Strength (Curse of the Gods #4)(45)

I stopped walking suddenly, causing one of them to almost run into me from behind.

“Oh my gods, we left your student in there,” I realised aloud, spinning to face Rome.

“Who?” he grunted.

“Your student!” I reached out and swatted his arm. “She must still be standing against the wall.”

“Oh.” He scratched his head. “Well if she’s still there tomorrow I won’t throw her off the mountain. Happy?”

I glanced behind him to the two sols loitering on the path.

“You can go and tell your friend that she’s free to move,” I said, pointing back the way they had come. I might have disliked the sols because they were working far too closely with the Abcurses—therefore impinging on my Abcurse time—But that didn’t mean I could stand by while they were tortured, no matter how mild the torture. I’d faced too much bullying in my own life. It wasn’t in my nature to be okay with it, even for Abcurse-stealing sols.

The girls didn’t budge, instead choosing to look down at me with varying amounts of disgust and disdain.

“Go,” I repeated, putting a little bit of steel into my voice. My softer emotions toward them were going to disappear really quickly. Especially if they kept up this superior attitude.

“Or what?” The Persuasion sol folded her arms over her chest, looking down at me.

I could tell that she was holding herself back from what she really wanted to say and do, on account of the Abcurses. Unfortunately for her, I didn’t have that same problem.

I pushed through the male bodies attempting to surround me, until I was facing her alone, my guys backed up behind me. The temper was bubbling up inside me again, feeling like some kind of dangerous force. For just a moment, it distracted me from the girls in front of me. Usually, when my emotions flared out of my control, it manifested in flame, but after what had happened with Yael the night before, I felt panic at the thought of causing another fire.

Instead, I directed my energy toward the ground beneath me. I had thought that it would help to focus me, but when the rocks along the side of the path began to shiver, I knew that I had made a mistake.

“Or. What?” the sol repeated, leaning forward to poke a finger into my chest.

Nearby, a large boulder splintered, sending tiny little rock pieces everywhere. One of them flew past my cheek fast enough to cut me. I felt the sting of it, and the sensation of blood running down my jawline. The sol didn’t look so confident anymore, and I knew that it was probably because I was looking at her like some sort of crazy person in my attempts to focus my power. I hadn’t even flinched when the rock had cut me. The ground beneath us was beginning to shake with small tremors.

“Let’s go,” the Seduction sol muttered, pulling on the arm of the other.

They both cast one final look in my direction before turning and hurrying back up the stone stairs. I watched, just in case I might have the pleasure of seeing one of them slip on the ice, but it wasn’t meant to be.

“Soldier?” Siret was behind me, his hands on my arms, spinning me around. “You’re doing great, just focus on my voice, look at me ... that’s it, good girl.”

His hands slipped up to my neck, warming my skin as he pulled me forward, his lips pressing to the side of my mouth.

“Just focus here,” he whispered, brushing his lips across my mouth.

My fingers were in his hair suddenly, pulling his mouth fully onto mine. I wasn’t sure who had deepened the kiss, but his tongue was against mine, and the heat of his body was all the way along my front.

“Hate to break up the party…” Emmy’s hesitant voice spoke up from further down the path, “…but I came to see how the lessons were going.”

Siret set me down with a frustrated groan. “If that dweller interrupts us one more time, I don’t care how attached to her you are, I’ll—”

I slapped a hand over Siret’s mouth, glancing through the guys to Emmy’s pale face. Shit, she didn’t even have a cloak. Cyrus was such an asshole.

“He didn’t mean that,” I told Emmy. “And it’s lucky you showed up, because we need to find Cyrus.”

Emmy sighed, and I released Siret to make my way to her.

“I was using checking up on you guys as an excuse to get away from him. Now I have to go back. Worst timing ever.”

“I thought you would love this job, considering, you know ...” I shrugged off my cloak, handing it to her. “You love rules and gods and organising things.”

“My problem isn’t with the job, it’s with the asshole who’s making me sleep in his room and eat all my meals with him. I can’t get a break.”

I tried to hold back my smile. “Oh? Why is he making you do that?”

“Because he says I’m a bug and it’s fun to torture bugs?” Her answer was more of a question. She threw up her hands, sending the cloak billowing out around her. “How do I know? He’s just an asshole.”

“Sounds like he wants you around but he doesn’t want to admit it.” I tried to say the words innocently and casually and—

“Ow.” I rubbed my arm, where Emmy had hit me. “So can you take us to him? I want to get this assignment out of the way before dark, not that sunlight will make a huge difference, but I can hope, right?”