Seduction (Curse of the Gods #3)

“We separate for a few sun-cycles and she’s already back to being scared of us,” Rome noted, the words grunted out.

I glared at him and stopped backing away, my hands falling back to my sides. His bright green eyes seemed to have lightened, the sunlight slashing over his features. For half a moment, the breath fled my body, and I turned away from him in a bid to get it back. Aros was beside him, so I focussed there, until his golden eyes began to narrow in challenge, and my heart started to beat too fast. I diverted my attention to Siret, who seemed to have forgotten that he was finding me funny, because all the humour had been wiped out of him. His hair was a mess, and he pushed the mess of golden-black strands from his forehead, watching me so intently that my reaction to them grew even worse. My palms started to sweat. I turned to Yael almost desperately, but he had taken on the amusement that Siret had lost: his mouth was turned up at the corners, his eyes darkening as he watched me. It was almost lazy, the knowing in his expression. I could have sworn that he knew about the breath that rattled in the back of my throat, and he liked it that way.

“That’s enough,” Coen said calmly, drawing my eyes to him.

His chest was suddenly right in front of my face, and his hands were at my hips, his fingers tightening around me until I could feel the bite of his grip as he pulled me up and into his body. My feet couldn’t reach the ground anymore, so I wrapped my legs around his waist and quickly circled my arms around his neck. He smelled clean and warm and not at all like he had been kept as a prisoner in the sky for however many sun-cycles they had been up there. I lowered my head onto his shoulder, breathing him in, and I could have sworn that he took a deep breath as well. His hand tangled in my hair, bunching it up to where he had tucked his face into the crook of my neck, and I felt the pull of his breath all through his body. He released it on a soft groan, his other hand tightening where it still gripped my hip, and then I was being pulled away.

The disentanglement of limbs was a confused, hazy process. It almost seemed to happen in slow-motion, with Coen’s eyes opening and connecting with mine just as I was turned and pressed to another body. I knew from the smell that it was Aros, and while it shouldn’t have been so easy to turn my attention from one of them to the other, as soon as he pulled me in, my head was full of him, and only him. His hands were so warm I could feel the burn of him against my skin, making me suddenly painfully aware that I was half-naked, once again. He also seemed to be painfully aware, because he made a sound as soon as I was flush against him, and he captured my hands before I could return his hug. He passed me off to Yael by the wrists, his jaw clenched as he watched me go, and suddenly I was crushed in a fierce, breath-stealing hug.

“I’m so happy you’re safe and back with us again, Willa-toy.” The words were murmured into my shoulder, his arms banded right across my back, almost bending my body into him. “Right where you belong.”

“Share,” Siret demanded.

Yael released me reluctantly, but Rome stepped in before Siret could grab me.

“I’m not fucking going last,” he declared, looping one arm around me and hauling me up into his chest. “Hi Willa. Glad you’re safe.”

“Hi, Two,” I laughed. “Glad you’re safe as well.”

His mouth twitched, but he didn’t entirely lose his grumpy expression, so I brought my hands up to his face and tried to push his mouth into a smile with my two index fingers. He scowled, shook his head to dislodge me, and then he jostled me further up and pressed his mouth firmly to mine. The kiss was short, hard, and hot.

He pulled back too quickly, his eyes flicking between mine, almost surprised, and then he was putting me down and Siret was spinning me around.

“Lucky last,” he said, his hands on my shoulders.

He didn’t pull me in, or squeeze my limbs in possession the way the others had. He just stared at me, waiting. Waiting for what? I reached out, unsure, and touched his chest. Apparently, that was all he needed. His eyes flashed and one of his hands slipped from my shoulder to the back of my head, and he was tugging me in. His other hand moved down my spine, bringing me flush, and I couldn’t help the shiver that ran the length of my body. He must have felt it because he pressed harder against the curve of my spine, forcing me so close that the pressure of his chest against mine was actually making it hard to breathe.

“That semanight stone doesn’t mean that we’re letting you out of our sights ever again,” he whispered. “I think you’ve proven that you’re far more dangerous when left alone, than any other situation you could be dragged into by us.”

“We leave her behind so that she can be kept safe from Topia and all the gods here that might find her interesting, and what does she do?” Coen seemed to be talking to his brothers.

“It was a very involved story,” Aros answered. “Something to do with fire.”

“She brought herself here anyway,” Siret added, his words still mumbled against my skin. “Like the stubborn little soldier that she is.”

“As much as I’d love to claim all the credit,” I began, pulling away from Siret reluctantly so that I could address them all, “I was technically being controlled through Cyrus’s hold on the soul-link. He’s even worse at keeping me safe than I am. He thought he’d get me out of Blesswood, and that I’d be safer with Emmy—but that didn’t work out so well. Then he thought he’d set a whole building of sols on fire, just to get rid of the couple of idiots that wanted to hurt me—again, not the best plan, but he tried. Eventually, I just ended up in the outer rings where they turn the dead dwellers into Jeffries. Dru dumped me out there because he thought it would be a fun way for me to die.”

“Of course.” Rome rolled his eyes. “She couldn’t possibly have just been murdered like a normal person.”

I immediately started looking around for something to throw at him. There were a few marbled squares set off to the sides of the platform, cleverly disguised by garden beds and creeping vines. I could spot doors in some places, so I assumed that they were rooms, or even entire residences. There wasn’t a single loose object in sight, unless the stone bench a few feet away counted. It probably didn’t, because I doubted I could pick it up and throw it at Rome.

Or could I? I was some kind of dweller-sol-beta hybrid, and I could do things like create fire and cause nakedness, so why couldn’t I throw a stone bench? I quickly side-stepped and grabbed the edge with one hand, attempting to lift it up.

“What’s she doing?” Rome asked, his brow scrunching up in confusion.

“Gods-dammit,” I wheezed out, managing to get the bench almost half an inch off the ground.

“I think she’s exercising,” Siret answered, completely serious if his expression was anything to go by. “I’ve heard that the dwellers need to do that, otherwise they get ugly.”