Seduction (Curse of the Gods #3)(21)

A darkened, stone-lined alleyway caught my eye, and I hurried toward it. It seemed to grow gradually darker the further back it went, which would hopefully mean that there were no sols living within. It also turned cooler as I ran along, and I felt that pang in my chest at being there alone. If Siret had been there he would have made a joke and woven me into the tightest sweater ever. My boobs would have been popping out, but my nipples would have been hidden. They really liked me to keep my nipples under wraps.

When I felt like I was about halfway along the alley, I stopped and leaned back against the cold wall, mentally shouting out for Cyrus. I had no idea if he would still be able to hear me in this way, or if there was any connection between us, but I had to try.

Cyrus, you bastard of the gods, get your ass here now! You’ve really fucked up this time, buddy! You have no idea. No idea what I’m going to do to you. I don’t know either, yet, but it’s going to be bad. Really bad! It’ll be the worst you’ve been in trouble since you were a damn kid and your damn mother caught you looking up the skirts of the other gods, or whatever you did to get in trouble. Never mind, I just realised you were never a kid. That explains the lack of child-like innocence in your eyes. Eyes which I’m going to repeatedly stab just as soon as you get your ass over here!

My rant went on and on, and I kicked out at the wall while calling him every curse name I could think of.

Bullsen tit.

Shweed.

Tosspot—that was a personal favourite of my mother’s.

Ballbag—another favourite. It’s what she called our town leader when she was sober enough to realise how useless he was. “He’s just a walking ballbag, Willa. No brains.” She wasn’t wrong either: he was the reason I ended up with the Abcurses, when he reassigned my gender and named me Will Knight.

I owe you one, Leader Graham, you ballbag.

Cyrus still hadn’t appeared by this time, so I decided to abandon the mental shouting and try some actual shouting. Maybe he was powerful enough to hear his name on the breeze or something. They could do that, right?

“Cyrus!” It was a tense whisper-shout. “Get down here right now! You need to fix whatever it was you broke!”

I didn’t see the shadow creeping up behind me until it was too late. A low shriek burst from me as a heavy hand landed on my shoulder, and for the third time in as many rotations, I found myself fighting against a darkness that wanted to eat away at my mind.





I came to in a cart. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me? This was beyond a joke now. If I woke up in one more cart, I was going to hack the stupid wooden transport into a million pieces. The disorientation was worse this time; my head was fuzzy and my mouth was dry as though I had been walking through the desert without water for too many sun-cycles.

As I tried to roll over and sit up, my head slammed into the side of the cart, and the pounding behind my eyes increased. As some of the fuzzy cleared, I realised why I’d hit my head in the first place. It looked like I had been tossed into the corner, my back to whomever was controlling the cart.

Hating the vulnerability of not seeing, I rolled away from the side of the cart and clumsily launched myself into a sitting position, spinning around at the same time. A pair of familiar faces were sitting across from me, staring, and as anger built within me, a tinge of red started to flicker on the edge of my vision.

“Don’t you be trying any of that,” Dru said, with a smirk. “Keep whatever messed up freak-show power you have to yourself. I have no problem knocking you out again, but just be aware that you’ve been down for two and a bit sun-cycles, and if you go down for another, you’ll probably die of thirst.”

Over two sun-cycles? Was he for-freaking-real? “Emmy? Evie?” I managed to croak out, understanding why my mouth was dry as the desert.

He shrugged. “Left them with the healer—your friend seemed to have it under control.”

I tried to squelch some of my worry. There was nothing I could do about it right now. I needed to deal with these new pair of ballbags across from me. Even though only one of them had balls.

Karyn grinned as I turned slitted eyes in her direction, trying to kill her with a single look. “Bet you thought you’d seen the last of me when I didn’t show up again.”

I tried to play dumb. “You mean that time I knocked you out and stashed your bleeding body in a laundry cart? With the dirty, old, used up, pee-sheets?”

Gods, it would have been so awesome if they had been peed on.

Karyn’s psycho-nice face disappeared, and she launched herself at me. Dru caught her when she was halfway across the cart, hauling her into his lap. “Baby, you know we can’t anger the gods. You’ve been trying for a long time to get rid of her, this is our best chance. Blesswood is chaos. Her protectors are missing. She keeps blacking out and burning shit down. It’s perfect.”

I chose to focus on the fact that I had been right: I was the one causing all the chaos. Which made sense considering what I was—but I had been learning to control it while I had been with the Abcurses. Now I couldn’t control shit.

I missed them.

The thought hit me so hard and I pushed it deep down. Into the place where my mother’s neglect was. Where my loneliness was. Where my isolation due to a curse which I did not ask for was. I locked the crushing emotions away, striving to keep a clear head.