Siret made a grunting sound that was part-acknowledgement, and part-annoyance. “We know why you and Pain do that shit together, and it’s the very reason it can’t happen with her. She’s not even a sol. You both need to balance out your powers with each other for a sol to get close … so how the hell do you think a dweller is going to live through it? It’s not possible. We’re lucky she’s alive.”
“She touched me,” Coen finally snarled. “Seduction didn’t start it, and I didn’t start it either. And I’ve known you idiots for an eternity; you would have reacted the same way if she’d kissed you like that—”
“No more fucking kissing!” Rome roared, shocking Siret’s eyes over to him.
Rome blinked, as though surprised by his own outburst, and the others hissed at him to be quiet. Coen walked over to the bed, checking that I was still asleep, and then they all seemed to settle a little bit, sitting back in their chairs and taking a moment to think.
Eventually, Siret let out a sigh, picking up the conversation again. “So to save future problems, and probably Willa’s life, we need to make a binding pact. The deal was only for one life-cycle. One life-cycle at Blesswood and then we would be able to go home. There’s no reason why we can’t keep her with us, but it can’t go any further. I never thought I’d be fighting with my brothers over a dweller … but there it is. We can’t leave her—we’re going to have to figure out a way to take her with us when we go home, but the only way she can stay with us is if she isn’t tempting us to tear each other apart to get to her. We share her equally. As friends.” He broke off, laughing. “Our friend, the dweller.”
“If I have to be her friend to keep her around, I’ll be her friend,” Rome grunted.
Nobody looked surprised, but I was a little bit shocked. I had been under the impression that Rome had started resenting me for the fact that my soul was trespassing on his soul’s territory.
“I’m already her friend.” Aros rolled his eyes, his expression caught between resignation and annoyance.
“As am I,” Coen added.
“I want to keep her around,” Yael murmured, glancing toward the bed. “She makes me laugh. I can’t tell if she’s stupid or brave. I want to figure it out.”
“We’re in agreement, then.” Siret stood, and so did the others, all taking a step toward each other.
“No kissing,” Rome declared.
“No sex,” Coen corrected, shaking his head.
“No corrupting the little dweller in any way,” Aros countered, his brows inching up in challenge.
“All of the above,” Yael stated. “No kissing, no sex, and no corruption. Nothing that goes past friendship. From now on, we treat her like one of us. A sixth brother. A sixth girl-brother—”
“A sister?” Coen interrupted, his face creasing up in disgust.
“No.” Yael shook his head. “Fuck no. A girl-brother.”
“That sounds like a sister—”
“A girl-brother and that’s final!” Yael snapped.
The others looked at him, some of them in frustration, some in amusement. I noted that none of them seemed shocked. Maybe Yael had a habit of demanding that people believe in contradictory things—what was I saying? He was Persuasion! Of course that was a habit of his.
“Are we in agreement?” Siret wanted to know.
Although more than one expression crossed their faces, not one of them disagreed. In fact, all of them slammed their hands out into the centre of their circle and did some sort of shake. It was fast, I couldn’t quite see what was happening, but it was clear that they had all agreed.
Sweet Topian gods, were they for real?
Those five assholes were standing around making pacts about not kissing me? About treating me like a … like a girl-brother? It was … what the actual freak?
I would never admit it to them, or myself really, but deep down a part of me was hurt. Okay, so yeah, I had just admitted that to myself. I knew I was just a dweller; that fact had been slammed into my head more times than was really necessary. So I knew my place in this world, but the Abcurses didn’t generally treat me according to my place in the world. Not really. Now it seemed they were making this decision without even consulting me. Sure, they had apparently done it to save my life, but it was my life.
Rome spoke, distracting me momentarily. Although ‘spoke’ was a bit of an understatement. His words slammed out into the room like stones smashing into a brick wall. “Elowin needs to be destroyed. As soon as the dweller finds us our information, we can take care of her. It has to be fast, our powers are starting to strain. We’re going to have to cross over again soon, and this time we know that someone will be waiting for us.”
I had no idea what he was talking about with his powers, so I decided to focus on the one thing that I did understand. Their pact: it was pissing me off in a way I hadn’t expected. I fought against being in Siret’s mind. I didn’t want to see anymore; I was too mad. I wanted to wake up and kick all of their asses. I was distracted from my struggle, however, when the door slammed open and a small figure burst into the room.