Seduction (Curse of the Gods #3)(66)
“Should I prepare some dinner?” she asked, her hands digging in and coming up with a bunch of carrots and a loaf of bread.
Of everything that had happened that sun-cycle, those words were the thing to finally break me. The shield I had erected around my heart shattered, and the pain I’d been trying to hold at bay threatened to burst out of me and send me crumbling under the intensity of it.
“Willa-toy?” Yael noticed, and I swallowed hard before waving him off.
“I’m fine. Just fine. I need to … you know, girl-stuff.” I stumbled toward the entrance of the cave as I spoke, needing to get away from everything. From my mother, who for most of my life would never have asked to prepare dinner. She was dead. Really, truly dead. “Be right back.” I was surprised that I even managed to sound somewhat normal.
Coen called after me. “Don’t go far, Rocks.”
I waved behind me before continuing on, stumbling only a few times as I broke out into the trees again. It was almost completely dark now, but I wasn’t scared. I was already full of grief—there was no room left inside of me for fear.
Hot, salty tears were making a slow trek down my cheeks. I didn’t wipe them away. More would come: the absolute soul-crushing pain that clenched my chest and had shooting pains crashing through my mind was too much. The tears wouldn’t stop for a long time. I had so little in my life. There had hardly ever been anything that I could call my own.
Except my mother.
She had been mine. My mess to clean up; my dweller to complain about. My memory to leave behind …
A damaged piece of my life that Staviti had no right to touch. Especially not before I had a chance to go back and say goodbye. Or go back and say anything. A scream built up in my throat, but I choked it down. If I screamed, there would be five pissed-off gods and one confused server out in the woods with me.
I just couldn’t handle the way the gods played … well god, singular. What fucking right did they have to meddle in the lives of others, to set the rules that everyone else had to live by—which they broke when they felt like it—and hand out punishments to whoever they wanted, for any crime they determined?
It had to stop: there had to be a way to stop it.
“Dweller-baby?”
Coen stood beside me. I had been so worked up that I hadn’t even heard him approach. His large hands cupped my face, and the pain in my chest increased further, the tears a veritable stream that I was almost choking on. I was struggling to breathe as they filled my mouth and nose.
“Baby, please, just stop.”
He was cupping my face, his thumbs wiping the tears away. I lifted my face to him, gasping breaths escaping out of me.
“She’s dead,” I whimpered. “Gone. Stripped away and reduced to a brainless server.”
It was too dark to see his eyes well, but I didn’t miss the flash of fury that carved his face up into hard lines.
“Staviti will pay for that,” he promised. “We’ll make sure that he learns not to mess with us again.”
I shook my head rapidly. “No, you can’t do that. He’s already proven that he can and will punish you five.” They needed to stay as far from Staviti as possible. “Promise me you won’t do anything to him.” I sounded desperate, but I didn’t care.
Coen dropped his hands down from my face, running them across my shoulders and wrapping his fingers around my biceps. “I can’t promise that, Will. He started this, and we aren’t going to let it stand.”
I forced myself onto my tiptoes, a brief flash of warmth brushing through me. Will. He had used my nickname.
I wriggled closer to him, desperate to get my point across. “If I lose you,” I started on a whisper, “any of you five, I won’t survive. My mother …” My voice broke, but I recovered. “My mother is killing me, but I’ll learn to live with it. I can’t lose you guys as well. I can’t lose anyone else.”
He dropped his arms lower before lifting me up, so that he could capture my lips. We were both a little out of control, and the kiss was hard and biting. His power licked across my skin, down my arms and across my waist where he was gripping me. The pain-pleasure thing was usually really enjoyable, but right now I had too much pain inside of me already.
I wrenched my mouth back, a salty taste on my lips as I stared up into his shadowed face. “Pain … I need less pain right now,” I tried to explain, and Coen seemed to understand. He dropped me gently to the floor, before pressing a more gentle kiss to my forehead.
“I’ll get one of the others,” he said, stepping back. I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off. “I can’t control my Pain around you tonight, but you shouldn’t be alone. Tonight, you need one of my brothers.”
He didn’t sound upset—which was a huge relief—but I knew that Coen was great at concealing his thoughts. Before I could double-check, though, he was gone, striding back toward the cave.
The agony was building inside of me again, now that I was back on my own, so I started walking. I headed toward the sound of water that I could hear through the trees. I expected Coen to send out Siret or Aros, since they were the happiest of the five brothers, and Aros especially had a power more suited to easing pain. What I didn’t expect was to see the same volatile duo that had been nominated to babysit me the night before. Rome and Yael appeared on either side of me as I walked, their profiles only just visible in my peripheral vision. They didn’t say anything, but kept pace quietly, until we hit the bank of the river that I had been walking toward. It was much bigger than I had expected, and the sound almost roared in my ears, a mist floating up toward my face.