cuts across my body. The very fine kind which took a click to hurt.
Heat grew with that tingling pain, and just when I was worried that it was going to be too much to handle, Siret let out a grumble of annoyance before releasing my face.
“That will do, even though I much prefer you in your original form.”
Opening my eyes, I realised that he didn’t tower over me quite as much as he had before. So, I was taller. My fingers looked long and slender, and my skin was very pale. Normally I was a golden tan, because I had been outdoors most of my life, but whichever god I was now disguised as had that sort of porcelain perfect skin that didn’t have a birth spot or blemish to be seen.
Siret noticed me trying to inspect his disguise, so he led me a little further along the platform, to a section of marble so polished that I could see my reflection in it.
I blinked a few times. “Whoa.”
Siret moved closer, standing next to me, both of us reflected in the marble. “You’re now Sienna, God of Revelry.”
I’d guessed as much. It certainly explained the new attire I wore, which was very reminiscent of the robes my mother had favoured when she was heading out for the night. White, with a strap on one shoulder, the other bare. It was cut tight across my breasts, half of my very slender waist was showing, and the short skirt swished high on my thighs. I wore flat shoes at least, but they had laces that crisscrossed right up my calves.
“Where are the rest of my clothes?” I demanded.
“This is what she wears,” he told me. “We can’t have Staviti being suspicious of us yet, so the details have to be exact. We need to figure out what he’s up to, first. Let mother work her magic on him.”
I knew that wasn’t magic in the god sense he was talking about.
“Tell me why Staviti will not be suspicious of …” I threw a hand out, waving it toward the marble. “All of this.”
Sienna had straight, black hair that hung to just above her butt. It was thick and shiny with a fringe cut above dark, rich blue eyes and to-die-for cheek bones. All of the black hair should have clashed with the white skin, but it didn’t. She was stunning, exotic, the exact sort of woman that men around the two worlds would fall all over themselves to touch.
I didn’t like it. It made me feel insecure, needy, and pathetic. I wanted to rip every strand of her black hair out and that was insane, because this wasn’t even really her. It was me … disguised. Ugh. Stupid men.
Siret seemed to choose his words carefully. “She is the one god who is overlooked a lot. Treated almost like she’s nothing more than a …”
“Whore?” I guessed as he trailed off.
He nodded, not looking all that happy about it. “Because life is a party for her, she doesn’t take things very seriously. That’s her power. Revelry. Flitting between whatever she feels like at any given moment, never settling down.”
None of that sounded any different to the rest of the gods. They were always having parties, randomly killing dwellers like my mother and disposing of their servers when they sneezed at the wrong time. Sienna didn’t seem any different.
I was starting to feel a little sorry for her, though. They called my mum a whore in our village, and I always thought it was an unfair label, considering she wasn’t having sex on her own. The men on Minatsol never seemed to get the same labels, and I had no doubt it was going to be the same in the god world.
“Ready to go and find Aros?” he asked me, and I remembered that the Seduction God was off doing something to keep the real Sienna from attending Staviti’s call.
Spinning away from my reflection, I nodded jerkily. “Yes. Take me there now, and don’t you dare tell him I’m coming.”
I’d work on my trust issues another sun-cycle, right now I needed to see with my own eyes what they had planned. Siret pulled me in, but his touch wasn’t the same. It was a little colder, a little more distant. He wasn’t holding me against him, but simply … holding onto me. I glanced up at his face, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. I wound my arms around him to get closer and caught his cringe. He didn’t like my new appearance.
He turned on the spot and everything blinked out of existence, materialising around me again a micro-click later in the form of yet another marble platform. This one was more cluttered, with furniture strewn everywhere—both whole and broken—along with contained fire pits scattered about and sparkly matter flitting through the air, collecting on the marble ground. It looked as though a party had torn through the platform and disappeared, leaving behind only chaos. There was a single stone house directly in the middle of the platform, surrounded by odd-looking statues and animal ornaments. My mouth fell open a little as I gazed up at the design of the residence. It was in the style of the skyreachers back in Minatsol, with level upon level stacked up toward the sky—except unlike the Minatsol skyreachers, each level was a different shape, making the design impossible to achieve without some kind of magic.
The first level was a simple square shape, with windows and doors. The second was perfectly round, and the third was a perfect triangle. The fourth was a long, thin rectangle, barely high enough for one of the Abcurses to stand in, but long enough to fit a crowd. It was difficult to tell the shapes of the others, beyond the long platform, but I could count eight levels in total.
“Holy god-balls,” I breathed out, taking in the beautiful monstrosity.
“God-balls?” Siret questioned, pulling me toward the residence. “Why not, I guess. Try not to touch anything, Sienna likes her pranks and illusions, even if they’re at the expense of someone losing a hand.”