Cursed by the Gods

Chapter 13

My hands ripped into soft, green grass, my breathing ragged as I fought against the last tendril of pain. I pushed myself partly up so that I could run my hands from my shoulders to wrists, obsessively checking to make sure that my skin was still intact.

Fancy shoes appeared in my line of sight, a shadow blocking the light above me. "You doing okay, Speedy? It's a real bitch getting in and out of the banishment zone."

I knew it was Coen. The pain-gifted sol had predictably been the first to recover. Hands fitted in under my arms and lifted me to my feet. I found myself staring into his dark green eyes, a storm of darkness hovering just around the edges. He was smiling, right until he focused on my face. The darkness in his eyes expanded outward then, shading over his features like a roiling storm cloud.

Reaching up, I tried to figure out what had happened to bring on that expression. Knowing me, it could have been anything. There could have even been a sleeper on my head. Those bugs hung above you, hidden in sticky white nets, and then when you were least prepared, they dropped into your hair. Most of the time you didn't know about it, so they were able to burrow in and create a nest. They lived in your head, had their babies, and then when all their young were born, they would bite and kill you. Just so you wouldn't be able to tell anyone that they were there.

My hands started frantically patting now. I'd seen a few sleeper-deaths in the seventh ring, and I was not going out that way. Not a freaking chance in hell. Coen's eyebrows slowly drew together as he watched me jump around, shaking my hair out, flipping my head upside down and everything.

"Is it out?" I was shouting. Panic had me in its hold.

I didn't fear much, but the creepy, multi-legged, weird-looking bug was high on my list. Almost right at the top. Only a few rungs below the recurring dream I sometimes had about someone dying and making me queen. Luckily, we no longer had monarchies, because it pissed the gods off too much to see us worshipping anyone other than them. So yeah, it was an irrational fear ... but I still couldn't seem to shake it.

"What is the dweller doing?" Siret stood next to his brother, both of them staring at me. "Has she lost her tiny mind? That was fast."

Aros joined them on the other side and the slightest of smiles was visible at the corners of his full lips. "Pretty sure she's trying to get a bug off her, I've seen this before in Blesswood."

"I can still hear you, shut up and help me!" I shouted. What was wrong with them? Were they hoping I'd die from sneak-sleeper-attack? The last time I got bitten was back when I was only five life cycles old. That was not a fun time for Emmy and Willa, not for me either but it was harder on them having to explain why things kept getting caught fire as the bite flared up.

Coen grabbed me then, huge hands wrapping around my biceps as he held me in place. I struggled for a click, before realising that it was fruitless. I was never escaping his grip.

"There is no bug on you," he said slowly, like he was speaking to an idiot.