Pain (Curse of the Gods Book 5)

by Jaymin Eve

  This time, I wasn’t the only one who collapsed, and the three of us ended up in a heap on the ground. A husky laugh escaped from my throat, but someone was already pulling me up and back to the bed. I fell onto the soft surface, pulling whoever it was closer to me. I found his mouth with my eyes closed, one of his hands on my face and the other behind my knee as we both rolled to our sides and he hooked my leg over his hip, rocking against me. He tasted like Siret, and when he moaned, he sounded like Siret. I lifted a hand, knowing that Aros would be there, and fingers tangled in mine immediately, a body falling down behind me, a hand passing up the length of my spine.

  Heat surged through me, even more powerful than before, and I reached down between me and Siret, finding him ready and nudging at my centre, I stroked him only once before he was drawing my hand away and surging forward to join us. His fingerss roamed my body in ways that the others hadn’t been able to. He filled his hands with my breasts, rolling my nipples between his fingers as I made small, gasping sounds of encouragement against his lips.

  “We want to see you, Will.” A gravelly voice suddenly broke through my haze of need, and I recognised it as Yael’s after only half a click.

  Aros and Siret were surrounding me, my body pressed between them, my sounds swallowed by them. I extracted myself slowly, and Siret turned me around without warning, so that my hands had to grasp the edge of the bed to stop myself from toppling over. I glanced up, and Coen, Rome, and Yael were all before me, staring at me with ravenous and dark expressions. The same heat as before rushed through me, and my eyes almost fluttered shut, but I kept them open with effort, biting my lip against the feel of Siret re-entering me from behind. Aros’s hand was gliding over my spine, pushing down in a particular place to exaggerate the bend in my body, causing Siret to go even deeper as his pace suddenly increased. I was already holding myself back from falling apart again, but Aros’s hand and Siret’s movements were quickly chipping away at my control. Keeping with his apparent habit of surprising me with sudden changes, Siret gripped my shoulders and hauled me upright. Aros’s touch fell away, but I didn’t need it as Siret’s hands found my breasts again and his whispered words brushed over my neck.

  “Let go.”

  That was all I needed to lose control, and I turned at the last moment, seeking Aros with a pleading expression. I didn’t need the power that he kept funnelling into me, and he seemed to understand that, because he only wrapped a hand around my cheek and dropped the sweetest kiss to my lips as I fell apart, Siret joining me with his head buried into the hollow of my neck.

  I was starting to feel dizzy when Aros lifted me away from Siret and into his arms, but not so dizzy that I could have ever pulled myself away from him.

  “You’re done for the night,” he whispered to me, his fingers shaping to my cheeks. “You’re supposed to be conserving your energy, not—”

  “Shut up,” I muttered, cutting off whatever reply he might have had with my lips.

  Our kiss was slow, the pace a sudden change from the frantic lovemaking I’d just experienced with three of my Abcurses. The frantic need—and Aros’s power—had driven us with an almost desperate need, but now he was slowing me down. The dizziness in my head subsided, the power swelled within me—finally catching up too.

  “What do you need, sweetheart?” Aros whispered against my lips.

  He was always worrying about my needs.

  “What do you need, Aros?” I whispered back, pressing myself to him.

  He pulled away slightly. “No one has ever asked me that.” He sounded a little stunned.

  A firm hand pressed against my spine, and I realised it was Coen. “Our dweller-baby, always thinking of others.”

  They sounded proud of me. There was more love than I thought I could handle in their gazes, which had desire shooting through me again.

  Aros met Coen’s gaze over the top of me. “You want time with Willa too?” he asked, putting his brother’s needs before his own. Again.

  Coen grinned lazily. “I had time with her this morning. I’m good with being the one who assists this time.”

  The pressure of his hand increased then, and with it came the tingles of his power. It arced along my spin and I arched my back, following its path. Aros’s lips were on mine again, and this time it was not soft and gentle. He took what he wanted from me, kissing me like he owned me. “We own each other,” he told me, reaching out and wrapping his strong arms around me and lifting me up and into him. “Always and forever.”

  He shifted me up, and when he lowered me again, he slid slowly inside. I groaned as his length pushed past every sensitive point, and that, teamed with Coen’s power still rocketing along my skin, had me panting and moaning before he’d even moved one stroke.

  “I’m going to take you hard and fast,” Aros told me, his voice husky. “Tell me if you need a change of pace.”

  I answered by arching so I could settle even deeper onto him. Aros’s eyes darkened until they were molten gold, a colour so rich, and one I’d never seen anywhere before. “I’m going to need you to stop talking now,” I murmured, our eyes locking. “Stop talking and start fuc—”

  Siret’s snort of laughter drowned me out, but Aros didn’t argue with what I’d been about to say. His powerful hands dug into my ass as he lifted me higher before letting me drop back onto him again. That wasn’t enough though, so he spun me around, and with the wall at my back, he could lift me even higher and slam into me over and over. At this point I lost all rational thought. I was pretty sure Coen still touched me, because his pleasure-pain tingles were everywhere, but my focus was on the god inside of me. The one who was holding his power back right now, but still somehow destroying my body.

  “Everything,” I gasped out. “Give me everything, Aros.”

  I cried out as heat shot through me, starting at my core and spreading through my body like I’d just been immersed in a hot bath. A hot bath that was touching me in the most erotic places I’d ever imagined. My orgasm ripped through me so fast that it literally took my breath away. The pleasure was too much. So much more than I thought I could handle.

  Coen pressed his lips to my throat in that moment, and his pain ebbed away the almost overwhelming pleasure, allowing my mind to clear a little even as aftershocks of my orgasm still rocked through me.

  “Still with us, baby?” Coen asked, the slight scruff on his cheeks scraping along my jaw.

  I tried to answer, but I was unable to form words at this point. So I projected my thoughts. I’m still here. Don’t stop.

  I wasn’t sure when it happened, but I was coming to the realisation that I was addicted to these five. That if I could spend my entire life, every single sun-cycle of that long life, loving them like this, then I would be one happy god.

  Aros’s pace slowed then as he began to draw out each stroke, moving deeper as I wrapped my legs tighter around him. The gold swirled in his irises, and I had to lean forward to kiss him because tasting him was the only thing I could think of doing.

  The moment our lips touched, he groaned against me, and my body unravelled one more time, joining his in a final release.

  I wasn’t sure exactly what happened after that, because I was too exhausted to focus. But I knew they took care of me, cleaning me up, putting me into bed, letting me fall asleep between my gods.

  We might have released an undead army of servers, but that night was pretty much as perfect as life could get.

  Here’s hoping the next sun-cycle wasn’t our last.

  Eighteen

  The next morning there was a new closeness between the six of us. Last night had been something beyond my wildest fantasies, and it had been more than perfect. It was clear that I still wasn’t quite up to having all of them in one night, but that was a goal to work toward.

  Siret and Yael both laughed at that thought, and I chuckled too as I pulled on my newly borrowed clothing from some of the dwellers, remembering at the last moment to slip the vial of water inside
my pocket.

  Outside the hut, we ate a hurried breakfast with Adeline and Abil, and then, before the sun had fully risen, we were in a bullsen cart about to set out for Soldel.

  “We’ll take care of everything here,” Adeline promised me again. “Do not worry for your dwellers. They will be safe.”

  I leaned out over the edge of the cart and surprised her with a hug. She didn’t hesitate to hug me back though, and when I pulled away it was to find her beaming, her beauty almost blinding.

  “Look after my boys,” she whispered to me, and I nodded in return.

  Abil reached out and pressed his hand to the bullsen at the front. “I’ve given them a little extra energy,” he told Coen, who was controlling the beasts. “You should be there in no time.”

  I could tell this was a novel experience for the Abcurses, having never needed to travel by domestic beast before, but since we were conserving energy so I’d have enough to redirect the servers and Adeline’s mortal glass, there was no other way for us to get to Soldel.

  The journey was at least a lot faster than it had been the time I came this way with Emmy; Abil hadn’t been kidding about the extra energy.

  “Feels like I made that original journey to Blesswood a million life-cycles ago,” I said wistfully, staring out across the lands, seeing the parched dirt turn into forests as we got closer to the centre rings. I turned back to stare between the Abcurses, who were sprawled out in the cart, watching the landscape as I had been doing.

  They turned their attention to me then. “Can you believe that I didn’t know you all? That if I hadn’t managed to sneak into the school and change my grades, I might never have met you.”

  Siret shook his head, sunlight streaming across his hair bringing the midnight ruby tones to life. “We’d have found you eventually, Soldier. Our bond was always meant to be.”

  I would choose them in every lifetime, in every different version of my future, so I understood exactly what he was saying.

  When we finally reached Tridel, I was surprised at how quiet the streets were. We did catch sight of Ciune and Gable. Yael jumped out of the cart to quickly confer with them, then caught up to us again in the outer areas of Tridel.

  “They said that everyone has moved toward Dvadel and Soldel,” he told us. “Lorda and Haven are in Dvadel now, and all of them will join us as soon as the rest come through.”

  “Did you tell them they need to be nice to the dwellers when they make it through?” I was feeling very protective of my people.

  Yael nodded. “I did tell them that. But you have nothing to worry about; Mother will rip them a new one if she sees any mistreatment.”

  I trusted that about Adeline; she was fierce in ways that not even her sons and Abil were. Double-crossing Staviti the entire time, working with him and against him, at great risk, just to keep her children safe. I’d long wondered what she’d been doing in her “extended disappearances,” and it was nice to finally have some answers.

  When we entered Soldel, I was more than a little excited about getting out of this cart. Besides brief rest stops for the bullsen, and bathroom breaks for us, we’d not stopped on our journey.

  Soldel looked the same at first: fancy and shiny. But as we got closer to the centre, stepping up the incline, the streets grew very busy. There was a lot of chaos, sols displaced for the first time in their lives, unsure where they were supposed to go next. The skyreachers looked to be packed to the brim, and I was happy to see that dwellers mixed in almost seamlessly with their shinier counterparts.

  I’d come to realise that sols were “shinier” because they had the best of everything. The best food, clean water, all the healing they required. Not because they were superior in any way outside of being born as one of the blessed races. Dwellers probably had gifts too, hidden deep down, but they were never given a chance to explore those skills because they were too busy serving.

  Our cart was stopped about halfway up Soldel. There were too many sols and dwellers in the streets for us to move through them. When we stepped out, a hushed silence fell over the area. Wide-eyed sols fell to their knees around us, lowering their heads in deference. Surprisingly enough, dwellers remained standing, and it was clear this was not because of any sort of defiance. They appeared to be literally frozen to the spot, unsure if we were about to smite them all.

  “Stand, please,” I said, trying not to let my tiredness seep into my words. “We are here to help you, that is all. Right now we need to know where the other gods are.”

  A dweller answered me, a young girl of no more than ten life-cycles. “They are at the council chambers,” she squeaked out, brave where others were not.

  I strode forward, stopping just before her. The Abcurses hung back slightly, which was probably a good thing because she looked like she was going to pee herself just standing before me. “Thank you,” I told her, leaning down so we were the same height. “What’s your name?”

  “C-Cat.” She cleared her throat. “I’m Cat from the fourth ring.”

  I held out my hand and she hesitated for a brief moment before placing hers into it. “It’s nice to meet you, Cat. Thanks for your help.”

  I released her, and her face was lit up with pride. Glowing. When I rejoined the Abcurses, we were silent, heading toward the top of the Soldel hill. The crowds parted for us, all the sols continuing to drop to their knees as we walked on.

  “How can this not make you uncomfortable?” I asked the Abcurses, trying not to look at all the genuflecting. “They’re treating us like—”

  “Gods,” Siret suggested with a wry smile. “Mostly we have walked among the mortals as one of them. Never as gods.”

  I snorted. “Uh, you assholes were worshipped at Blesswood. Even before they knew you were gods.”

  It was one of the first things I remembered hearing about the Abcurses, that they were the closest thing to gods Minatsol had ever seen. The sols hadn’t realised just how close until that last fight in the arena. When we reached the white, overachiever council chambers of a building, we found Cyrus and Emmy stationed on the highest peak of the hill, standing between the chambers and the guarded gate that led to Blesswood.

  Emmy let out a small cry when she saw us, and Cyrus swung in her direction, only relaxing when he realised what she’d seen. We hurried to join them, and I hugged my sister hard. “Everything okay here?” I asked.

  She nodded. “We’re working on ferrying everyone through to Blesswood, but it’s slow going because the transports are not used to taking so many at one time. We’re getting there though.”

  The gate was wide open, although guards were still on either side keeping the sols and dwellers in line. “You had no issue with getting them to believe you?” Coen asked Cyrus.

  He shook his head, sharp eyes moving across the crowds around us. “None. The sols are trained to obey gods, and word has spread very quickly.”

  “Plus they’re all more than a little excited to be going to Blesswood,” Emmy said drily. “I’m not sure they even care that they might die when they get there.”

  We stayed with them while the line moved slowly, and for the most part the sols behaved themselves. Only on a few occasions did we have to reprimand them for treating dwellers badly—shoving them to the side so they could get through first mostly—and after that the rest kept their hands to themselves.

  When the guards on the main gate signalled something to Cyrus, he held up a hand and the lines stopped moving. “Transports are full again,” he said, projecting his voice loudly. “Don’t move.”

  Emmy grumbled, before shouting over the top of him. “He doesn’t mean that literally. You can still shift on the spot, and the line should start moving again shortly.”

  She shook her head at me. “You should have seen them the first time he ordered them to ‘not move a muscle.’ Some of them passed out from holding their breath.”

  And the sols thought dwellers were just here to obey.

  While we waited, I stared
around the area, memories flooding back to me. I’d almost burned this building down once. Speaking of …

  “Do you know if Evie is still at the healer?” I asked Emmy.

  She shook her head. “She’s actually inside at the moment, coordinating the food and supply carts that are heading to Blesswood as well.”

  I blinked at her. “But … her burns.”

  Emmy smiled at me. “Come on, I’ll show you,” she said, before turning to Cyrus. “We’ll be right back. Don’t scare the sols and dwellers while I’m gone.”

  He winked at her, the slightest of smiles curving up the corners of his lips. It wasn’t a smile I trusted, but Emmy just shook her head before reaching out to link our arms together. Siret, Yael, and Rome joined us, following close behind. Coen and Aros stayed with Cyrus.

  Inside it was a lot cooler and quieter. “This building was evacuated first,” Emmy explained, leading us through the main chamber before we entered a long hall. “The important members of Soldel were first on the barge.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her tone, and she chuckled. “I made sure they got on the barge, leaving the train for the dwellers that served here.”

  I had to chuckle at this. Emmy always won, even if the sols didn’t think so at the time.

  Siret wrapped a hand around the back of my neck then, his strong fingers digging into the muscles, working out some of the tension I’d been carrying since our cart ride. I managed not to groan, even though it felt so damn good. My eyes did flutter shut at one point though, opening again when I realised we’d entered a new room.

  The kitchen here was huge, at least as big as the main one back in Blesswood, and unlike the rest of the council chambers there were still plenty of sols and dwellers scurrying about.

  “Emmy!” A bushy-haired chick rushed over to her. “You must have sensed I needed your help. One of the sols is in the large cooling box, and he is refusing to hand over the last of the food.”