Seduction (Curse of the Gods #3)(11)
Laughter. Yael was losing it.
I glanced over Aros’s shoulder, and stillness stole through me. Yael was standing there with his book bag held over his midsection, bent over with deep, gasping laughter. He was also completely naked. I flicked my eyes back to Aros, and we both looked down at the same time.
“GODS!” I shouted, as he casually stepped back, grabbed his book bag, and covered himself.
He looked torn between laughter and shock, but I wasn’t finding anything about the current situation funny. I barely had the foresight to clutch at myself and make sure I was still clothed—which surprisingly, I was—before I was left to stand there numbly, staring at Aros’s book bag.
I had seen it all.
It was burned into my mind.
Him covering it wasn’t doing anything to combat the image that had just become tattooed on the inside of my brain.
Aros was laughing right alongside Yael, now, and my stunned eyes were distracted from them by the sight of nude-coloured streaks flying past the garden. Sols. Dwellers. Teachers. Oh my gods … I had made everyone naked with my Chaos.
Everyone except myself.
Well that was new.
I wanted to run out of the garden and see the spectacle, but Yael went out first, took a single look, and declared, “No. Not happening.”
He and Aros made me sit on the bench between them until everyone was inside, and by the time we made it back into the academy, there was already an announcement echoing through the halls that classes would be cancelled for the rest of the sun-cycle while they ‘investigated’ the incident. Based on my past records, I would have thought it obvious that I was the one behind Operation Bare Ass. It was pretty much what I was known for—but nobody came looking for me.
As for the Abcurses, they were so distracted by my latest bout of Chaos that they didn’t even question me when I announced that I needed to find Emmy—Siret simply told the others that he would go with me, and then he waited above the dweller-dungeons while I went in.
The dweller quarters were surprisingly full by the time I got to Emmy’s room. It seemed that the sols weren’t the only people in Blesswood relieved of their tasks for the sun-cycle; the entire school—including the dwellers—had been given the afternoon off. Maybe dweller-sol relations were improving already … or maybe the sols were too embarrassed to have their blessed genitals on show for all the dwellers.
When I finally tracked down Emmy and told her what had happened, she didn’t even seem bothered by the fact that I had caused her to lose her clothes along with the rest of the academy.
“How did you do it?” she asked, nothing more than curious.
I was beginning to wonder if I had rubbed off on her over the life-cycles. Nudity wasn’t a big deal to me, not dweller-nudity or sol-nudity. Maybe the Aros nudity that I had caught a glimpse of … that was a very, very big … Ugh!
Trying to supress the image was more difficult than I had expected, but I somehow managed to focus back on my best friend. A best friend whose eyes were so washed-out in colour they seemed to be reflecting the crappiness of her dweller room right back at me. I noticed how dark the circles were beneath them, and all of my worry for her piled back in again.
“I have no idea,” I finally said. “This Chaos power is random and dangerous. I just lost control of it.”
That was mostly a lie. I had deliberately intended to Chaos the shit out of Aros and Yael so that they would stop fighting—but I was honest about the control thing, at least.
I sat down on the bed beside her, leaning my shoulder and shifting around a bit to try and get comfortable, before finally giving up with a huff. My fingers were brushing rhythmically at the rough covers of her nicely-made bed when the next words burst out of me.
“It’s growing stronger.” It was a rushed whisper, but I was relieved to be able to express my fears to someone.
I loved the Abcurses—they fit with me as though we had all been meant to find each other and keep each other, and I knew that they would never judge me. But they were also gods—born gods at that—and they didn’t understand the frailties and vulnerabilities of sols and dwellers. Which meant that I wasn’t going to get any sage advice, sympathy, or chocolate. Three things that Emmy was very good at … minus the chocolate, which was a delicacy we had never really been able to afford as dirt-dwellers. But if we had been able to afford it, Emmy would have been great at it. Hell, even I would have been great at it. I would have excelled at it. I would have specialised in it. I would have gone on to make a name for myself. I would have been an upstanding and outstanding pioneer in the field of Chocolate. I would have started a dynasty.
I would have changed the world.
I hadn’t even realised that my head was dropping until I was suddenly staring at her hand now on top of mine. She was patting me.
“Will,” she murmured sympathetically. “I can’t even imagine what you are going through right now. This power has come out of nowhere and you don’t have anyone to teach you how to use it properly.”
My head shot up then, and I almost kicked myself when I realised that I had reached out and piled my problems onto the one person who needed me more than I needed anything else. I opened my mouth, ready to apologise, to tell her that I shouldn’t have given her all of my problems on top of the problems she already had, but she cut me off before I could voice the words.