Strength (Curse of the Gods #4)(71)

“Are you worried it might be a real pitchfork next?” Yael asked, the right corner of his lips tipping up slightly.

Emmy shot him a glare, and he held both hands up in surrender. The smile grew, though.

“I can’t let Rau kill them all,” I whispered to Emmy, because we were close enough to be overheard. Luckily, the Chaos God wasn’t looking in this direction yet. He was too busy ordering sols to their possible dooms. “Just strap her down or something, she always liked that in her human life.”

Never walk into a room at the local bar while your mum is entertaining. I’d learned that lesson the hard way. There were just some things you couldn’t un-see.

“I will handle Donald and watch over Emmy.” Cyrus’s voice was loud—he clearly didn’t care about rousing the attention of the pitchfork-wielding servers. “But you should think on whether the best course of action is for you to run into Rau’s little trap here. You don’t understand your powers yet. Feels like a great way to get yourself killed. Again.”

“Are you stalking us?” I bit out, wondering why he was always around.

His eyes flicked to Emmy, before coming back to rest on me. Ah, he was stalking someone.

He was right, though, about getting myself killed again. We didn’t know if I could die or not and going up against Rau was a huge risk, but I knew he wouldn’t stop until he got what he wanted. We needed a secret weapon.

The chains.

“We need Crowe’s chains,” Coen said at the same time as the idea occurred to me. “I’ll be right back.”

He took off so fast that it was almost like he disappeared.

“Don’t let my mum or Emmy get hurt,” I said, locking my eyes on Cyrus. “You’ve been a mostly unreliable bastard since I met you. Random as hell. Choosing sides where you see fit. But this is something I’m trusting you on.”

For once, there was nothing hidden in his face. He almost looked … dependable. “I will protect them, Willa.”

Realising that I didn’t have much of a choice, I turned to Emmy. “Stay safe and stay out of sight,” I told her before pulling her in for a hard hug.

Her face was pale and drawn when she pulled back. She was going to argue more, I could tell, but Cyrus scooped her up before she could say anything. Her worried face morphed into one of pure astonishment; it was almost comical. It wasn’t until the Neutral god was nearing the top of the stairs again that I could see her fire return as she started to argue with him. By this time, though, we were too far away to hear what she was saying. No doubt it would be colourful.

“Focus here, Soldier,” Siret said, bringing my attention back to Rau and his quest for sol domination. Every single sol was now in his line. It filled the hall entirely. I noticed the gods now, standing along the sides of the hall, appearing to be mostly bored, even though they really should have been worried about their sols dying. If their sols died, so did they, according to Staviti’s new rules.

Maybe none of them believed it, or maybe it wasn’t even true.

“You first, Bestiary,” Rau ordered, gesturing toward the female at the start of the line. She had long chocolate brown hair, reaching her mid-back. It was dead straight, not a flyaway strand to be seen. Her skin was a similarly brown shade, and she had flashing blue eyes that locked onto Rau, like he was prey. She stepped forward confidently.

“I like her,” I said sadly. “She has sass.”

“You’ve never even met her, and she probably hates dwellers,” Yael reminded me.

“True, but that doesn’t mean we can let Rau kill her.”

Rome wrapped an arm around me, probably for comfort, and also to keep me from running off. They knew me very well. “Just wait for Pain,” he told me, pulling me even closer. “He’ll be back soon.”

He would, I knew that without a doubt. But would it be in time to save the Bestiary sol?

Rau watched as she stalked toward him, her hands lifting up in front of her like she was summoning energy into them. Behind the Chaos god, storm clouds started to gather, and I tried not to freak out. I’d been caught in one of his storms before. If this was anything like that one, everyone on top of the cliff was about to be swept out into the ocean.

Lightning cracked the ground where the sol was standing, but she managed to jump back just in time to avoid being burnt to a crisp. She slapped her hands together and the ground shook beneath our feet before a small fissure appeared and a bunch of creatures poured out of the rocks.

“Gah!” I jumped back even though I was nowhere near the animals. “Are those … sleepers?”

“Yes, their breeding grounds are usually found deep within mountains,” Aros informed me.

I swallowed the lump in my throat before wiping my damp hands across my shirt.

This movement seemed to draw the Abcurses’ attention away from the multitude of poisonous, eight-legged, multi-eyed, scary-ass creatures that were swarming en masse toward a relaxed Chaos god. They ran their gazes across me. Starting at the top of my mussed sex-hair, right down over my shirt, and finishing on the single boot I wore. Aros had already seen me in this chaotic state, but the others were finally noticing.

“Are you wearing underwear, Soldier?” Siret asked me, his eyes centred on my chest.

I shook my head hard. “No time for that, I had to make do with what I had.”