Ignoring the emotions that stirred inside my chest, I remained sitting, pretending to be an invisible, stupid dweller.
A torrent of words burst from Elowin then, as though she couldn’t keep them inside. “We have rules for a reason. You change them for one dweller and the rest of them are going to start wondering why they aren’t allowed to sit with the sols at dinner. Or go to class and learn with them. Our world works because everyone knows their place. The natural order. What would the gods think about this?”
The Abcurses took one look at each other, and then each of them lost their shit. Like doubled-over-almost-on-the-floor kind of laughing. I bit my lip to stop myself joining them, but it was probably the hardest thing that I had ever done.
Finally, Coen straightened. He rubbed a hand across his still broadly grinning face, and said, “Those gods don’t give a single shit what you do here. As long as you keep the worship and the sols coming, they wouldn’t care if you all decided to strip naked and have mass sol-dweller sex parties.”
Elowin turned a shade of green which had all of the Abcurses leaning back from her, and then, with a huff, she spun on her heel and stormed out of the dining room, her henchmen trailing behind her.
Siret’s eyes were sparkling when he turned back in my direction, their gem-like nature very prominent. “Never liked that committee, think we should make it our aim to bring it down.”
His brothers laughed and chimed in with their suggestions, and for a moment it was as if all of them had forgotten that I was in their midst. Until suddenly they didn’t.
Chairs scraped as the five of them sat around me, and I had to admit: being the centre of all their attention had me squirming in my seat. So intense. Just so freaking intense.
Aros must have mistaken my unease for upset. He leaned in closer to me. “Don’t worry about the dweller-committee, Willa. We’ll make sure they don’t bother you. She knows that you’re under our order now, and they rarely ever mess with us.”
I had seen the dark look on Elowin’s face as she stormed off—well, dark and queasy—she would not be letting this rest. She was going to wait until they let their guard down and then she was going to destroy me.
“Do you think it’s safe for us to leave Rocks with the other dwellers?” Aros asked the others. “She’s the clumsiest one I’ve ever seen, even by their usual low standards.”
Yael didn’t miss a beat. “She’ll be fine, no one will hurt her in the dweller dungeons, it’s only above ground where the sols are that we need to keep an eye on her.”
Sitting right here, Assholes.
Five sets of eyes. Five identical smirks. In that moment, there was no mistaking that they were brothers, and that their mother was blessed with the gift of beauty.
“Double bonus that she can just project her thoughts and we can hear them,” Siret said. “If anyone bothers you, just call for us, Rocks, okay?”
Yep, sure, no problem. I nodded, and worked very hard to conceal my next thoughts. I wasn’t ready for them to know about the tiny problem of me not being able to be too far away from them. They would most likely regret taking me into their protection if they knew that I was going to be stuck to them like glue. Maybe I could sneak and hide in the supply closet near their rooms.
Dwellers appeared around us then, each holding a plate of food. Somehow, even though it wasn’t quite dinner time yet, they were feeding us … well, the Abcurses anyway. I saw more than one set of confused eyes and dropped jaws. No one quite knew what to make of me sitting right in the centre of a pile of sols.
“Stop.” Rome’s deep voice thundered around the room. “You didn’t serve Willa, she’ll have the same, and some fresh water.”
Some of the confusion turned to anger, and I could see that more than one dweller wanted to question Rome, but they knew better. They knew their place, and they probably didn’t want to get crushed. I was the only one stupid enough to end up in a situation like this, one which could tear apart the very fabric of the world we lived in. Elowin hadn’t been wrong … this could change everything. Damn Rau. Was this exactly what he was hoping for when he bound me to the boys? He was the god of chaos after all, and this was bound to get chaotic.
As we ate, I was trying my best to breathe and somehow still stuff as much of the delicious food into my mouth as I could. Top of my list for hating sols was that they got all the best food. Freshest produce, meat from fine cuts, even regular berries and sweet ice. I glared at Coen— who was on my right side—and hooked my arm around my small cup of pink ice as a barrier.
“What?” he asked, lifting one eyebrow with a sardonic stare. “Do you really think I’m going to steal your dessert?”