“Yeah, a bad attempt … I’m not hurt.”
His big hands landed on my biceps before they made a slow glide along my arms. It was like he was checking for injuries … or was he …
“Are you sensing for pain?” Some of my awe leaked out into my words. My guys were amazing, even with their powers diminished from being stuck on Minatsol.
“Yes,” he said shortly as he finished brushing along my body. I had to clench my fists now to stop myself from reaching out and pulling him closer to me.
“We should just kill her now,” Yael said, starting a conversation with his brother like I wasn’t even there. “The sol needs to go; we can figure out a way to keep it from Rau and Abil.”
Coen—who was apparently satisfied enough by my lack of pain—took a step back from me. Although he did keep one hand wrapped tightly around my left wrist. “You know I’ve been on team kill-Karyn from sun-cycle one. We should put it to a vote, though; it affects all of us.”
I pulled hard, trying to free myself from his hold. “She’s my enemy. I don’t want you guys to kill anyone for me. I can take care of myself.” I was lying again, but it mattered to me.
“You get no say in this, Rocks.” Coen released me and turned to walk along the hall again. Yael was right behind him, pulling me along for the journey. “You attack one of us, you attack us all. We won’t let this insult stand.”
Assholes. There they went again, making decisions for me. I had to do something about it before they completely stripped me of all independence and free thought. I was always going to be the only female. The weakest physically. The shortest. All things which made it hard to be heard. But I had one asset which was mine to utilise, and with that in mind, I finally devised a plan to punish the Abcurses for their sex talk. Their arrogance. Maybe next time they’d think twice about making decisions without my input. I just needed a few clicks alone with Siret—he was even more essential now that I actually had a plan to put into play. Of course, that would be difficult for the next few rotations, since they’d no doubt be ass-deep in plans to destroy Karyn.
Or, at least, that was what I assumed.
By the time dinner rolled around the next sun-cycle, they still hadn’t made a decision about Karyn. I was starving, having had every single meal interrupted since breakfast time. I didn’t have time to eat though; I was working like a dweller, doing the best job of serving that I possibly could without getting too far from the Abcurse table in the centre of the room.
I knew my duties were the easy ones. I only had one table of sols to deal with instead of the usual three. Whoever was the new head of the dweller-relations committee was giving me the easy tasks, passed on by the more senior dwellers.
“How are you doing, Will?” Emmy brushed past me, six trays in her arms while I struggled with my one.
“No problems so far.” For a micro-click I drank in the sight of her grace and beauty, so grateful to see my real Emmy, acting just how Emmy always did. I only cringed in reply to her question, because in that moment, I wasn’t sure how I had fallen for Karyn’s ruse for even a click. Speaking of, my eyes darted up toward the door, expecting that she would appear at any moment. The cart had been gone when we left our room, but there were no rumours about her whereabouts. She was probably in the healing ward.
Bringing my attention back to the tray I was supposed to be dropping into the kitchen, I misjudged the distance between my table and the one next to it, and tripped over the back of a chair, bumping one of the sols. The male jumped to his feet in one agile leap, spinning around with his hand raised.
I knew that he was about to slap me. Slap at whatever dweller had made the mistake of tripping and nudging him. Somehow though, I saw it coming, and dodged to the side, receiving only a graze of his knuckle. Before he could attempt slap two, a huge mountain was between us and the sol let out a gasp as he stared up at Rome.
I flicked a glance over my shoulder and noticed the rest of the guys were still in their chairs. They gave off the aura of being relaxed, but I knew them well enough now to sense their anger. To see the rigidness of their bodies.
“Did you just slap our dweller?” Rome’s voice was low, almost conversational. But I knew his eyes would be those glittering hard gems, cutting through the slap-happy-sol.
“Sorry … so sorry, Rome. I didn’t realise it was … she bumped. I didn’t mean to.”
No one would doubt he was telling the truth. Fear and worry bled off him and since no sols truly looked at the dwellers who spent their entire lives serving them, it made sense that he wouldn’t have recognised me.
I sidled a little closer to Rome, who manoeuvred himself so that his body remained between me and Slappy. My hands inched up and rested against the god’s broad back, some of his shirt tangling in my fingers. I felt an iota of the tension riding him relax, something which Slappy must have noticed too, because arrogance trickled back into his features.
“No hard feelings, man.” He held out a hand and Rome looked down at it for a beat, before he lifted his head again. Then, in a move that was so quick I wasn’t even sure that I saw his arm move, he crashed his fist into the side of Slappy’s head, knocking him out cold. Rome caught the sol’s shoulder before he could fall, his fingers biting in, seeming to almost be crushing the bone as he held the other boy up off the ground.
“The next one to touch our dweller will find themselves in a much worse position than Johnson here.” Rome threw Slappy—a.k.a. Johnson—back toward his friends. None of them even moved to grab him, which meant that he crashed into the table, his unconscious form sprawled out over the surface.
Rome spun, and sweeping one arm around me, he half-carried me back to their table. He pointed at my usual seat and demanded, “Sit!”
Using my best glower, I sucked up as much bravery as I could find inside and replied with a firm, “No. I have to finish my dweller shift.”
Aros was up then, striding around to where I stood. “Willa, you’re hungry. You’ve already done your part for the night. Have a break … we ordered you some cheesy bread.”
Dammit. Why did he have to use reason and logic? Not to mention cheesy bread. It was easy to fight Rome, who was still glowering at me, because I hated being told what to do and I hated being ordered around. But Aros had used his seductive voice and seductive face and seductive food, and he was totally winning me over.
With a loud exhalation, I nudged the golden god out of the way and dropped into my chair. “Only here for the bread,” I muttered, loud enough for those listening in the tables nearby to pick up. Our group was being very closely monitored.
Another thing to piss me off that sun-cycle. Thankfully, my plan was really coming together for tomorrow. All I needed was to get a Trickery god alone, and convince him to help me.
Four