Strength (Curse of the Gods #4)(15)

“But gods can’t die,” I spluttered, panic building. This wasn’t a good sign for me. This meant that I could die again—probably would die again.

“Not without the assistance of Crowe—the God of Death, or the Creator,” Siret agreed, motioning toward the chains that bound Sienna.

I glanced down, noting the dark metal, the tiny inscriptions that covered each link.

“But Crowe helped her with pranks.” I sounded petulant, upset about people and relationships I had never even encountered. Crowe and Sienna were supposed to be friends. Friends didn’t send their friends’ souls into torment realms. It should have been the first rule of friendship.

“You’re actually right.” Siret bent down to inspect the shackles. “They were friends, and they have been for hundreds of life-cycles. It would have taken something significant to turn Death against her.”

“The cup,” Aros actually sounded panicked. “Rau figured it out, somehow.”

“We need to check the vault,” Siret agreed, standing and taking my arm.

Without further warning, the room was disappearing around me and I was being pulled from the platform and into a dark space flickering with the barest hints of orange light. The ground was smooth beneath my feet, but the air felt heavier. I could feel the two guys pressing in against me from either side, and when they started moving toward the light, I followed alongside them. As our surroundings became more illuminated, I started to realise that we were in some sort of cave again—I recognised the dank, heavy feeling of the air. It was a different sort of cave to the others, though. This one was coated in marble, with flat marble floors and a marble ceiling. The walls were still stone, but they had been treated in some way, turning them smooth and shiny, almost giving them a shimmer. Alcoves had been cut into the stone walls to house torches, with each alcove appearing closer together the further in we travelled. Aros stopped at a bench set beneath one of the alcoves, our tunnel now well-lit, and bent to work one of the planks loose from the seat, pulling it up and out. There was a tiny compartment set beneath that plank, with a single golden key laying inside.

“Sienna is a little dramatic at times,” Siret explained, as we followed Aros further down the hallway to a set of vaults set into the stone wall.

He moved to the last one, but the key dropped from his hand before we even reached it. The door was hanging open by an inch. He pulled it wide, spilling light into the shadowy depths. Inside, there was a blade set into a holder, propped up so that it looked as though it were standing on its own tip.

“Fucking Rau,” Aros growled, his body lined with tension.

“The cup is gone?” I was pretty sure it was gone, since Aros was standing in front of a cup-less vault, saying ‘fucking Rau’, but I needed clarification before I could get angry.

“Yes,” Siret confirmed.

“Fucking Rau,” I growled, before pausing for a click. “How do we know that Rau did this?”

Aros was still staring at the knife. “This is a message. He thinks you’re dead, not undead, just plain dead. He wants revenge.”

“Why does he need to torture Sienna and steal the cup to get revenge? Why does he need revenge on you five at all?”

“He knows we care about the cup—otherwise why would we have snuck back into Topia to steal it? Why would we have taken this much effort to hide it? And he clearly thought that torturing Sienna to get it would be a good message to send us.”

“But why does he need revenge on you five? Cyrus is the one who killed me.”

“Under his apparent orders. He wanted you dead so that you would join him. You died, but didn’t join him.”

“And that’s … your fault?” I was confused.

“The curse was meant for us. You got in the way and were somehow affected by it.” Aros slammed the vault door and moved back to me. “We treated you as one of our own from then on. We protected you, treated you as something special, something precious. We basically told him that the curse succeeded in turning you into the Beta, as it was supposed to turn one of us into the Beta. We fooled him—not deliberately, but I am sure this is how he’s twisted it. We made him believe that you were the Beta, we made him turn his attention to you while we stole the cup and hid out on Minatsol, and it was all for nothing. He has no Beta, and we’re back in Topia. We’re no longer weak enough to infect with another curse. His whole plan has been ruined, and it’s our fault. Now he wants revenge.”

Aros shook his head, his hand lifting up as though he would touch my cheek, but he dropped it again, his eyes moving up to Siret’s, over my shoulder. “Can we have our girl back now? Whoever did this is going to know that Sienna shouldn’t be at the gathering.”

Siret didn’t answer with words, but I could feel his fingers on the back of my neck, and the trickle of his magic passed through me. I didn’t need to pull my hands up before my face to make sure that I was a healthy, golden-brown again. I could feel how my two guys suddenly pressed closer, how their hands suddenly reached for me and their heat suddenly surrounded me. It was the only confirmation that I needed. I was me again.





Four





I was seduction personified. The meaning of seduction. Seduction was me. I was seduction.

“Make her stop,” Aros begged. “She’s going to give us up. Look at her. She keeps doing that weird thing with her hands and talking about how she’s seduction personified in her head. Nobody is going to buy that.”