Page 3 of Truth Revealed

Sofia glanced away with a jerk of her head. “I don’t know,” she murmured softly.

“How can you not know?” Betrayal barked.

Daria reached back and slapped Betrayal’s thigh, silencing his sharp tone.

But it seemed Wrath had a growl to match her Bitchy Bear’s. She chuckled for half a second before Wrath turned a glare on her and she realized now was not the time to laugh at her own memories.

“Pandora drugged her with something, got some half-assed consent, and then cursed her with the demons. But she didn’t tell her which ones, and with whatever spell she’s put on them, they can’t talk.” Wrath poured out the details on a well of fury, and the more he spoke, the more Sofia shrank back into him, until she laid her head on his shoulder.

“What does consent have to do with this?” Daria frowned as she spoke, making sure she heard Wrath right.

“It’s a condition of the curse. To accept the demons anew, consent has to be given from the host.”

“Oh,” Daria said, everything clicking into place.

That’s why Pandora was made the way she was. Because what sane person volunteered to have a bunch of voices in their head?

“Pandora is a manipulative, heartless bitch. She doesn’t care about anything but herself and the fucking curse,” Wrath growled.

“That’s not her fault,” Daria defended before she could stop herself. Heat rushed to her cheeks as everyone turned to stare at her. After clearing her throat awkwardly, she fumbled her hands in the air as she tried to explain. “I mean, when I spoke to Chaos, he said that Pandora and her bloodline were literally created to take care of the curse. But—”

“Piss poor job she’s doing, taking care of the bloodline,” Hope grumbled, and Daria tilted her head in his direction. It wasn’t often that Hope spoke with negative emotions. She guessed after all they’d been through, even he had his limits.

“What I’m saying is, the gods didn’t complete her. They made her, like a doll, and then tossed her aside when they were done with her. It’s not her fault she’s the way she is, and I assume she isn’t capable of changing that.”

“And your point is?” Wrath growled.

Betrayal growled right back, and Daria threw a hand up to place it on Betrayal’s stomach when he made a motion to start forward. His abs flexed under her palm, through his shirt, and Daria couldn’t help the way her hand twitched to flatten against him, to feel all the dips and swells of his abs—

Stop that.

Jerking her hand back, she cleared her throat again and fisted her hands in her lap.

“Need a glass of water?” Misery asked, a particular arch to his brow that Daria hadn’t seen before, but she recognized the pure sarcasm in his tone.

Betrayal barked out a laugh beside her and Daria’s cheeks flamed again. Because Misery was right of course.

Yeah, that’d be great, ‘cause yes, I am a thirsty bitch.

But at least the angry tension in the room dissipated, for the most part anyway. Humor to the rescue.

“My point is,” Daria started, and then… stopped. What exactly was her point? Pandora had been made incomplete, and the gods had fucked up. So what did that mean for them? “What are our options? How do we get the demons out of Sofia?” Daria questioned instead.

“Well… killing you worked just fine,” Truth noted dryly, and Daria gaped as she turned to him.

“Yeah, well, that won’t work with me,” Sofia snapped, drawing their attention back to her. “I’m completely human. So if you kill me, I don’t come back over and over again.”

“And that’s out of the fucking question,” Wrath stated. Growled, really. Loudly enough that the demons around her tensed.

“Can we please stop with the growling and the grumbling and the pissing contest?” Daria rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “It’s getting old and it’s not helping us come up with a solution.”

A long pause sounded, but Wrath finally conceded with a grumbled, “Fine.”

“Fine,” Betrayal agreed.

“Now that that’s settled…” Daria shared an exasperated look with Sofia, and found a smile curling her lips in the next second.

But then her smile faded, because the fact of the matter was… “You went out of your way to lie. If you had just come to us, or admitted the truth when we asked, we would have helped you. What was the point?” Daria stared at Sofia as she inquired, twisting her hands in her lap. Could they even trust her?