Persuasion (Curse of the Gods Book 2) Read online

  “No.” The answer was final.

  “Crusher says no!” I impersonated what I assumed was a giant, using as deep a voice as possible and walking with my arms and legs all pushed out as though I had too much muscle to function properly.

  He stopped walking, turning to face me with an incredulous expression. “I do not look or sound like that.”

  Dropping my arms back to my sides, I muttered, “I took a few creative liberties.”

  “You’re going to be the death of me.” The sentence was half a snarl, half a groan.

  I grabbed his shoulder and jumped, launching myself onto his back. He caught me deftly, reflexively, his hands winding about my thighs, his head turning to the side. I reached forward, grabbing his chin and forcing it back to the front, before dropping my head down beside his and lowering my voice to a whisper.

  “You can’t die, Two. Let me go to the arena, it’s important.”

  He broke my grip of his chin, turning his head back towards me again. His gem-like eyes narrowed on mine, clashing in a firework display of green sparks. “I’m going to count to ten,” he warned me, his hands flexing on my thighs.

  “What?” My mouth dropped open and Siret chose that moment to turn the corner and spot us.

  He arched a golden-black brow, pushing the curls away from his forehead, and then he simply propped his shoulder up against the wall and grinned, as though waiting to see what was happening. Rome didn’t even seem to realise that he was there.

  “Ten.” Rome started, his voice rough, the warning growing into a threat.

  “You’re not my mother!” I tightened my grip around him stubbornly.

  “Nine.”

  “Two,” I hit my hand against his wide chest. It kind of hurt.

  “Eight.”

  “Two!”

  “Seven.”

  Shit. He was completely ignoring me, the green in his eyes hardening to stone. The hands on my thighs were now painful. I wiggled, but he didn’t drop me.

  “Six.”

  “Two,” I tried again, wiggling once more. “I can’t get down until you let me down.”

  “Five.”

  My mouth was dropping open again. Now I was just confused. I glanced to Siret for help, but he now had his hand wrapped around his mouth, trying to stifle a laugh.

  “Four,” Rome continued, pulling me closer into his back before abruptly dropping me.

  “Thank you!” I forced out, my tone exasperated.

  “Three.” This time, there was even a smirk on Rome’s face, but it wasn’t anything like Siret’s. This one was mean.

  “You have to be kidding me.” I deadpanned.

  “Two,” he continued.

  I backed up, suddenly scared, most of the bluster draining out of me. What the hell was going to happen when he got to—

  “One.” His thick arms flashed up to either side of my head, and I realised that I had backed myself into the wall. “Shaking much, little leaf?” He was almost outright laughing at me, his mask cracking completely, his question laced in dark humour.

  “Argh!” I managed, as soon as I had recovered. I shoved against his chest and he backed off.

  He wasn’t going to win that easily.

  “I’m going to the arena!” I declared, stomping ahead of them. “One of you better follow me unless you want to be the reason I’m left screaming in pain on the ground.”

  I was so angry I aimed a kick at one of the couches in the circular common area at the end of their hallway. It skidded several feet, smacking into the couch beside it with a jarring lurch. The sol who had been sitting on the second couch jumped up in shock, turning astonished eyes on me.

  “Er.” I wanted to turn astonished eyes on myself. “Is that thing on wheels?” I crouched down, glancing beneath the couch. It was most definitely not on wheels.

  What the hell?

  “What’s going on?” Rome demanded, striding into the room after me, Siret right behind him.

  The sol—whose scowl had been deepening, the shock melting out of his eyes to make way for anger—glanced from Rome to Siret a few times before quickly striding out of the room. He looked like he was heading straight for the leader of the dweller-relations committee to tell on me. Unfortunately for him, Elowin was dead. I briefly wondered if they had already chosen someone to take her place, and then I briefly wondered who they were. I really didn’t know anything about the mechanics of the academy. It was as though I had breezed in through the gates, and my only contribution to those inside was my own unique brand of chaos. I couldn’t even see outside of it. I was living inside a bubble.

  “There’s something wrong with that couch,” I accused, pointing to the piece of furniture that I had kicked.

  They looked at it, and then back at me.

  “I don’t see anything wrong with it,” Siret stated dryly. “How is it offending you, exactly?”

  “Never mind,” I muttered, tucking my chin to my chest and moving on.

  I hadn’t hallucinated that, had I? The couch really had … flown from my kick. Almost as though I had grown some kind of super-sol strength overnight. I stopped just before clearing the common room, turning to the couch on the opposite wall, now right beside me. I drew my leg back and delivered it a swift kick. It didn’t budge, and pain shot viciously up through my leg, causing me to hop around while wheezing swear-words for the second sun-cycle in a row.

  If it hadn’t been for the Abcurses, I would have said that my luck was getting worse.

  Rome and Siret were actually laughing at me now, which only served to remind me that I was mad at them. All of them. The whole world would feel my wrath for the remainder of this sun-cycle because I was Willa Freaking Knight. Which made no sense at all, but sometimes the world didn’t make sense, and we just had to accept what was.

  I continued to stomp away, down the long hall and out into the warm, caressing sunlight. So far I’d felt nothing but warmth in Blesswood. Warmth and green trees and singing birds. They took their blessed thing very seriously, and the gods clearly indulged it. No other beings were gifted with so much beauty. The outer rings and the villages within them were dry and desolate and sad. Everything there was hard, and the quality of life was lacking.

  I’d never really stopped to think about how unfair it was—dwellers were encouraged not to think very much—but if the Abcurses had taught me anything, it was that dwellers were not so different to sols. We could be friends with gods. We could be blessed. I had proven that.

  It was this very thing which had driven Elowin to team up with Rau, lose her mind, and act like a crazy person. She was afraid that my actions would encourage ‘free thought’ amongst the dwellers, and she hadn’t been wrong. And the sols were already noticing, and they were going to fight this with everything they had. As much as I wanted change, I also feared the suffering that my fellow dwellers were going to have to go through. Which meant I was on cleaning duty.

  The ache in my chest was manageable, even as I crossed the grassed area and entered the underground doorway of the Sacred Sand arena. At least one of the Abcurses was following me, but since they weren’t at my side, it almost felt as though I was free and independent. Just a dweller, out doing her job, contributing to the world. They were so lucky to have me. Right up until I almost burned a building to the ground. I’ve never fully burned a building down, just almost.

  That’s not a challenge, Rau!

  Speaking of the evil god, I hadn’t been back in the arena since Rau had manipulated the fights and wrangled me into the ring with Coen. Then, just for kicks, he’d also frozen my vocal cords so that I couldn’t surrender—forcing Coen, a god of pain, to knock me out. I’d woken in a bare, underground room, where I figured the dwellers probably reported for cleaning duty. If not that exact room, then at least somewhere in the vicinity of it. There had to have been a reason that I’d been dragged down there. They certainly wouldn’t have left me in a ‘sol’ area to recover. So that’s where I was heading.


  The sunlight slowly dissipated as I attempted to navigate my way back to the lower levels. Even though it got quite dark and dreary in the stairways, I could still see clearly. Which was helpful in not tumbling to my death. Although, whether I could die if the Abcurses didn’t, was still up for contention. Everything was starting to look familiar as I hit the flat ground of the lower levels and a voice caught my attention … oh holy crap, it was a dweller meeting.

  I had literally stumbled into some sort of dweller gathering and now twenty faces were turned in my direction. I lifted my hand and gave a weak wave.

  “Hey there, just reporting for cleaning duty,” I said, trying my best to ignore the many stares being shot my way. I dropped my gaze really quickly toward my chest and was relieved to see that there was no nudity going on. The looks were not because of my boobs, for once. Nope, they just hated me in general, clothed or unclothed.

  A familiar face pushed through the crowd and my shaky knees were given a shot of confidence. I took a few steps closer.

  “Atti!”

  He was my best friend’s boy-toy, or whatever they were calling it, which meant he had to be nice to me. It was a girl rule.

  “What are you doing here, Willa?” His voice was not as friendly as I would have liked, but I was running low on ally options, so I was willing to trick myself into thinking that he’d just extended a hand of support to me.

  “I’m supposed to be on arena duty … at some point,” I told him. “And I realised I’ve never been here or had orientation or whatever. So … here I am!”

  He leaned in really close, his voice barely audible. “Do you think that’s a good idea? How are you even away from the Abcurse brothers?” Everyone knew they had taken me into their inner circle, just as everyone knew that they were insanely protective of their inner circle. None of them knew why, except for Emmy, but I was sure that they had their suspicions.

  I shrugged. “Too soon to tell about the good idea part, and one of them is probably lingering around here somewhere, but they aren’t going to be any trouble.” My words about the Abcurses not being trouble … well, those were an outright lie. If the gods themselves couldn’t control those five, I had zero hope, but I needed to stay where I was for Emmy’s sake. I could still see the distress on her face when she told me about that dweller. She was upset, and I would not let her be upset because of me.

  I could see that Atti still wasn’t convinced that this was a good idea, so I brought out the secret weapon. “Emmy came to me. She wants me to get back into the swing of being a dweller, you know to …” I was now the one whispering, “stop all the rebellion.”

  Atti straightened and all doubt was magically wiped from his face. Wow, he had it bad. Something which I was going to use to my advantage as often as possible. I seriously needed all the dweller backup I could get. He turned back around to the crowd of staring people and started talking in his no-nonsense voice. Which I found hilarious, because Emmy had a no-nonsense voice just like it.

  “Willa, despite having the only exemption ever available to a dweller, has graciously asked if she can be included in the cleaning roster again. This will free one of us up for those other little tasks which have been going astray.”

  In fear of Abcurse retaliation, I had been recently excused from all of my dweller duties. Blesswood didn’t really know what to do with me, so I semi-existed as a sol. Which meant on top of my cleaning duties, I also had to accompany one of the Abcurses to class. I’d be starting the very next sun-cycle—something I had kind of forgotten about.

  I raised my hand and Atti called my name straight away. “Yes, Willa?”

  “Um, so I’m only going to be able to do chores when I’m not in class, but I promise to do my very best to fill in wherever I can. If that’s okay …”

  Atti let out a bit of a sigh, but he took the news well, considering. Unlike the other dwellers, who had resumed staring at me with dark gazes. I just couldn’t win at the moment. It didn’t matter what I did or where I was—someone was out there hating me. Some of the tension in my chest eased even more, and I knew that one of the guys was getting closer. The last thing I wanted was for them to walk into a room full of dwellers. It would cause an absolute riot. I needed to get my cleaning schedule and get out of there, as soon as possible.

  I started mentally urging Atti on, but just like Emmy, he had to do things the slow proper way. Which meant that it took half a dozen clicks for him to assign chores, because apparently they changed each sun-cycle. After he was done, he made his way across to me.

  “Alright, Willa. Now it’s your turn. To be part of the arena dwellers, you need first to be cleansed by the gods. There is absolutely no way that I can let you come in here without that.”

  Of course he couldn’t.

  “What exactly does this cleansing involve? I’m not going to lose my clothes, right? Because I have some new rules about that.” Rules I was still a bit annoyed over.

  In the back of my mind, I continued to think of ways I could punish the guys for their little sex talk, but so far anything I’d considered would only end up punishing me. I’d eventually figure it out, though. As soon as I got through the next few rotations with Atti.

  He shook his head at me, motioning for me to follow him into another room.

  The ritual to be cleansed for the gods consisted of Atti dousing my forehead in a sticky, yellow substance, which I was to wear for the next three clicks. Then, I had to utter a chant, which was comprised of praise for the gods, praise for the sols, and … nothing for the dwellers.

  Typical.

  Finally, after I was done genuflecting to a statue of Staviti, which was located in a grand entrance that I had never seen before, I was considered cleansed enough to … clean the bathroom. A dream come true.

  “Thank you, Emmy, you’re a real friend.” My mutterings were getting a little out of control but I’d been on my hands and knees for forty-five clicks scrubbing a single spot that a sol had complained about. A spot, by the way, which was part of the natural stone that made up these bathroom floors. But apparently I could not leave until that spot was gone. Very funny, dweller-dicks.

  Atti had given me my initial task, but then he had left the smaller details up to a few other more-senior-than-me dwellers. Hah! Who was I kidding? Everyone was more senior than me. I’d pretty much done zero dweller-duties since I had started at Blesswood.

  “You’d better hurry along, Chosen One.” The low feminine voice had me jumping and sloshing half my bucket of water across the floor. I’d thought I was alone there but apparently someone decided that seeing my misery was much nicer than whatever else they had going on. “You have at least five more tasks to do before your sols will expect you for dinner.”

  I wanted to groan. I really wished she hadn’t mentioned dinner. In my haste to storm away from the guys, I had totally forgotten to eat any food. “Just for curiosity’s sake … how long is it until dinner?”

  She laughed, and it wasn’t even an unpleasant sound. It was all nice and sweet. Mean people should sound mean. It would be easier to recognise them that way.

  “I wouldn’t expect to get fed anytime soon,” she said dryly.

  This time I couldn’t stop the groan. Half of my body slumped forward into the spilled dirty water, while the other half of me continued scrubbing at the spot which would never disappear. Her footsteps thumped on the floor as she marched away, and I was about five clicks from giving up altogether and slinking back to the protection and food that accompanied the Abcurses when the ache in my chest eased considerably. I was no longer alone. Flipping over, I slipped a little and landed hard on my back, cold water seeping in through my clothes.

  This is ridiculous.

  It was Siret. He stood casually propped in the doorway, his huge shoulders practically filling the entire entrance. “Come on, Soldier. You don’t look like you’re having any fun. What happened to wanting to do your part?”

  “You’ve been listening in my head again,
haven’t you?” I kicked out with my boots, splashing a bunch of water in his direction. None of it even came close to touching him. “There has to be a way for me to block you guys out. After that little talk, I don’t think I want any of you in my head.”

  Siret laughed then: the laughter of someone who was highly amused. “The look on your face when my brothers started … it was the stuff of dreams.”

  I pulled myself up, thankful this time that I was not wearing a shirt where water was going to be a problem, since dark cotton kept mostly everything hidden. Stomping through the water toward him, I paused about a foot away. A thought had just come to me and I wanted to see if I was on the right track.

  “If you find this all so amusing,” I began hesitantly. “Perhaps you and I can come to an agreement on what we should do to create a little more chaos in your brothers’ lives.”

  Siret straightened then. The amusement was still in his eyes, but there was also something else there. Intrigue. He wanted to know what my plan was … which made two of us. All I knew was that he could help me. He had been the only one opposed to the sex talk, which meant that he was my best chance at a revenge plan to beat all revenge plans.

  Game on!

  Three

  The tension within the walls of Blesswood was building. I could feel the stares as I trudged back to the dorms with Siret. I opted to skip dinner, since every single muscle in my body was aching, and Siret was forced to stay with me. Not that he minded at all, since he was a special sol and all a special sol had to do to get dinner brought to his room was shout ‘someone bring dinner to my room!’

  Which was exactly what he did.

  “You should have just pulled one of the dwellers aside instead of shouting it into the hallway,” I told him, as we stood in the centre of his room, staring at the dishes piled onto the giant rug that blanketed his stone floor. The rug spanned almost the length of the room, but there wasn’t any space left to sit down on it.

  There was too much food.