Seduction (Curse of the Gods #3)

“Hi mu—Donald.” I held out the time piece. “I have something for you.”

She had been sitting on one of Cyrus’s white couches, her back ramrod straight and her eyes fixed steadily, unblinkingly ahead. She jumped to her feet when she heard me speak, and then bowed twice in short succession.

“Greetings, Sacred Willa.”

She stared at the timepiece—obviously not recognising it, and then reached out and took it from my hand, raising it to her lips. I blinked, confused, as she tried to bite down on it.

“Oh my gods.” I quickly stepped forward and snatched it out of her hands. “Why are you always trying to eat everything?” I looped the chain quickly around her neck, and then stepped back again. “You’re supposed to wear it.”

She looked down at the timepiece, and then back up at me. There was no emotion in her face, but for some reason … I was strangely okay with it. Maybe I was deluding myself, but I refused to think of her as simply a server: something separate to me and the life I had lived. She was my mother, no matter what form she took. No matter how drunk. No matter how forgetful. No matter how … dead.

“Thank you, Sacred Willa,” she said.

“Just Willa,” I tried again, turning away from her with a small sting of disappointment.

“Thank you, Willa.”

I paused, my head snapping up. The Abcurses were all standing in the entryway to Cyrus’s room. I met Siret’s eyes—because he was a little further in front of the others—and I could see that he was just as shocked as I was. I spun, slowly, but my mother was already back to sitting on the couch and staring blankly. I assumed Cyrus had probably told her to do that. Maybe she had started trying to eat his furniture. I glanced behind the guys as I walked back to them, seeing no sign of Cyrus.

“Where did he go?” I asked as I stopped in front of Siret. He didn’t reach for me, but I could still feel the pull in our soul-link that ached for closeness.

“He left—off to another of his secret lairs. Said we could have a few sun-cycles here to ourselves. Rest. Recover.”

I nodded, and cast my eyes toward the bed. Apparently, that was all the invitation they needed. Rome was already moving over to it, kicking his shoes off as he went.

“I could sleep for a whole life-cycle,” he groaned, picking up the mattress and sliding it from the bed frame.

I blinked, watching as he dropped it on the floor and sank onto it with another groan. Movement from behind me had me turning around before I could ask what the hell he was doing, and I noticed Coen walking into the room with another mattress dragged behind him. He dropped it beside the first mattress, and then kicked his shoes off, walked over to me, and pulled me right down beside him. I crumpled to the soft surface, my white robe fluttering around me, and he stretched me out until I was laying partially on my back and partially on my side, with him curved around me.

I’ve died and gone to Topia, I thought, as Aros tugged off his shirt, kicked off his boots, and dropped to the mattress on my other side, pulling my hands to his chest and tossing a heavy leg over my thigh. Yael and Siret claimed the rest of our makeshift bed, and I relaxed just enough for my body to sink into the heat that surrounded me.

“Does anybody know what I am?” I hadn’t really directed the question at one of them in particular, and so none of them answered me, at first.

“You’re perfect,” Aros told me.

“Ours.” Coen’s voice was low. Exhausted. “You’re ours.”

How long had they spent trying to kill Cyrus? Hopefully it wasn’t the whole time I had been unresponsive.

“Stubborn,” Yael added. “You’re also really fucking stubborn.”

“You’re never allowed out of our sight again.” Rome seemed to be half-asleep when he answered, his voice a sleepy grunt.

Heard that before.

“You’re Willa-damned-Knight,” Siret told me, his familiar voice wrapping around me in a way that had me smiling into Aros’s chest. “And so much more.”



To be continued …