“I got you, Willa.” His deep voice wrapped around me, smooth and warm, like a silk-lined cloak.
He strode out into the centre of the arena, and I knew that I was supposed to follow him. The only problem was … that would require my feet to move and right now they were glued to the spot. My body shook as the faces of so many sols and dwellers seemed to swell all around me, their stares bearing down on me. I couldn’t stop myself from glancing up over my shoulder. All of the Abcurses remained standing, pressed close to the barrier. My eyes drifted around the stadium seating and I realised that a lot of the sols were standing. Some of them looked intrigued. Maybe this was just some elaborate way of poking fun at the sols who were all so desperate to please the gods.
Dweller-blood spilling on the super-absorbent, sacred sol fighting sands … that was the stuff of their nightmares. Mine too, if I were to be honest.
I glanced down at my fancy dress, cringing. I had loved the fact that it had the appearance of being made to fit me exactly, but that was before I had known that I would be fighting for my life in it. Or at least pretending to fight for my life.
We were pretending, weren’t we?
Finally, I managed to stumble my way across to stand before Coen, grateful that Siret had given me boots and not heels. The pain-gifted sol was back to stoic, no emotions to clue me in on what he was going to do. Yael’s words were painfully strong in my head. Don’t fight him. Of course, that was easier said than done when a huge-ass sol was heading straight for you.
Coen moved fast, like the rest of the Abcurses, but I’d been around them constantly for almost half a dozen sun-cycles now. I had been expecting the strike, and somehow, on instinct, I dodged it. My mind swam at the realisation that I had moved almost as fast as Coen. And I didn’t trip doing it.
He tilted his head to the side, and the slightest of sparks lit up his eyes, along with a smirk on his lips. Great. I’d just made this a fun game for him, which meant that it was going to be the very opposite of a fun game for me. Time for Plan-B. Before he could move, I ran. I sprinted. All the way across the arena, pulling up the skirt of the dress as I went. I aimed for the side that had a small step hopping up into the stands. I sensed him behind me but I didn’t hesitate or glance back, since both actions would cost me precious time.
I reached the step first, and without even hesitating, I hit it hard and launched myself as high as I could onto the side of the barrier. There were slots in the higher sections, and I needed to reach those to be able to hold on. My fingers scrambled against the wood, I felt slivers cut into me, but I ignored the pain and managed to hook my hands into some holds and pull myself up so that my feet were resting on one of the slots. Turning, I held on with both hands above my head, not at all surprised to see Coen standing below. Waiting for me.
“You let me get away, didn’t you?” My question was breathy and annoyance dripped from my tone. Running wasn’t my thing.
He grinned, and this time it seemed real. He was either laughing at me or with me. Either way, I definitely amused him.
“Come on, dweller-baby. Where do you think you’re going from there? You can’t climb out, so get your ass back down here and submit to me.”
I coughed a few times, my cheeks turning pink. It was definitely because of all the running.
“You mean surrender, right? Get my ass back down there and surrender?”
Coen’s laughter was deep and rumbly; it managed to caress my body in places which should not have been reacting in a situation like this. “I always say what I mean. You should have figured that out by now.”
Narrowing my eyes on him, I squeezed my hands even tighter on their holds, worried I was about to slip. “I will never submit to you, One! Never! So you might as well walk away now because I will literally hang here until nightfall if I have to!”
Yeah, right. Even as I spoke, my hands were losing their grip. I was such a liar. And an idiot. I needed to learn when to give up and cut my losses. Of course, none of that mattered when it came to those super-sols. Coen leapt toward me, so quickly I barely even tracked his movements, and before I could open my mouth to shout, he was behind me, his hand grasping the top of the barrier, above my head.
“Love it when they run,” he half-whispered, half-grunted beside my ear, and then his arm was winding around me and he was pulling me away from the barrier.
I would have screamed as my hands were wrenched out of their hold and we started falling backwards, but we fell much faster than I would have on my own, and Coen was landing square on his feet before the scream had a chance to gather up any momentum. I broke away from him as soon as our feet were on the ground, and we faced each other, both of us taking short, measured steps—him forwards and me backwards.
Until I stepped on the train of my dress and almost fell on my ass.