Strength (Curse of the Gods #4)(57)

He ruffled my hair before caressing my cheek. “As long as you keep your defiance out of the bedroom, then we won’t have a problem.”

“Don’t you mean pool?” I called after him as he walked away.

He flashed a grin in my direction and I was pretty much a puddle on the rocky ground.

Take the chains to Cyrus, he will understand what to do. Leden distracted me. I turned to find her close by again.

“Crowe said he was bringing the chains to you, not Cyrus. So why did Cyrus send me here if he didn’t know they were coming?”

The light tickle of her amusement sent a shiver down my spine. Always with the questions. Just follow the path, sacred Willa. You will get to the end eventually.

“We need to leave now,” Aros announced. “Too much time has already passed—the last thing we need is for Staviti to discover us with Death’s chains.”

They started to move to their panteras, pausing only when I spoke.

“Can we stop by Cyrus’s home first? I … I need to see my mum.”

The vision I’d seen in the glass was haunting me. She had looked so alone. So lost. I’d spent enough time with her since she’d become a Jeffrey to know that the blankness was simply part of whatever Staviti had done to her, but I had to try. Maybe if she was with me, she would be happier. Maybe she would smile without being ordered to.

Maybe I’d get a small piece of my mother back.

Coen looked like he was about to protest the proposed change of plans, but Siret got in first. “I think we have time for one quick stop,” he said, eyeing his brother. “It’s Willa’s mum, after all.”

Coen shifted his gaze to me, and almost in the same instance nodded. “You’re right, we have time for that.”

I ran at Siret and he caught me deftly.

“Thank you,” I muttered. He was always on my side.

He gathered me in tighter and I savoured the familiar feel of his body before he set me down and I turned to Coen. He just managed to hand the chains to Siret before I threw myself into his arms. He wrapped me up tightly, pulling me into his body. I burrowed my face into his neck, closing my eyes as I breathed him in. “Thank you,” I whispered against his skin. “Thank you for caring.”

His chest rose under me, like he was taking in a deep breath, and I lifted my head to find his eyes. They were blazing—so bright it almost hurt to stare at them. “I love you,” he said simply. “Your happiness is important.”

Before I could kiss the heck out of him—because that’s exactly what we both needed in that moment—he spun on the spot and took two steps forward, dropping me onto Leden’s back.

I opened my mouth and he silenced my words with a single kiss, before pulling back, leaving us both breathless. “Save it for later,” he said. “Later you’re mine.”

Leden took off before I had a chance to combust, and as the cool breeze washed over me, I sucked in deep breaths, trying to centre myself. Trying to focus. How in the worlds had I gotten so lucky?

You have brought much into their lives. Leden cut into my thoughts. I have never seen six beings mesh so seamlessly before. A bond to surpass all others.

“I’m not sure I could live without them,” I admitted to her. “It scares me, and yet … I can’t walk away. I will never walk away.”

Just keep fighting.

I had a feeling her words were going to become much more literal in the next few moon-cycles. An intense fear was building low in my gut. I could only stay hidden from Staviti for so long. What would happen when he figured out what I was? How could we possibly fight against the Original God?

I didn’t know why—or how—but Jakan was the key. The mortal glass had shown him to me for a reason. I needed to learn more about him before it was too late.





Thirteen





It wasn’t very hard to convince my mother to come with us—certainly not as hard as it had been to track down the hidden entrance to Cyrus’s lair again. She was still sitting on the bed when we arrived, still staring blankly at the wall. I had asked her if she would like to come with me, but she hadn’t responded. She had stared, waiting, until I realised that in her current state, she probably didn’t have a whole lot of ‘wants’.

So, I took her—kidnapped her, if you will.

The panteras hadn’t taken us all the way to Cyrus’s home, because it was too near the banishment cave, so we had to walk back to where they waited. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, and I was too exhausted to ask—though the exhaustion was of a different kind to what I was used to. Before my death, so much hiking and climbing would have made my legs weak and shortened my breath. My ribs would have been aching, my stomach cramping, and my mouth should have been dry. Instead, I was only gasping as though my body recognised the habit of it. There was a hollow sort of ache throughout my body, as though the exhaustion was buried deep inside of me. I knew I needed sleep—there was no doubt about that—but I also knew that I could have easily stretched my energy for another whole sun-cycle.

“There they are.” Siret pointed ahead, and I ran to catch up with him, peering through the low-hanging branches of the trees that wound alongside the river bank we were following.

The panteras had stayed behind, waiting for us at the base of the river, downstream from the waterfall beside Cyrus’s home.