She was terrifying-looking. There was no other way to describe it.
I finally shook off the weird sensation that her icy eyes had given me, pulling away from Aros and running my hands quickly over my body in an attempt to find that device. I didn’t want to just stand there, cowering and invisible. I could at least fake that I was brave and kick-ass. It was better than nothing.
I searched my shirt and my shorts, before bending down to search my shoes. I could feel nothing out of the ordinary on me. Aros pulled me back again, and then his hands were skimming over my shoulders and down my sides. I shivered, trying not to focus too much on how his hands felt. With Aros, every single touch was purposeful. There was an energy behind it, begging me to lean into him, to press my body back into his fingers.Just as his hands reached the curve at the base of my spine, I was yanked away by Yael.
“Come on, Seduction,” a deep voice grated, right above my head. “You know this isn’t a job for you.”
Aros’s golden gaze went a little black around the edges as he stared his brother down, but he didn’t fight back. “It’s the perfect job for me, but I understand what you’re saying,” was all he said in response, folding his arms over his wide chest. So reasonable was that response that …now I was worried I had some fake Abcurse brothers to go along with the Fake Willa.
Coen must have noticed my expression, or heard my thought. He gave me a lazy smirk. “Rau won’t mess with us so easily again.” Some of that smirk vanished with his next words. “Especially since we almost lost you right out from under us because we were too busy fighting. We have survived the insane politics of these worlds because we stick together. Chaos knows that. We won’t let him win.”
Since when did sols care about the particular politics of the gods?
I stared at their faces, waiting for a response to my thoughts. Conveniently, they pretended that they hadn’t heard that one. Yael, who had been running his hands along my clothes, stood up and took the length of my hair into his hands. As his touch shifted through the strands, a very small device fell out. It was like a tiny, jewelled bug. I frowned, swooping down to pluck it from the floor. It looked so real. And then it moved.
Emmy squealed and jumped back, but I was able to pretend that I was unfazed, because Emmy’s reaction had shocked me out of my own. All that really amounted to was the fact that Emmy reacted to shit quicker than me, but I grinned at her anyway. Like I was superior, because I didn’t scream like a girl. As I turned my eyes back to the beetle, Rome stepped forward and swiped it off my palm.
“No!” I quickly followed his massive hand, grabbing at his fingers and prying them open again to rescue the jewel-coloured little thing. “That’s mine. You can’t crush it.”
“It’s notyours,” he corrected, and I could tell that he was trying not to roll his eyes. “It’s Elowin’s. And she was using it to play with us, so Iwillcrush it.”
I managed to regain custody of the beetle, and Siret was at my side in an instant, holding his hand out to me. I gave him a narrow-eyed glare, but he only met my suspicion with a smirk that saidtrust me. Technically, Siret was the least trustworthy Abcurse, but he was usually on my side if it would annoy one of his brothers, so I handed over the beetle and he slipped it into his pocket.
“Isn’t it going to suffocate in there?” I asked, as Rome folded his massive arms over his chest and set himself to switching his glare between me and Siret, clearly unimpressed.
“It didn’t suffocate in this mess,” Siret returned, his hand winding around the wild curls that tumbled over my shoulders, tugging on the strands. It forced me to fall forward a step, and I gripped his shirt to stop myself from smacking into him.
“You guys?” Emmy spoke up, her voice dry—sarcastic almost. “She’s walking away.”
I turned toward Emmy, who was pointing at Fakey …who really was walking away. She was heading for the door, her shoulders pinned back, her head held up high, her gait almost leisurely. She arched a dark, winged brow at Emmy as she passed, delivering her a look that was full of vile promise. Atti moved behind Emmy, and I thought that he was just trying to get out of Fakey’s way, but then I saw his hand on Emmy’s shoulder, his fingers clamping down possessively. Protectively.
What in the actual fu—
“Aren’t any of you going to stop her?” Emmy pressed, her voice rising to a squeal, her finger pointing again. Jabbing, really.
She seemed terrified now that Fakey had revealed herself. It was the first time she had ever stood up to a sol, and the sol she had chosen was obviously a powerful one.
“We already have,” Rome grunted, his eyesstillglaring at me and Siret. He hadn’t even bothered to turn around.
I blinked, having no idea what he was talking about, and watched as Fakey reached the doorway and then stopped, a frown stuck on her face. After a single click, she was on the floor, folding in on herself as though the air around her was trying to crumple her into a ball. Her headthwackedback, hitting the stone, and her mouth open wide on a silent scream. I started forward, toward her, but Siret grabbed me back. None of the Abcurses seemed surprised to see Fakey arching against the stone floor, apparently in so much pain that she couldn’t even scream. None of them were even paying much attention to her. Except Coen, who was giving her his Glare of Death.
And then it hit me.
Holy shit. “Coen!”
His head snapped around, his eyes slamming into mine. The darkness there was so deep that even though I wasn’t actually moving, I had the oddest sensation of falling forward. Fear slammed into me, but it wasn’t a fear for myself. It was fear for Fakey, who I didn’t even like. Coen slowly turned his eyes from me, as though he had given me that bare moment to speak out against Fakey’s torture, but when I hadn’t said anything to stop him, he had taken it upon himself to continue. The second time his power hit her, the scream finally escaped her body, grating up through her throat and echoing eerily around the walls. Siret released me, his gaze becoming focussed, and I figured that he was shielding the sound somehow. I had no idea if that was something he could do. When none of the dorm rooms burst open, I assumed that it was.
Come to think of it, we’d been making a hell of a scene for a while now, and not a single person had showed. Siret must have been doing something to hide us the entire time.
Fakey screamed again, drawing my eyes immediately back to her. It didn’t look like anybody was going to rush to her rescue.
Which left … Dammit. It left me.
“Coen.” I called his name softly this time, walking over to him, reaching out for his arm.
“Willa—don’t!”Yael’s warning was sharp, but the words were delivered too late.
My skin was already touching Coen’s, and the fire of agony flashed right through my body. An arm hooked me from behind, golden fingers wrapping around my wrist and pulling my hand away from Coen. A pathetic sound travelled out of my throat as my legs buckled, flashes of colour racing over my vision and obscuring the faces around me. The pain was burning and wild, ripping me apart with the sharp sting of fire that only seemed to worsen, instead of fading away. The voices around me swelled, the arms cradling me tighter, and then another feeling swept into me. The fire was still there, ripping through my limbs and searing my blood, but it was … different. Almost … I almost …wanted it.
