by Jaymin Eve
The gathered sols cheered and laughed, louder than they had for any other fight, and Yael smirked, delivering them a bow before walking back to us.
“I’ll be next,” Siret predicted, as Yael pulled himself over the barrier and flopped carelessly down into Rome’s old seat.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“They always pick us like this. Aros first, to test the waters. If Aros doesn’t use his gift, they pick Yael. If Yael takes too long to end his fight, they pick me. If my fight isn’t a real fight, they pick Coen. If Coen doesn’t kill his opponent, they pick Rome. If Rome doesn’t draw blood, they do it all over again. One of us after another until they get what they want.”
I blinked, looking from one of their faces to the other. They all looked kind of angry, but tired at the same time. Resigned to the fact. They couldn’t disobey the gods on everything, it seemed. Otherwise they wouldn’t have even walked into the arena that morning.
Thirteen
Siret was right. The gods were apparently the predictable sort of assholes in that they liked the same torture over and over again. Siret didn’t bother with trickery in his fight. He smashed his fist through the face of a lean, dark-haired sol, rendering him unconscious with one blow. There was not an iota of expression on his face as he stared up at the glassed box of gods, and I wondered if he knew who was there this moon-cycle. Which god had bothered to come and view the arena battles. Which god was requesting him, and scowling when he didn’t deliver what was expected.
I supposed it didn’t really matter. Unless it was Rau. I would have liked to get my hands on him, except that he would probably hit me with another curse and I’d turn into a rodent, and then my little rodent soul would explode and attach onto a bunch more people. It would be better if Rome got his hands on Rau. He had huge hands, hopefully he’d be able to just crush the god into dust.
“Heavy thoughts there, Rocks.” I’d missed Siret making his way across the arena and back into the seat beside me.
“How do you kill a god?” I blurted out, and in a flash Siret’s hand was across my mouth. He leaned in very close until his lips were almost touching the hand wrapped around my face.
“Don’t provoke them, don’t think about killing them. They’ll destroy you without thought. You leave Rau to us; we’ll deal with his chaos.”
My reply was mumbled against his skin, my tongue flicking out to wet my lips before I remembered that was impossible. I kind of licked his hand instead. Siret’s eyes went this stormy green colour as he slowly slid the hand from my mouth and let it curve around the back of my neck.
“How the hell have you stayed alive this long?” he asked.
I shrugged, trying to catch my breath. “No idea, it’s been a rough road.”
I heard his muttered, “I’ll bet,” before he turned back to watch the next round of battles. Coen’s name flashed up in the fire sign. No surprise there. The real surprise was in the next name to flash up.
Willa Knight – dweller.
I always did want to see my name in lights, but not exactly like this. I think it took me a few clicks to register that my name had appeared on the arena board. The Gamemaster, along with most of the crowd, were all staring at the fiery sign, completely dumbfounded.
“Well, looks like the gods decided to play a different game this moon-cycle,” Siret noted. He looked like he didn’t know whether to be angry, or amused. He settled on cringing.
Coen was sitting as still as anything in his chair. My frantic eyes searched him out, hoping he would have some answers about making this work. Finally, he turned to face me, and I wasn’t sure what to make of his blank gaze. He got to his feet and in one leap was over the barrier, landing in the arena below.
I wanted to scream or cry. There was no plan, and I sure as hell couldn’t fight Coen. He would destroy me. The gods were probably hoping that he would, that his need for pain would kick in and he would reduce me into nothing more than spilled blood and guts. Strong arms wrapped around me, and I half-shrieked when I was lifted from my seat.
Rome’s arms were surprisingly gentle as he lifted me up over the barrier. My eyes sought out Siret, who was standing beside his brother. Actually, all of the Abcurses were on their feet. None of them looked happy.
“You have no choice but to go in there and do your best,” Siret told me, his voice projected so lowly that it barely carried to me.
Yael leaned close and added, “Coen will make sure that it ends quickly. Just don’t fight him.”
Before I could reply with the expletive they deserved, Rome let me go. I was too scared to scream as I fell to the arena below. I braced myself for impact, but instead of hitting the sand, I was caught by another set of strong arms and then set onto my feet.
I immediately stepped back to add some space between us, raising my fists hesitantly, just in case I needed to punch Coen or something.
“I got you, Willa.” His deep voice wrapped around me, smooth and warm, like a silk-lined cloak.
He strode out into the centre of the arena, and I knew that I was supposed to follow him. The only problem was … that would require my feet to move and right now they were glued to the spot. My body shook as the faces of so many sols and dwellers seemed to swell all around me, their stares bearing down on me. I couldn’t stop myself from glancing up over my shoulder. All of the Abcurses remained standing, pressed close to the barrier. My eyes drifted around the stadium seating and I realised that a lot of the sols were standing. Some of them looked intrigued. Maybe this was just some elaborate way of poking fun at the sols who were all so desperate to please the gods.
Dweller-blood spilling on the super-absorbent, sacred sol fighting sands … that was the stuff of their nightmares. Mine too, if I were to be honest.
I glanced down at my fancy dress, cringing. I had loved the fact that it had the appearance of being made to fit me exactly, but that was before I had known that I would be fighting for my life in it. Or at least pretending to fight for my life.
We were pretending, weren’t we?
Finally, I managed to stumble my way across to stand before Coen, grateful that Siret had given me boots and not heels. The pain-gifted sol was back to stoic, no emotions to clue me in on what he was going to do. Yael’s words were painfully strong in my head. Don’t fight him. Of course, that was easier said than done when a huge-ass sol was heading straight for you.
Coen moved fast, like the rest of the Abcurses, but I’d been around them constantly for almost half a dozen sun-cycles now. I had been expecting the strike, and somehow, on instinct, I dodged it. My mind swam at the realisation that I had moved almost as fast as Coen. And I didn’t trip doing it.
He tilted his head to the side, and the slightest of sparks lit up his eyes, along with a smirk on his lips. Great. I’d just made this a fun game for him, which meant that it was going to be the very opposite of a fun game for me. Time for Plan-B. Before he could move, I ran. I sprinted. All the way across the arena, pulling up the skirt of the dress as I went. I aimed for the side that had a small step hopping up into the stands. I sensed him behind me but I didn’t hesitate or glance back, since both actions would cost me precious time.
I reached the step first, and without even hesitating, I hit it hard and launched myself as high as I could onto the side of the barrier. There were slots in the higher sections, and I needed to reach those to be able to hold on. My fingers scrambled against the wood, I felt slivers cut into me, but I ignored the pain and managed to hook my hands into some holds and pull myself up so that my feet were resting on one of the slots. Turning, I held on with both hands above my head, not at all surprised to see Coen standing below. Waiting for me.
“You let me get away, didn’t you?” My question was breathy and annoyance dripped from my tone. Running wasn’t my thing.
He grinned, and this time it seemed real. He was either laughing at me or with me. Either way, I definitely amused him.
“Come on, dweller-baby. Where
do you think you’re going from there? You can’t climb out, so get your ass back down here and submit to me.”
I coughed a few times, my cheeks turning pink. It was definitely because of all the running.
“You mean surrender, right? Get my ass back down there and surrender?”
Coen’s laughter was deep and rumbly; it managed to caress my body in places which should not have been reacting in a situation like this. “I always say what I mean. You should have figured that out by now.”
Narrowing my eyes on him, I squeezed my hands even tighter on their holds, worried I was about to slip. “I will never submit to you, One! Never! So you might as well walk away now because I will literally hang here until nightfall if I have to!”
Yeah, right. Even as I spoke, my hands were losing their grip. I was such a liar. And an idiot. I needed to learn when to give up and cut my losses. Of course, none of that mattered when it came to those super-sols. Coen leapt toward me, so quickly I barely even tracked his movements, and before I could open my mouth to shout, he was behind me, his hand grasping the top of the barrier, above my head.
“Love it when they run,” he half-whispered, half-grunted beside my ear, and then his arm was winding around me and he was pulling me away from the barrier.
I would have screamed as my hands were wrenched out of their hold and we started falling backwards, but we fell much faster than I would have on my own, and Coen was landing square on his feet before the scream had a chance to gather up any momentum. I broke away from him as soon as our feet were on the ground, and we faced each other, both of us taking short, measured steps—him forwards and me backwards.
Until I stepped on the train of my dress and almost fell on my ass.
“Wait,” I pleaded, surprised when he actually stopped moving.
I bent over, grabbing the hem of the dress and attempting to rip it, needing a little more room to move. Typically, it didn’t budge, and Coen grew tired of waiting. He was before me in a click, forcing me back to my feet as he leaned in close.
“Time’s up,” he announced, a small smirk in place.
His hands dropped onto my shoulders, sliding down to rest against my chest. The dress didn’t have much of a covering above the bodice, so his palms almost seemed to slide against my bare skin through the thin, mesh-like material, raising goosebumps all along my body. I tried not to hyperventilate, but I knew that my breathing had changed. He didn’t have his hands on my boobs, but I could still feel the swell of them—right above the top of the dress—pushing against his palms with each sudden, sharp breath. His massive fingers curled around my shoulders, digging in a little as his eyes darkened. The sparkling tendrils of weirdly addictive pain he’d used on me previously began running across my body again, only this time they were a million times stronger. It was like he was sticking hot needles into my skin, but the needles were coated in some kind of potion that just made me feel good. It was amazing that he could do that, but it seemed that the more he used his power, the more it began to resemble pain. The pleasure was still there, but the agony started to peek through, whispering against my bones and making me cringe.
I whimpered out a protest even as my body arched into him, reacting to the way his cloudy eyes were staring down at me. He dropped one of his hands to wrap tightly around my spine.
“Your fight is the thing which sets you apart from other dwellers,” he whispered into my ear as he held my trembling body. “But you have to learn to recognise when you can’t win.”
Oh no he didn’t.
I grabbed my skirt again, but I moved deliberately slowly this time, keeping myself pressed against him. I bunched it up into my hands, inch by inch, as his eyes flickered from my face, watching as the material climbed higher up my legs.
“Dweller…” he ground out.
For just a moment, unadulterated pain flashed through me, but as quickly as it happened, it was gone, leaving only an echo of it for me to react to. Coen blinked rapidly, once, twice, and then his gaze was back on my face. I had broken his concentration.
Willa for the win!
He frowned, obviously hearing that thought, but it was too late for him. My dress was up high enough now.
“What was that thing you said before?” I asked, as the gathered sols began to grow impatient, shouting things at us.
“You have to learn to recognise when you can’t—”
I swung my knee up into his balls.
His breath rushed from him and he stumbled back, his hands falling away from me. Whoops. I had intended to knee him; I just hadn’t intended to knee him there. I froze at the newly tinted green of his eyes, and in that moment, I was pretty sure that I was seeing death. Coen wasn’t a pain-gifted sol at all. He was death.
I held both hands up. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to …” I was backing up, my hands still above me. The crowds were noisy around us now, and even though I never planned on it, I decided to surrender.
Just as I opened my mouth to shout it out, a zap of energy shot through me, and no sound emerged from my mouth. I tried again as Coen stalked toward me. He had recovered in a mere moment, which didn’t seem fair. I’d never get away with another underhanded shot like that again. It should have at least given me two clicks’ reprieve. I tried for a third time to speak, and still no sound emerged.
My eyes flicked across to the glass box and I just knew one of those assholes had done something to me. They wanted to see what Coen would do. How far he would go. Whether he would hurt me or not. Whether he would kill me or not. I, on the other hand, didn’t want to see what Coen would do at all. That wasn’t the kind of knowledge that I required. I would have happily flounced right out of the arena, shaved off all my hair, and slipped into the unassuming role of Will Knight, sans obvious nipples, to hide from the gods. But I couldn’t do that, because the guys felt some kind of obligation to the gods, or the gods had some kind of control over them. And I felt some kind of obligation to the Abcurses, or they had some kind of control over me. Really, obligation and control were becoming more or less synonymous to me.
And there was one more, tiny little thing.
The gods were cheating.
They were taking away my ability to surrender, and that was unfair. That made me mad. I stopped backing away from Coen, blinking as though I was about to start bawling like a little girl. He totally bought it. Idiot Abcurse. He frowned, some of the danger edging out of his walk as he approached me. I dropped to my knees, my hands tangling in the sand. I was really milking it.
“As much as I like this,” Coen’s voice rumbled, his hand in my hair. “You actually need to say that you surrender.”
For a just a few, weak moments, I flirted with the fact that I didn’t have the strength of will to resist Coen and his deep, rumbling voice. I considered that I wanted to be on my knees before him, and …
But no.
Nope.
I was Willa Freaking Knight. Baddass Extraordinaire. Best Dweller in the World. And I was going to attempt to kick the ass of the massive Pain sol even if it was the last thing I did.
“Take this!” I shouted … or mouthed, more like, but my point was still made.
I tossed the sand into his face, surging to my feet and running away from him.
Before I could figure out a plan, a huge body slammed into me and lifted me up to drive us across the arena, all the way to the barrier where the Abcurses still stood.
My back slammed against the wall. It was hard and hurt a little, but nothing like it would have if Coen had used all of his muscle.
His breath washed across my cheek, and I went a little dizzy at the woodsy, fresh-cut pine scent he had going on. I could feel his body trembling; he was on the brink of losing control and I couldn’t even open my mouth to try and save myself. Instead, I tossed my arms around his neck, plastering myself to him in a fierce hug.
I might have been a terrible fighter, but I was a stellar hugger. One of the best.
When I drew back, Coen’s st
one-chip eyes locked onto mine like a predator to his prey, and I could feel the faint vibration of his growl as it passed from his chest to mine. Instinct took over and I leaned closer to snuggle my face into that spot between his shoulder and neck.
His body shuddered beneath mine, the hands on my back tightening. “You have to surrender, Rocks. I can’t stop until you do.” There was pleading in his voice, and as I pulled back, I opened my mouth and closed it just as quickly, before shaking my head. I put my hand on my throat to tell him that I couldn’t surrender, even if I wanted to.
Can’t speak.
More than one growl sounded from around me then, and I knew that the other brothers had heard my thought. Coen swung us around so that he could glare up at the glass box, and then his voice slipped out into the air around us. “Close your eyes.”
Our stare held for an eternity, and I was relieved to see that he was as unhappy about what was happening as I was. I gave him a quick head nod, and closed my eyes, mostly trusting that I would make it through this. My feet gently hit the sand as Coen took my face into both of his hands, the tingling pain started quickly, and increased to the point where I wanted to cry out, but thankfully, with a quick snap of energy, darkness took me.
When I woke up, there was pain everywhere, but most of it was focussed around the area of my chest. I struggled to pull myself into a sitting position, peering cautiously around at the stone room. It looked kind of like a dungeon, with bare, stone benches and a barred door—which had thankfully been kept open. I groaned, doubling over and clutching my stomach. The Abcurses were near, but they were stretching me out, taking the distance right to the edge of what I could bear. I slipped off the bench, my head swimming dizzily, and padded toward the door on shaky legs.
