Seduction (Curse of the Gods, #3)

by Jaymin Eve

I flinched, because the voice was familiar. I distinctly recalled shouting something embarrassing at it a moon-cycle ago, while attempting to disguise the fact that I had been hiding in a supply closet with five oversized gods and two unconscious sols.

He was enjoying the Chaos. I liked that. It was my Chaos after all. I wasn’t very good at making it happen on command, but I was excellent at making it happen by accident.

“You should—” “Stop talking to boys,” I interrupted. “Yeah. We’ve had this talk before. It’s irrational. I can’t avoid all males.” “Just the sols.” He frowned. “And the dwellers. And the gods.” “So just … all males, then?” I arched a brow at him.

I could pretend to be mature and rational for a little while, but it definitely wasn’t the best long-term solution. The real me would break through at some stage and go on a rampage to get back at the mature, rational me for locking her up for so long. The real me was a wild animal, and she needed space to … roam. Or hunt. Or sleep on tree branches. Or just space to not be forced into a polite, sol-driven social structure.

Large hands wrapped around me as he pulled me close to his chest. “What I actually said was that you are ours. I’ve claimed ownership of you, Willa Knight.”

Rome shrugged, before he pointed across to a sol hurrying toward the Sacred Sands arena. “I’m sure enough that I would bet that guy’s life on it.” I followed the sol for a beat, before turning back to Rome. “So you have no idea, and you aren’t sure at all.”

“She also has a somewhat distinctive blunder—it’s not quite a walk, but it does seem to propel her forward,” another of the guys added.

He and Aros made me sit on the bench between them until everyone was inside, and by the time we made it back into the academy, there was already an announcement echoing through the halls that classes would be cancelled for the rest of the sun-cycle while they ‘investigated’ the incident. Based on my past records, I would have thought it obvious that I was the one behind Operation Bare Ass. It was pretty much what I was known for—but nobody came looking for me.

minus the chocolate, which was a delicacy we had never really been able to afford as dirt-dwellers. But if we had been able to afford it, Emmy would have been great at it. Hell, even I would have been great at it. I would have excelled at it. I would have specialised in it. I would have gone on to make a name for myself. I would have been an upstanding and outstanding pioneer in the field of Chocolate. I would have started a dynasty. I would have changed the world.

Never underestimate a woman's love for chocolate.

Born of Chaos. It was an odd way to phrase it, but I guess in a way she was right. Unknown father. Absent, mess of a mother. My life had never been calm, it had always been chaos. Emmy had joined that chaos because her perfectly normal life had been pulled apart by death, but she was not born of chaos like me—for her, it was simply a by-product of being close to me.

“I’ll be fine. I have my super special rock and this idio—” “Careful,” Cyrus muttered, sounding distracted. “You don’t want to insult me while I’m working a spell over you.” “He has a point,” Siret said, shaking his head at me—though he was starting to smile again.

So now I have a god to find, and a pair of balls to kick.”

The things that we are driven to do that go against all sense—those are the things you will find Chaos in, Leden replied. It is not a force of evil, simply a force of nature.

Cyrus was a beat too slow to catch me, since he’d had his head back laughing when I tripped, but he noticed just in time to step into me. Which meant that instead of my head slamming into the hard rocks, it crashed right into his crotch. He let out a bit of a yelping groan, before both of us went down in a heap.

What the hell was in his pants? Steel ballbags? Another chuckling groan from above, and I realised I’d said that out loud when he replied. “If you don’t get your face off my dick, Willa, you’re going to find out.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, finally realising how little I was wearing. Sure, underwear was actually better than my usual bouts of nudity, but I was still pretty skimpily dressed. Alone. With the Neutral God whose Neutral Dick had been briefly having non-neutral feelings.

“It’s like climbing into a well while it’s raining, just … smaller,” I decided out loud. Which was lucky, because I couldn’t swim. Yael chuckled. “Yes, but this is warm, and the water has natural minerals to help clean and refresh your skin.” “Not drowning is probably the main benefit,” Rome concluded.

“Are you both going to sleep standing up?” I grumbled, propping myself up on my elbows. “Is this some kind of weird, true-god sleeping position? Does it keep your heads upright so that you can easily look down on everyone?” “What got into her just now?” Rome asked Yael, turning his head to the side to talk to his brother, while his eyes stayed fixed on me. His posture was wary.

the conversation was a private one. “It was very sudden. But mortal women are supposed to have mood swings. Did she not eat enough? Should I put some bread in her mouth before it gets worse?”

“You … you two need pants,” I finally choked out. My voice sounded a little high and strained. “We had pants,” Yael drawled. “They disappeared.”

Rome actually laughed. Out loud. “On Topia, clothing is a formality. Most gods don’t wear much under their robes.” It was like I had been born to live there.

“You’re special. You’re the only person we’ve invited into our group. The only person who has been allowed to get this close. You’re like an outsider who belongs inside, so we brought you further in than we even bring each other, to make up for the fact that you weren’t born one of us.”

“Your Chaos is a force to be feared, Soldier. Only you would end up in a bather with a Neutral god completely by accident.”

“The Creator has requested you be brought to him,” she insisted, her voice rising in some semblance of panic. It was a little off, though, as if she didn’t actually feel the panic that she displayed. “The Creator can just … like … create another time for us to meet then.” I waved at the server and then took off, following the wave of sols to the edge of the arena seating.

“Just a love tap, right Willa?” Yael’s grin got broader, if that was even possible. I narrowed my eyes, judging the distance as I tried to figure out if I could love tap his face. Harder, this time. More like a love-punch. A love-black-eye-and-possible-broken-nose.

I pushed out my bottom lip, and for once, I allowed my face to show how troubled I was. “Are you seriously pouting because we won’t kill you?” Rome blinked a few times. I sniffled, and he threw his hands in the air, before whirling around on Cyrus—except

“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.”

I almost smiled at the hint of trepidation riding his tone. My hands were already playing with the hem of my shirt, so it was barely even a conscious decision when I started to lift it. It was halfway up my torso when Rome spoke. “It might be dark out here, Will, but we can still tell the difference between a black shirt and a whole lot of bare skin.” “Oh good,” I answered, quickly pulling the shirt all the way off, and then slipping my fingers into the waist of the kickass fighting pants that Siret had made for me. “If you can see me, you can stop me from drowning.” “Not going swimming.” Yael sounded disgruntled—as though he already knew that he had lost this particular fight. “Want me to start crying again?” I asked.

“Maybe we should just let her get naked,” Rome said quietly. “It seems to make her feel better.”

Yael chuckled, and judging by the proximity of the sound, he was the one to have picked me up. “We can fix that. Can you stand right here without falling over, drowning, stabbing someone or setting the forest on fire?” “Not going to make any promises.” I sniffed.

“I said not to move,” Yael cautioned me, his voice muffled behind the clothing he was pulling off. “How’d you even see that with a shirt over your face?” I complained. “I barely moved!” “I just figured you would try as soon as I wasn’t holding you back anymore.” I grumbled in response, digging my toes into the riverbed.

I knew that they had both stripped down. Did they do that for me? A show of naked solidarity? “You like being naked,” Rome said, answering my thoughts yet again. “And you threatened to cry. We thought this was the safer option.”

“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.”

“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,

“Did you just say asspit?” His brow was a little scrunched, as though such high and mighty beings as the Glorious Gods of Topia didn’t say things like asspit. “What of it?” I asked defensively. “What is it?” “An asshole was too … small a word to describe you. You’re an asspit. An asschasm. An asscrater—”

“Is that why you shoved a knife in me and let Rau give me a death-cuddle?” I was back to my biting tone as I narrowed my eyes on him. “Because I belong here?”

“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.