His mouth dropped slightly, and now it was time for a smirk to cross my face. Before he could form any kind of a reply, Rome shoved his twin.
“Get a grip,” he demanded roughly. “Youareacting like an asshole. We’re wasting time and energy. We should be figuring out what happened to her. What did Rau hit her with?”
I slumped back into my chair, burying my head in my hands as I tried to sort through the mess of emotions and thoughts I had going on.
“Dweller!”
I knew I should react. That feminine voice held a harsh bark of command, but I was so tired that I could barely lift my face again. By the time I did, there were three of them. The dweller-relations committee.
Elowin stood with her usual grace and perfection; her willowy body was wrapped in a flowing white robe, her golden curls perfectly arranged around her angelic face. The only thing to mar her perfection was her slightly open mouth, wide eyes, and creased brow. She was angry and confused. Henchman Number One and Henchman Number Two closed in on either side, and I knew this was the point where shit was about to get real. I had been living for the past few sun-cycles in a bubble, not in the real world. I wasnota sol. I wasnotequal to these people, and I was definitely overdue for some knocking down from my imaginary pedestal.
Elowin recovered her composure, closing the distance between us. Her hands were trembling minutely—somehow I could see that, along with the fine beading of sweat across her brow. Why was she nervous?
The two Abcurses who had still been sitting, stood now, and the five of them did their wall of protection thing. Elowin and the two men halted. Like ground to halt, and suddenly I understood the sweat on her brow. She was afraid of them.
Trying her best to hide her fear, she cleared her throat. “We received word of a dweller who was seated at a table in the dining area. The same dweller who was reported missing to us several sun-cycles ago. She needs to come with us now for questioning and reassignment.”
Reassignment.Yeah, right! Just sign me up to be kicked-to-death-by-bullsen.
Yael was the first to speak, which was no surprise to me.
“Elowin, you should not concern yourself with this dweller. She has been assisting us for the past few sun-cycles, and she is going to continue to assist us for the foreseeable future.”
“You assigned her to us,” Rome stated from beside him.
“So she’s ours now,” Aros concluded, his golden eyes catching mine for a brief moment.
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.
