Seduction (Curse of the Gods #3)

I’d already deduced most of that from what the servers had told me, but hearing it put so bluntly hit me like a punch to the chest.

“What does he want with her?” Rome was practically vibrating next to me, his huge body seeming to swell even larger as his voice boomed out.

Please don’t say kill me. None of the servers had attacked me. No Order Stick had been used on me, but maybe Staviti was waiting to do it himself. Maybe there was something specific he wanted from me before he did it. Maybe he wanted to turn me into a server like my mother, so that he would have a matching pair. No, that couldn’t be it, servers were made from dead dwellers. So what the hell was it?

Cyrus met my gaze full-on, his pupils burning through me with their intensity. “She is too powerful already, and will become the Chaos Beta when she dies. Rau has been trying to rally anarchy against the Creator, and if he gets the power of a Beta, he might just succeed.”

“So … he definitely doesn’t want to kill me then.” I laughed.

Cyrus’s brow wrinkled. “Of course not. If you die right now, you become the Beta.”

That was something I was aware of—but not in the same way as I was aware that I had blonde hair and a general lack of balance. It didn’t quite seem like a fact. It didn’t quite seem real.

“What is he going to do with me if he can’t kill me?” It was worth asking; being prepared was always a good thing.

“He will weaken you. He will make you wish and pray for death—but he will not let you die until you are too weak to cross into Topia.”

Everything inside of me stilled, fear seeming to attack my mind from all sides, prickling along the back of my neck. I fought through it, falling back on my usual coping mechanism.

“He’s not very original for an Original, is he? Torture and death, blah, blah. He needs a new bad-guy rulebook.”

Six sets of eyes locked onto me with matching expressions that I had become used to seeing. They were looking at me as though I was insane. Probably because I had a huge, beaming smile plastered right across my face. Admittedly, smiling in this situation made me pretty damn insane, but if I didn’t smile, I would lose it completely, and losing it wasn’t something I was ready for.

No one spoke; I wasn’t sure any of my guys could get words out from between their clenched jaws, so I tried again. “Maybe one of you should just kill me now? Then I’d be a Beta and it would be too late?”

It had been a random thought, but the moment I said it, it felt like a good plan. A great plan, even. Rome and Coen had let me go at this point, so I could turn and better see all of their faces. No one looked pleased by the plan.

“We’re not killing you,” Siret said. “Even if one of us was capable of doing that to you, Chaos would take you as soon as you became the Beta. That, or Staviti would find a way to end you with one of Crowe’s blades. You’d find yourself in the middle of a war. A war we might not be able to save you from.”

I pushed out my bottom lip, and for once, I allowed my face to show how troubled I was.

“Are you seriously pouting because we won’t kill you?” Rome blinked a few times.

I sniffled, and he threw his hands in the air, before whirling around on Cyrus—except Cyrus was gone, and all that remained was the crate. It looked like he had decided to bail before we started fighting amongst ourselves. My mother had no such qualms: she was opening the lid of the crate to reveal what was inside—from my vantage point, I could only make out the top of a bread loaf.

“Should I prepare some dinner?” she asked, her hands digging in and coming up with a bunch of carrots and a loaf of bread.

Of everything that had happened that sun-cycle, those words were the thing to finally break me. The shield I had erected around my heart shattered, and the pain I’d been trying to hold at bay threatened to burst out of me and send me crumbling under the intensity of it.

“Willa-toy?” Yael noticed, and I swallowed hard before waving him off.

“I’m fine. Just fine. I need to … you know, girl-stuff.” I stumbled toward the entrance of the cave as I spoke, needing to get away from everything. From my mother, who for most of my life would never have asked to prepare dinner. She was dead. Really, truly dead. “Be right back.” I was surprised that I even managed to sound somewhat normal.

Coen called after me. “Don’t go far, Rocks.”

I waved behind me before continuing on, stumbling only a few times as I broke out into the trees again. It was almost completely dark now, but I wasn’t scared. I was already full of grief—there was no room left inside of me for fear.

Hot, salty tears were making a slow trek down my cheeks. I didn’t wipe them away. More would come: the absolute soul-crushing pain that clenched my chest and had shooting pains crashing through my mind was too much. The tears wouldn’t stop for a long time. I had so little in my life. There had hardly ever been anything that I could call my own.

Except my mother.

She had been mine. My mess to clean up; my dweller to complain about. My memory to leave behind …

A damaged piece of my life that Staviti had no right to touch. Especially not before I had a chance to go back and say goodbye. Or go back and say anything. A scream built up in my throat, but I choked it down. If I screamed, there would be five pissed-off gods and one confused server out in the woods with me.

I just couldn’t handle the way the gods played … well god, singular. What fucking right did they have to meddle in the lives of others, to set the rules that everyone else had to live by—which they broke when they felt like it—and hand out punishments to whoever they wanted, for any crime they determined?

It had to stop: there had to be a way to stop it.

“Dweller-baby?”

Coen stood beside me. I had been so worked up that I hadn’t even heard him approach. His large hands cupped my face, and the pain in my chest increased further, the tears a veritable stream that I was almost choking on. I was struggling to breathe as they filled my mouth and nose.

“Baby, please, just stop.”

He was cupping my face, his thumbs wiping the tears away. I lifted my face to him, gasping breaths escaping out of me.

“She’s dead,” I whimpered. “Gone. Stripped away and reduced to a brainless server.”

It was too dark to see his eyes well, but I didn’t miss the flash of fury that carved his face up into hard lines.

“Staviti will pay for that,” he promised. “We’ll make sure that he learns not to mess with us again.”

I shook my head rapidly. “No, you can’t do that. He’s already proven that he can and will punish you five.” They needed to stay as far from Staviti as possible. “Promise me you won’t do anything to him.” I sounded desperate, but I didn’t care.

Coen dropped his hands down from my face, running them across my shoulders and wrapping his fingers around my biceps. “I can’t promise that, Will. He started this, and we aren’t going to let it stand.”