Seduction (Curse of the Gods #3)(2)

More specifically, my thoughts about how tall he was.

He might be tall but everything else about him is utterly unimpressive, I thought, as loudly as I possibly could.

He smiled, cutting his eyes sideways to look at me again. “Watch out, Rocks, you know what we say about multitasking—”

But it was too late.

One click I’d been walking along in perfectly acceptable sleuth-mode, and the next click I was colliding with another body and causing a domino-effect of toppling sols, books, dwellers and trays. The noise was jarring, as was the elbow in my stomach and the knee in my back. I had no idea how anyone had even managed to fall on top of me, since I had been the one to start the momentum and I had started it in a forward direction, but ever since the guys had told me their theory of me being Rau’s Beta, I had been forced to embrace the irrationality of my own personal brand of Chaos.

“We really need to stop meeting like this,” a voice rumbled out from beneath me.

I flinched, because the voice was familiar. I distinctly recalled shouting something embarrassing at it a moon-cycle ago, while attempting to disguise the fact that I had been hiding in a supply closet with five oversized gods and two unconscious sols. I had shouted because Yael had forced me to shout. Because Yael was an Abcurse. And the Abcurses didn’t like it when other boys touched me. Which made the fact that I was currently sprawled over Dru’s chest a particularly awkward fact.

“Yeah,” I mumbled, pulling my head up to try and spot Rome through the mess of tangled bodies. “We really should. For your sake.”

Rome was the only person in the hall still standing. He was up against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest, his foot pushed back against the stone, a small smile on his face as his eyes crawled over the people now struggling to get to their feet. He was enjoying the Chaos. I liked that. It was my Chaos after all. I wasn’t very good at making it happen on command, but I was excellent at making it happen by accident.

Dru started to grab me around the hips to help me up, but I quickly scrambled off him and leapt over the nearest fallen dweller. The mountain-sized sol seemed surprised to see me leaping around, all uninjured and unfazed. That made two of us.

“Can I walk you to class or something?” he asked, jumping to his feet and following me over the dweller.

I took another few steps back, until I felt an arm hook around my front. I glanced down, seeing a big hand settle across my right hip, fingers digging in. A bolt of heat travelled right through my body, and I tensed up and pushed back all at once, eliciting a small grunt from the body behind me.

“No,” I croaked out, before clearing my throat. “No, that’s okay! Thanks, though … Ah … I’ll see you later, alright?”

“Right.” He was frowning, apparently displeased that Rome had interfered, though he really should have been used to it by now. “Sure. See you.”

He turned, and I watched him walk off as the rest of the fallen people managed to find their feet and recover their dropped items. Rome didn’t release my hip until Dru was out of sight, and even then, it was only to spin me around to face him.

“You should—”

“Stop talking to boys,” I interrupted. “Yeah. We’ve had this talk before. It’s irrational. I can’t avoid all males.”

“Just the sols.” He frowned. “And the dwellers. And the gods.”

“So just … all males, then?” I arched a brow at him.

He nodded, once, short and sharp—as though we had just figured out our differences and come to a mutual agreement, and then he took my arm in hand and started to march me in the wrong direction. Wrong, because I was supposed to be following Emmy, who was now out of sight.

“Shit!” I pulled out of Rome’s grip, spinning around and quickly scanning the people again to see if I could spot her.

She wasn’t there, so I started off in the direction I had last seen her. She was going to see the stupid guy with the stupid name. I was sure of it. I wasn’t sure how I was going to stop it once I discovered that I was right, but that was a concern for Future Willa.

“Where are you going?” Rome fell into step beside me, but luckily didn’t grab me to turn me in the other direction again.

Luckily for him, because he would have been too strong for me to resist and it would have forced me to use my super special Beta-God abilities on him … or throw a tantrum. Always have a backup plan.

“I’m following Emmy,” I whispered, hurrying to the end of the passage and then kicking into a run toward the dining hall.

It seemed like the sort of place a guy named Fred would ask to meet a girl, because it was the most obvious and unoriginal meeting place in the whole of the academy, and I didn’t have very high hopes for Fred’s originality or subtlety.

“You’re stalking her,” Rome corrected. “Following is far too innocent a description for the look on your face right now.”

“This is the face I wear when you shouldn’t mess with me because I mean business.”

“Ri-ight.” He drew the word out, but the smile was back. I liked it. I was pretty sure I wanted him to smile all sun-cycle. I was pretty sure I would do almost anything to keep the smile there, just so that I could keep looking at it.

The smile grew.

I mean who needs a fancy smile anyway, I thought, even louder than before. It’s just a smile. Lots of people have smiles. That guy has a smile. That guy has a smile. Oh that guy is—