Seduction (Curse of the Gods #3)

“Impossible,” Aros scoffed. “Willa can’t get ugly.”

I accidently dropped the bench, and then had to cover my mouth, because I didn’t know whether to laugh or not.

“What if I lose all my hair?” I asked him. “Will I be ugly then?”

Aros started to shake his head, and Yael stepped forward, anger marking his face. “Of course not!”

The laugh threatened to bubble out of me again, but I managed to hold it back.

“I’m picturing her as a server now,” Coen groused, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes.

“See!” I pointed at Coen. “He thinks I can be ugly.”

“I’m picturing that stupid thing the female servers wear,” Coen clarified. “The image is burned into my brain.”

“Yeah, even he’s not thinking that you can be ugly,” Aros told me.

Hot and cold flashes were racing along my skin and I probably looked like I was exercising my jaw now, with the way my mouth was opening and closing. Coen dropped his hands from his face, and suddenly they were all staring at me. It was too much. Too much tension. The heat inside of me flared, and it was followed by a burn licking across my skin. I had a brief thought that I should walk away for a click and cool off, but just when I thought I could tear myself away from them and take a step back, a flash of orange light caught my attention.

“Argh!” I let out a shriek and started patting at the flames that had sprung up across my chest.

Heat licked gently over my hands, but there was no burning sensation or pain, so I patted harder. Emmy’s fire-safety lecture popped into my head as I patted desperately. Drop and roll, Willa. Drop and roll! It had worked the last time I had set my clothes on fire, but this time there were already several sets of hands reaching for me, and there was no way they were going to let me drop to the ground. I shoved out my hands to keep them away from me—not wanting anyone to get burnt, even though the flames hadn’t seemed to be burning me—and as soon as I did, the fire spluttered out.

One click, I had been on fire, and the next, I was standing there looking completely normal, as we all stared at my chest.

I ran my hands along my body, blinking rapidly as I tried to work out what had just happened. I was surprised that there were no burns or blisters, or blackened stubs where my limbs should have been. There wasn’t even a rash. There wasn’t even a blush.

“This is part of Staviti’s punishment, right?” Rome had one hand against his forehead, before he ran it through his hair. “One far worse than house arrest or losing our gifts.”

I had no idea what he was talking about. A punishment? They were all staring very intently at me, and all of them wore pained expressions.

“I’m fine, you don’t have to stress,” I said, still confused, my hands planted against my bare hips. “Just a little Chaos-fire, they happen regularly.” As my hands slipped further down my body, the feeling of skin finally registered.

I’m not wearing underwear anymore.

I’m naked again.

With a sigh, I dropped my eyes down to find that my underwear had indeed gone up in flames, and I was actually completely bare, without a single burn or even the Chaos-fire left to cover me up. If this was Cyrus’s doing, I was going to kill him through some form of slow and laborious torture.

Time for Plan B. I picked my head up, staring them all dead in the eye and refusing to use my arms to cover myself.

“I totally meant to do that,” I said calmly.

Rome’s punishment remark made sense now, but he better have said that because he couldn’t touch me, and not because he had to look at me naked again. He had his angry face back on and I didn’t like it. I felt like we’d made some real progress recently, but in an instant, we were right back to where we’d started from. Just because I was naked, again? Seriously? Hating the feeling of judgement—or whatever he was doing—I stepped closer, my finger already lifting to point at him. “What’s the problem, Two? I’m sure you’ve seen more than your fair share of—”

I was snatched up off my feet before I could finish, and then he was turning and striding away with me. I struggled against his hold, but it was like struggling against god-made steel bands. There was no give, no way for me to shift his muscles even an inch. “Put me down. I don’t need your … angry pity.”

I hated when people felt sorry for me. When they tried to help the stupid girl who couldn’t even keep her clothes on.

“Strength …” I heard the warning from Coen, though he wasn’t coming after us yet.

Tension slithered across the already tense muscles bunched beneath me as Rome briefly paused. “I’m going to find her some clothes, I’ll be right back.” His words were gruff, and he started to move again.

Since I was still pressed into a broad chest, I couldn’t see anything, but I was done being treated like a doll. Cyrus was right, I had more substance than that.

“Let me down,” I demanded. Further mortification pressed in on me as a hot burn started behind my eyes, a thickness blocking up my throat. “Please.” My voice wavered more than I would have liked, but it alone seemed to halt Rome.

He peered into my eyes, for what felt like an infinite amount of time before he gently set me on my feet. “Trickery,” he called, still not taking his eyes off of me.

Siret was there in an instant and with a graze of his hand across my cheek, Rome left us. I watched him walk away before turning to Siret, who looked a little grim, his eyes on my face.

Siret … who could have clothed me several clicks ago. Suddenly, Rome’s behaviour became even more inexplicable.

“How much longer can we go on like this?” I murmured to Siret, as he placed both hands on my shoulders, his gaze scorching me with its intensity. “I’m a beta-sol-dweller-hybrid now, would your powers really still hurt me?”

His groan came from a place low in his throat—a deep, desperate sound—and instead of answering, he just let his powers free. Clothes wrapped across my body, silky and smooth, the material different to anything I’d felt on Minatsol.

I glanced down to find a tiny, blood-red … wrap of some kind. Almost a dress, cut off at mid-thigh and hugging my body. I had soft black boots that fitted firmly to my legs, stopping just below my dress. “You have got to stop dressing me like a night walker,” I drawled. “Men are going to start asking me how many tokens for a session.”

It was the sort of lifestyle I was sure my mom indulged in. She called it survival, but when she spent all the tokens on alcohol, I called it destructive.

“I have a lot of tokens,” Siret deadpanned.

I snorted. “You don’t need them.”

The humour died off his face. “Willa …”