Seduction (Curse of the Gods #3)(71)
“I love you,” I found myself saying, before turning to look at Yael. “I love you both.”
And … I really need to start thinking about things before I say them.
I quickly closed my eyes and sucked in a breath. Oh, gods. This was about to get awkward. Surprisingly enough it hadn’t been awkward to this point, even though I had expected Rome and Yael would be the least okay with sharing—
A slight touch against my lips had me peeking up through one half-open eye: Yael’s face was close to mine, his thumb against my lip.
“I love you, too, Willa-toy. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Life—immortality—none of it meant anything until you tripped in and started setting things on fire.”
I opened both of my eyes only to close them again as his lips pressed to mine, soft at first, and then harder. His tongue only barely brushed into my mouth before he was pulling back, and I was being shifted in the arms that held me. Rome’s face loomed over me, his lips pressing once against mine. He didn’t seem to care that Yael had just been kissing me.
“I love you, Rocks. Never doubt it.”
It was all too much for my heart. I pressed my lips to his again and then quickly twisted out of his arms, barely managing to land on my feet. My head only just poked out of the water, and I glanced up at them both from my height disadvantage.
“Am I swimming yet?” I asked, to dissipate the tension.
Yael rolled his eyes. “And she’s back.”
“Never left, Four.”
“One.”
“Four.”
“On—”
“Alright, brat,” Rome interrupted, tugging almost playfully on a lock of wet hair that was hanging down over my face. “Let’s get you back before Cyrus shows up again and gets another eyeful of something he’s not supposed to see.”
I cringed, leading us back downstream—I moved closer to the edge, so that I would be able to spot the dark outline of our clothes against the bank, and then we were out of the water and dressing ourselves again. I felt a strange mix of lingering foreboding, grief, and pure happiness: and the volatile mix of emotions was starting to make me feel a little sick. I thought about my mother back in the cave, cooking food with the supplies Cyrus had left, and another tug of grief pulled at me.
“She never would have been caught dead cooking me an actual meal,” I told the others, surprised that I was suddenly willing to talk about my mother. “Emmy used to do all the cooking—and before that, she would just bring back leftover scraps from the tavern.”
“We’re going to make him pay,” Rome promised quietly. “Whatever he wants from you, he’s not going to get it. He’s been trying to mess with us for decades—”
“Decades?” I broke in. “How old are you all, exactly?” It felt almost absurd to be asking that question after everything we had just done.
“Almost a hundred life-cycles,” Rome answered. “And for almost a hundred life-cycles, Staviti has failed to take us down. He’s about to find out that it’s just as hard to reach you as it is to reach us.”
“He’s about to find out that you’re not just a tool to hurt us,” Yael added. “You’re one of us.”
“He’s about to find out what it feels like to have my knee in his Sacred Balls,” I tacked on.
“That’s our girl,” Rome grunted, clearing the entrance to the cave and stepping aside for me to go in first.
Coen was sitting against a rock, his back up against the wall of the cave and his hands folded behind his head. His eyes levelled on me as I came in, flicking over my wet clothing and the loose pieces of grass stuck to my damp legs. His examination extended out to Rome and Yael for a moment, but quickly returned to me, his face remaining expressionless. I felt a small tug of guilt, but I wouldn’t let it gain any traction. That would ruin us. I needed to focus on keeping things even. I walked up to him, positioning myself directly between his legs, my arms looping around his neck as I wrapped him in a soft hug.
“Thank you,” I whispered, just for him.
He returned my hug, pulling me into his body, and I could feel the tension draining out of him, as easily as that.
“You should eat,” he finally said, pulling back.
I glanced around, searching out my mother; she was standing by a fire that she most definitely had not built—unless Staviti had also reprogramed her with basic wilderness survival skills—and she was stirring something in a small, cast-iron pot. Siret and Aros were sitting close to the main fire, their heads still leaned a little toward each other as though they had been in the middle of a private conversation when we had walked back in. They both watched me, their expressions as careful as Coen’s had been. I walked over to them while Rome and Yael moved to the crate, rummaging around inside it for what looked like several bundles of coloured robes. That spurred me a little faster in Siret’s direction, and I quickly seated myself between the two of them. I had a feeling that Cyrus had only packed god-clothes in the crate, and if he thought that I was the Chaos Beta, then he would have definitely packed red robes for me, and there was no way that I was changing into a pair of red, Chaos robes. Nope. No way.
“What’s she making?” I whispered, as Siret and Aros seemed to relax a little more, planting their arms behind them, their palms flat against the blanket they were sitting on, so that an arm from each of them crossed behind me, forming a wall of muscle for me to lean against.