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by Jaymin Eve
“Don’t ever use your gift on me, sol,” I growled. “Dwellers are not play things. We might have drawn the unlucky hand on this piece-of-crap world, but we are not nothing.” I jabbed him harder, hoping like hell his rock-chest didn’t break my finger. “Not nothing.”
His face was like stone, stone which had been carved and moulded by the very gods themselves. I knew I couldn’t blink, that I had to maintain my serious stare or I would fail at this competition which had arisen. Competitive shit-sol. Yael was such a pain with this stuff, and yet I sort of thought it was awesome at the same time. My left eye started to twitch, my fingertip aching from being pressed so hard.
“You sure you don’t want to step back, Rocks?” Yael’s hypnotic voice rolled over me, and I knew he wasn’t hitting me with the full force of his power, yet he still affected my will.
Gritting my teeth hard enough to crack them, I didn’t blink, or move, or speak. I continued with the battle of wills that I was determined to win.
Then he kissed me.
Before I even saw him coming … his lips were on mine, and I was pulled tightly against his body. I lost all time and space, my breathing cut off as my head spun. Before the pressure could deepen, Yael stepped away from me and I barely managed to remain on my feet.
“I win,” he said, turning and strolling away. All causal. Like he hadn’t just … kissed the hell out of me.
“You cheated,” I shouted after him. My eyes flicked between the other four. “He cheated!”
Siret shook his head. “What did you expect? He fights dirty. We all do.”
I was breathing really deeply. Almost embarrassingly deeply. Just a kiss. My body was reacting like I’d just run up and down the steps to Blesswood a few hundred times. I wanted to go after Yael, probably to smack him in the face, since the chest-poking had done nothing. I should use a knife or something next time. Get all badass and sol-like.
Coen distracted me by stepping in at my back, his giant form crowding over me and wiping all Yael-revenge-thoughts from my mind. I could see flickers of fire and the promise of pain in his eyes, but maybe I was just hallucinating because Yael’s kiss had fried my mind. His hand dragged along my arm and with it came these strange little sparks of energy. They hurt … sort of, but they also felt good. Like he was igniting all of the receptors along my skin, bringing my body to life. I almost missed his words, my eyes glued to the hand trailing my arm.
“Willa,” his deep voice caught my attention. “We have to be up early tomorrow for the moon-cycle trials in the arena. The gods will be sitting on their pampered asses expecting us to perform like street monkeys, which means you have exactly one click to tell us what you’re hiding from us.”
I looked down at my feet, trying to block him out. His hand moved again, drawing those strange, aching sparks over my skin, and my breath shuddered out, my eyes closing. His grip suddenly shifted, the light brushing motion disappearing as his fingers curled around my arm, just above my elbow. He pulled roughly, forcing me against his chest. His free-hand fell to the back of my head.
Is he … hugging me right now?
Someone snorted, and Coen’s chest vibrated with a laugh that he quickly cut off.
“Talk, Willa,” he demanded.
Maybe it was the hug, or maybe it was the small spark of pain that accompanied his words, flashing low against the base of my spine, but I suddenly wanted to tell them everything. I twitched a little bit, but mostly clamped down on my reaction to Coen’s ‘gift,’ because my reaction was to jump him, and that was hardly appropriate.
“Did you guys do something?” My voice was muffled against Coen’s chest, but I refused to turn my head and look at the other three.
“What was that?” Aros asked, moving behind me, seeming almost to gravitate toward me.
I suspected that he was attracted to the desire swirling through me right now. Yael had lit the match, Coen was deliberately stoking the fire, and Aros was the moth, drawn to the flame. I could feel him pressing against my back, his chest brushing my shoulders, his hand curving around the front of my neck. My eyes drew closed before I could stop them, and my legs were suddenly weak, my head spinning dizzily.
“She’s going to drop,” I heard Siret drawl.
Coen’s chest rumbled again, and this time, the spark of pain was somewhere in the vicinity of my chest, forcing my eyes back open and my breath to catch.
“Don’t start acting like a dweller now, Willa,” Coen mumbled.
Aros’s hand moved against my neck, applying just enough pressure to pull my head back against his chest, and then I was staring right up into Coen’s face. The green in his eyes had disappeared completely, leaving only darkness and violence. It was pitch black, closing in around me, drawing me away from the world.
“Did you all do something to save me back at the cave?” I heard my own voice, but it didn’t even feel like it was me speaking. I had drifted out of my body and into the darkness of Coen’s soul.
“No,” someone answered. Siret, I thought. “Why? What happened, Rocks?”
“Now … I need you all,” I muttered. Dual growls vibrated through me, and I quickly amended the statement. “I need to be near at least one of you. Ever since the cave. It hurts me, here …” I tried to raise my hand to my chest, but Coen and Aros must have pushed closer. Every inch of my body seemed to be plastered up against hard muscle. When I raised my arm, it only bumped against Coen’s massive chest. He refused to back up.
“Where?” Siret asked, sounding frustrated. “Guys? Seduction! Pain! Get the fuck off her so that I can concentrate.”
Aros pulled away so fast that I almost suspected him to have been yanked off by Siret, but when Coen spun me around so that I was facing the other way, Siret was still standing in the same place and Aros was striding down the hall toward his dorm room. He disappeared inside, the door slamming violently behind him.
“And then there were two.” Siret rolled his eyes.
“Two?” I muttered, looking around for Rome, who also seemed to have disappeared.
Coen’s hands were wrapping around my arms from behind, still holding me close to him.
“I’m taking her to my room,” Coen announced, ignoring my question. “Tell the others to get their shit together and meet us there. If we put some clothes on the dweller, we might actually be able to have a full conversation.”
I snorted. “The dweller can speak just fine, thanks.” Okay. I lied. That was a lie.
Coen knew it, too. He only shook his head at me, marching me toward the last door at the end of the hallway. He didn’t release me until we were inside, the door clicking shut softly behind us. I watched as he hunted through drawers, pulling out a shirt and a pair of male sleep-pants. They had been cut short for the summer season. I suspected they would have ended above the knee on Coen, but for me, they were almost a full set of pants. He handed everything to me and then jerked his head in the direction of the alcove at the other end of his bedroom. Siret’s had been full of books, but Coen’s was mostly empty. Just a rug and a chair, facing the windows. It had a door, too. I stripped off and pulled on the fresh clothes, chuckling at how ridiculous I now looked, before moving back into the main room.
“What’s so funny?” Rome asked me, his eyes flicking over me once before settling on my face. He was probably just making sure that I was finally clothed.
The others had all gathered, too. Silently and rapidly, like smoke beneath the door. It was a little bit scary.
“Nothing,” I muttered, wandering over to their group.
None of them were sitting down, but I was exhausted, so I sat on the edge of Coen’s bed, facing them all, and then I just blurted it out.
“So I feel sick and my chest hurts whenever I move away from you all. It’s really painful, like my chest is being ripped apart. When I move closer again, it gets better. With one of you touching me, it disappears altogether.”
I paused, drawing in a breath and passing my eyes from one of them to
another. They were all doing that scary, blank-expression thing.
“Allrighttt,” I drew out the word, twisting my hands together nervously. “I’m going to go sleep now. I’m tired. See you all tomorrow.”
I jumped up, heading for the door.
“Trickery,” someone muttered, and a moment later, there was a sol behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder, catching the side of Siret’s profile, and then turned back to the door. Eh, whatever. Siret could follow me to the closet if he wanted to.
Unless … unless this was the moment that they killed me.
“Overreact, much?” Siret laughed, pulling me toward his dorm room. “You’re staying with me tonight. The others … they need a bit of time to process.”
“Are they angry?” I asked, as Siret pushed me gently from one room to another.
“Very,” he answered cheerily.
“Why aren’t you angry?” I scowled, spinning around to face him as he started pulling items off the only couch in his room.
“Rocks … my gift is trickery. I love surprises. Especially surprises that annoy people. Especially surprises that annoy my brothers. Especially surprises that spend half of their time naked. A naked surprise is always a good surprise.”
I didn’t really know what to say to that. He kind of had a point. He swept me up, mid-yawn, carrying me over to the bed and dumping me right into the middle of it, before leaning over me to steal one of the pillows.
“See you in the morning, Soldier,” he said with a wink.
Twelve
As soon as my eyes drifted closed, sleep claimed me. I was wrenched immediately into a dream, in which I managed to grow into something twice my size, with massive limbs and hands the size of my face. Manly hands. What the hell?
“That can’t have been Rau’s intention,” my voice growled out, sounding far too much like Rome’s voice for comfort.
My eyes rose, meeting the eyes of three others. Yael, Aros, and Coen.
Holy freak! I’m inside Rome’s head!
No. That was impossible. Calm down, Willa! It was just a dream. A harmless dream …
“There’s only one explanation.” Coen was shaking his head, looking angrier, darker, than I had ever seen him. “Whatever his magic was, it was meant for one of us. Not a dweller. You know that they react differently to magic. They’re so fragile.”
“It should have killed her.” Yael said the words like an accusation, but there was confusion riding his tone, too.
“I think it ripped her soul apart,” Coen returned.
Whoa, I wanted to interrupt. What? Excuse me? WHAT!
“I think so, too.” Rome’s voice carried seemingly from my mouth. “And all of those pieces … they latched onto us. We somehow assimilated her. It shouldn’t have been possible. Maybe it had something to do with Rau’s magic. If it was designed specifically for us, it would have sent the pieces of her soul toward us. It still would have tried to seek us out, even after it had shredded her.”
Shredded.
Ripped.
Assimilated.
Pieces.
It was hard to believe that they were talking about me. It sounded like they were talking about a rag-doll.
“I don’t like this,” Yael snarled, beginning to pace.
Try being me, buddy!
“None of us do,” Coen snapped back. “And I bet she hates it even more than we do.”
Correct, for once!
Rome laughed. “No shit. She doesn’t even seem to realise that she’s a dweller. There’s not an ounce of accepting or obedience in her.”
The others smiled, momentarily, before the stormy expressions rolled back over their faces.
“We need to do something.” Aros spoke up, his silky voice thoughtful. “Maybe we can sneak her back into Topia.”
“It’s too risky.” Coen shook his head.
Aros grunted out an agreement. “Well, maybe we can get a message to Brina. If anyone is going to be able to reverse this curse, it’ll be her.”
The others nodded, and then they all seemed to fall into a thoughtful silence.
“Have you hidden the cup?” Yael finally asked, looking over at Coen.
“Of course,” was the bland reply.
“Think he’s noticed it missing, yet?” Aros asked.
“Of course.” This time, the reply was delivered with a flashing smile. Coen’s eyes glinted dangerously, a laugh falling from his lips. “If he could curse us again, he’d do it. But you know D.O.D.” He laughed again, shaking his head. “He’s probably trying not to be proud, because we finally managed to beat his sneaky ass at something.”
Their laughter slowly faded away, and no matter how tightly I tried to hang onto it, it evaded my grasp, dwindling into soundless night as sleep dragged me further away. After that, my dreams were normal. I dreamt about sleeper bugs the size of my face, and tables piled high with delicious sol food. I even dreamt about Rome’s bare chest, for a little bit. I tried not to judge myself as I then moved on to think about the others and the various images that they had planted into my poor little dweller brain.
When I woke up in the morning, it was almost a relief, and I didn’t feel rested at all.
I supposed that there was another way that Rau’s curse had changed me. Another truth that I was hiding from the Abcurses. But they didn’t need to know about the way my body misbehaved every time they touched me. I mean … nobody really needed to know about that. I shot up in bed, trying to wipe the guilty look off my face. Please don’t have heard my thoughts. Luckily, Siret was still asleep on the couch. I swung my feet to the ground and padded over to him, poking him in the shoulder.
He didn’t stir.
I huffed out a nervous breath, sitting down on the low table beside the couch, notching my chin in my hand and poking him again, although the movement was pretty lazy this time. His gold-tipped hair was swept to the side, curling slightly against the pale pillow beneath his head. He was actually kind of beautiful, when he wasn’t insulting me. He cracked one eye open, the cat-like irises flashing with warring green and yellow-gold. His other eye cracked open while I just stared at him, trying to dredge up the words to explain that I hadn’t just been sitting there, watching him sleep, like a creep.
His arms shot out, curving around me and pulling me off the table and onto his chest.
“Go back to sleep,” he muttered, his voice gravelly.
“Er.” I turned my head to the side, so that his chest wasn’t smothering me. “No.”
He reached around my face, holding his hand over my mouth. “Yes. Shh.”
I tried to wiggle out of his arms, but Rome decided to choose that moment to barge into the room. Siret cracked one of his eyes open again, and I twisted around just enough to see Rome’s eyebrows inching up, his massive arms crossing over his chest.
“At least you’re not naked,” he said to me, before turning his eyes on Siret, his expression melting into a glare. “Let’s go, we need to be at the arena in three clicks.”
“Three?” Siret launched off the couch, sending me tumbling. And of course, since the clothing I wore was about five sizes too large, most of my butt managed to fall out of the pants.
Rome grinned. “I spoke too soon.”
Coen, Yael, and Aros chose that moment to barge through the door of Siret’s room; I frantically scrambled to get my pants up and shirt down. Why do these things always happen to me? Why? Aros crossed over to me, leaning over to offer me a hand up. I froze as the full length of his body came into view. Whoa. His goldenness was extra-blinding; he was dressed in some sort of battle gear which consisted of a gold-tinted breastplate, arm bands, and braces over the front of his thighs. I knew my jaw had fallen open, but he looked like a warrior, or a god. A really hot warrior-god.
Wrenching my gaze from his, I placed my hand into his outstretched one. My eyes catching on each of the other Abcurses. They all wore similar armour, in shades which complimented their natural colouring.
They’re going to be gods. I had absolutely no doubt that these five were on the path to Topia.
But … how were they going to do that with me attached like an ugly sixth limb?
“Don’t you worry about it, Rocks,” Aros said as he deposited me safely to my feet. “Our path to Topia was rocky long before Rau decided to add some chaos.”
His words reminded me of the dream, and I found myself blurting without thought. “So speaking of souls … what happened to mine?”
Siret shook his head. “No one was speaking of souls, and yours is the same speck of nothing that all dwellers carry around.”
By the time I turned away from him, Yael was in my face. Well, his chest was in my face. “Why would you ask about your soul?” he demanded. “You wouldn’t happen to be able to hear our thoughts now, would you, dweller?” It wasn’t really a question. More of an accusation.
Clearing my throat and fighting for composure, I shook my head a few times. “No, definitely not. I just kind of … wentintoromesheadlastnight.”
The last lot was one big word I spoke as fast as I possibly could. Silence reigned supreme, then Yael spun to face his crusher brother with one eyebrow raised and a snarl on his lips.
Rome didn’t even flinch. I would totally have flinched. Maybe he could give me lessons. Something told me that I would need them. And by something, I meant the thousands of flinch-worthy glares that I’d already gotten since arriving in Blesswood.
“I would have told you if I had felt her there,” he said, his tone drawling like that much should have been obvious.
“Two clicks to the trials,” Siret reminded the room, and I was running out of time to get answers.
Stepping forward, I snapped my fingers a few times in Yael’s direction. “Hey, can you seriously focus for like one click. What the hell happened to my soul?” If he answered my damn question, he’d have a much better idea of why I was in his brother’s head. It was clearly all connected. “What did Rau do to me?”