Nope. It was just a female dweller standing there with her arms full of dirty plates. They were sliding across each other, threatening to spill into a mass on the floor. It wasn’t her proximity to a plate-crashing disaster that drew and captured my attention. It was her eyes. Usually dwellers were painted in different shades of stoic; resigned to their lot in life. The dwellers of Blesswood actually considered themselves to be blessed: lucky, to be here to serve the sols who had the chance to become gods. But this female—with her wispy, mousy brown hair, and large, green-tinged eyes—wore hatred, envy and pain across her face. It was a look which told me that she was no longer content, no longer happy to be serving while I stood with the elite and called them shitheads without them trying to kill me.
“Rocks … are you even listening to us?” Siret’s reprimand brought my attention back to the guys, but I couldn’t get that dweller out of my mind.
I flicked my head in her direction. “Do you know that girl?” My random change of subject didn’t seem to faze them at all. They were probably used to it by now.
Each of them briefly followed my head nod, before turning back to me just as quickly. I wondered if she was already gone, but a peek from beneath my lashes told me that she was still there; still looking ten shades of pissed off. With a huff, she turned and stormed off, back toward the prep-kitchen. Whoops, I really should have been subtler.
“We don’t make it a habit to know dwellers.” Coen was the one to answer my question. The rasp of his deep voice had me forgetting everything for a click.
What had I been asking?
“You know me!” I burst out. “I’m a dweller!”
Rome shook his head, his eyes getting caught on my chest again before he managed to make it to my face. “You’re not a dweller, Willa. Never have been.”
I sighed before collapsing down into my usual chair, right between Siret and Coen. I would deal with the weird dweller another sun-cycle. Right now, I was exhausted and starving. Trying to mentally block the Abcurses had that effect on me. And I wasn’t getting any better at it. I was starting to think that blocking them was an impossible task. Part of me wondered if I really even wanted to.
Food was placed in front of everyone, and mine seemed to hit with an extra clank of attitude. I almost lifted my tired head to glare at whomever splashed my creamy spud dish off the side of the plate, but it was just too much effort. Besides, I did understand their reluctance to serve me. I was a dweller, not a special sol. I didn’t deserve all the extra privileges.
“Eat up, Soldier. You’re going to need your strength.” Siret’s words were enough to shoot some adrenaline through me.
“Why? What’s happening?” I glanced around a few times, but everything seemed normal.
Normal for Blesswood, anyway. Hundreds of blessed sols, sitting around being served by equal amounts of not-so-blessed dwellers. I was the only one to mingle with the gifted ones, and plenty of sols were as unhappy about it as the dwellers seemed to be. Most of them were glaring at me. A female sol caught my attention, standing in the entrance to the hall, her arms crossed over her chest. Her focus was firmly locked on me, the smallest of smiles on her face. A really creepy smile. I knew her face, and it was enough to have my heart pattering a little harder against my ribs.
I didn’t take my eyes from her as I said, “Karyn is back.” I sensed more than saw that for the Abcurses, this was not happy or unexpected news. “Didn’t she die?”
I swung around again, taking in their reactions. My rapid blinking was starting to become a problem. Maybe I was developing a twitch—it would make sense with the amount of stress that I was accumulating in my life. Aros shook his golden head, and not even the mesmerising effect of his gaze settling on mine could distract me from the sol who had pretended to be me so that she could seduce my guys.
He leaned in close, and for a moment, I forgot that Siret was sitting between us. When he spoke, his words were projected quietly. “She didn’t die, and that’s part of what we have to talk to you about. We received a message from Rau. No more deaths or he’ll go to Staviti and we’ll have our time extended on Minatsol.”
I could actually see the disgust that crossed their faces, and I was reminded again that they weren’t really sols. They were gods. Real, true to life—or death … or whatever—gods. They had done some bad things, well Siret had done some bad things, and he had received exile to Minatsol. A land which weakened the gods if they remained there for too long. His brothers all came along with him because they were a team. A team I was now weirdly a part of.
“Seriously, why would Rau care about sols dying?” I sounded a little blood-thirsty, but Karyn scared the crap out of me, and at the same time, I wanted to punch her stupid face again. It was a confusing feeling, and I didn’t deal well with confusing feelings.
Rome leaned far back in his chair. His body was so huge that it knocked everyone around him out of the way. “Rau doesn’t give a shit about sols, he just wants to make things harder for all of us. For you. He knows Karyn is a problem, and problems cause chaos.”
“He’ll go to D.O.D. or Staviti and we don’t need our punishment to be any longer.” Siret confirmed Rome’s words. “We’re already sick of slumming it here.”
Coen shifted in his seat; his shimmering eyes locked on the shape-shifting sol still standing at the entrance. He also had his scary-murder-face thing going on.
“Don’t worry,” Yael bit out. “We’ll play by Rau’s rules for now, but if that sol steps one foot out of line, I will end her. Period.”
Siret’s mirth spilled across his face in a broad grin. He loved conflict. And it was very clear that Rau’s Chaos was starting to take effect across Blesswood. There was dissension in the air, and soon enough, we’d all find ourselves swept up in it.
“Dissension can kiss our asses,” Siret answered my thought. “We get swept up in nothing.”
I pointed my finger at him. “Get out of my head!”
Rome reached out and captured my finger in his massive hand. “Yeah, about that, Willa. It’s time we had a talk.”
“Seriously? You have to be kidding me! Tell me this is just one of Siret’s tricks!” I stared between the five of them. I was on the bed in Siret’s room and the boys were standing around me, doing their wall-of-muscle thing.
I was now almost positive that it was an intimidation tactic.
“You can’t be naked anymore,” Rome informed me, his voice stern. He had covered me in one of his massive shirts as soon as I entered the room—not that I had been naked to start with.
“Your nipples are a distraction and we made the pact to keep you safe,” Aros added, his golden eyes practically glowing. “We have no idea how our powers might react in close proximity to you. You’re not a normal dweller, but you also aren’t a god. We’re a lot to handle.”
A sex talk!
Those moronic morons were trying to have a sex talk with me! I knew what nipples did; my mother had been more than willing to flash hers around and I saw exactly how it had affected the men in our village. The difference was that I wasn’t deliberately doing it. I couldn’t be bothered acting like a blushing little ninny every single time they got uncomfortable.