“I’ll make you a deal …” I spoke to Terrance slowly, an idea occurring to me as Donald looked between me and the food, unsure what to believe.
“I’m listening,” Terrance replied, his eyes still on Donald, who was now taste-testing the grapes.
We all watched as she picked up a grape from one of the platters on the second table, raising it to her mouth and knocking it against her teeth. When nothing remarkable happened, she pulled it up to her right eye, closing her left eye and squinting at it closely. When the results of her experiment were unremarkable again, she lowered it back down to her mouth, made a perfect O shape with her lips, and stuck the grape in there. She stood there, unsure what to do next, before turning to face the wall and blowing the grape out again. It hit the wall and fell to the ground, rolling beneath the table.
“Figure out what she is,” I said, as Donald crawled underneath the table in search of the runaway grape. “And I’ll let you do your test on me.”
Terrance didn’t waste a click. He started walking toward Donald immediately, and I stopped tuning out her near-constant inner monologue so that I could jump in if she needed me.
Sneaky grape. Bad grape. Disgusting grape.
“Server,” Terrance rumbled with a voice that was somehow both calming and authoritative. “Come here.”
Donald crawled back out from beneath the table, quickly springing up to face Terrance.
“What is your name?” he asked her, reaching out to touch the wild blond hair that was tied back from her face.
I twitched, feeling the need to run over there and tell him to keep his hands to himself. The Abcurses shifted then, finally closing in around me. There was suddenly a hand wrapped through mine, an arm around my waist, and the heat of two massive bodies before and behind me.
I guess they can only hold their protectiveness off for so long.
“Baby steps,” Rome grunted, his voice sounding from behind me.
I grinned a little, leaning back into his heat. The arm that had been wrapped around my middle retreated, allowing me to lean further back into Rome. I reached for Aros—who had been the one to retreat—finding his arm with my free hand. He pressed into my side and I felt an unfurling warmth spread rapidly all the way through me as my eyes met his golden stare. My mouth dropped open a little as I fought off a wave of dizziness and lust that threatened to drop me to the ground.
Holy gods, that was going to take some getting used to.
“My name is Donald, Sacred One.” The voice brought me back to the scene before us, and I peered around Coen’s massive body to watch the Bestiary God with my mother.
My name is Donald. My name is Donald. My name is Donald. My name is—
“What do you remember of your previous life, Donald?” Terrance asked.
He was still touching her, but I managed to curb my reaction again as I realised that it was for a purpose. His hand had now flattened over her forehead, his fingers spreading up over her skull. He was staring at her with a heavy intensity that had some of the breath seeping out of my chest.
“This is my life,” Donald answered. “My only life.”
My name is Winnifred Knight.
My body went cold, my limbs freezing at the faint sound of my mother’s real name. Herfullname.
“Do that again,” I demanded, my nails digging into the warm hands that held mine.
Terrance ignored me, still intent on my mother. “What is your life now, Donald? What do you do?”
“I serve the Great and Sacred and Wonderful Gods of Topia.”
Willa.
Tears sprang to my eyes, emotion suddenly lodges in my throat. Whatever Staviti had done to her—there was a part of my mother that still existed. Maybe it was the part I had dragged back from the imprisonment realm, or maybe it was something else, but it was there. It was real. She wasn’t there to serve the gods. She was there forme.
“Whyare you here?” I asked, rewording Terrance’s question as I left the warm circle of my guys to approach her.
Terrance remained quiet, waiting for her answer. Her eyes remained locked on his, but she answered me all the same.
“I am here for Sacred Willa.”
An uneasy silence met her statement, and I felt the disgruntled grumbling of one of the guys behind me. They were still suspicious that Donald might be under Staviti’s control despite seeming to be under ours. Her words supported their belief just as much as they supported mine.
