“Seduction,” Rome snapped. “Do something about her.”
“You could just ask me nicely!” I demanded, as Aros secured his arm more tightly around my back, his free hand coming to rest on my thigh again.
He manoeuvred my leg, drawing it around his waist, allowing me to wrap my legs around him properly. I was a little bit distracted. Especially when his hand gripped my ass to hold me up.Especiallywhen a rush of feeling flooded through me that was far too strong to be anything but magic. I tightened my whole body around him, my head falling into his neck, my teeth sinking into his skin. I was mostly just trying not to whimper or anything pathetic or girly like that, but I suppose I also wanted a little bit of revenge. He stumbled, and then stopped walking, a light groan sounding in my ear.
“Did she just bite you?” Rome’s face was suddenly right in front of mine, his fingers threading into my hair and lifting my head from Aros’s neck.
“Yes,” Aros gritted out.
“She’s like a wild animal,” Rome muttered, his glittering eyes locked onto mine. “Everysingletime you poke her, she fights back.”
“She can hear you,” I said.
“Give her to me,” Rome demanded. Since he was still staring at me so intensely, I actually thought that he was talking to me.
“Fuck off, Strength,” Aros growled, moving forward so that Rome was forced to release me, my hair tangling in his fingers and forming a brief bridge between us, before it fell over my eyes.
I quickly pushed it off, and by then, Rome was already back in my face. He reached over Aros, hooking his hands beneath my arms and hauling me up and over Aros, who spun around, looking pissed.
“Whoa!” I tossed my arms up as my feet hit the ground, trying to separate the two of them. “I get that all the arena fighting probably has your adrenaline pumping, and you’re itching to get into another fight right now, but if you—” My pitiful pacification attempts died off as the breath was literally crushed right from my chest.
Aros had advanced on Rome, and the both of them seemed to have forgotten that a dweller stood right between them. Someone grabbed my shirt, wrenching me free and ripping the material in the process. That someone had been Yael. He shook his head at me, put a finger to my lips, and started dragging me away. Siret and Coen were busy trying to wrench Aros and Rome apart.
When we were clear of the others, I expected Yael to stop walking. Maybe to give me a lecture, too. But his pace only increased.
“Where are we going?” I asked, my breath surprisingly steady as I tried to keep up.Huh, that was weird.
“That wasn’t normal,” Yael muttered thoughtfully, causing me to look up at him in surprise. “Rome and Aros,” he clarified, reading the question in my eyes. “They don’t normally fight like that. Or … well, ever, really. Something is going on. That looked likechaosat work. Rau is still messing with you. I need to know why.”
Good news, then.
He chuckled, some of the tension easing from his stunning face. “Don’t worry, Willa. I won’t let anything happen to you. We liked you before, because you’re so abnormal it’s actually somehow funny … but now? After seeing you take on Coen like that? Well yeah, now we’re keeping you. It’s final.”
Warmth bubbled inside my chest, happiness almost exploding out of my body, but I quickly smothered it. “I’m not a toy.” I figured he needed reminding. “You can’t just keep me to play with whenever you want.”
“We can if you don’t run away.”
Why the hell would I run away?
“Exactly, Willa-toy.”
“Now you’re just being mean,” I accused, a frown on my face.
He grinned, casting a sideways look at me. “I’d make it up to you, but I don’t want to start fighting with my brothers just yet. Maybe later.”
What a dick.
“Now you’re just being mean.” He laughed.
Fourteen
Yael ledme back into the main part of Blesswood and up to the dining area. It was time for breakfast and I realised that I was starving. Fighting a sol and being knocked unconscious does that to a girl. As we walked the long hall toward the double doors, I turned my head to look back a few times. No other Abcurses were in sight.
“Rome and Aros … are they okay?” I asked. “They’re not going to actually beat each other up, right?”
Somehow, I thought Yael would know. I was relieved that he didn’t seem to be concerned, but it was hard to read him; it always had been. He kept his emotions tightly bound, unless of course he was being competitive and losing or something.
“They’ll be fine, they just needed a little distance from you.”
