She turned furious eyes on Dirdos and found him grinning at her, almost daring her to try and come back at him with something.
Narrowing her eyes in thought, she hissed and turned away, planning to get her revenge later, but for the time being, she would be a good little girl and lull him into a false sense of security and then she would get him back.
"Are the Gods still camping out in my rooms?" she asked, accepting Kai's hand and sliding back into his lap with her back to Jaia so she didn't have to look at him. She didn't know what to do about the vampire, and she could feel his eyes on her, but she ignored him, and she looked up to find Daemon was staring daggers at Jaia, furious and ready to kill him.
She had made it clear that he was not permitted to do so with her stepping between them, but the attempt had to have put a new tension between them.
"Yes, they might be terrified of you, but they are mostly refusing to leave," Daemon said, and he seemed to miss the irony of that statement.
"A bit like you…" Jaia said, following along the lines of her thoughts.
"Shut up, rapist," Daemon snapped.
The tension in the room was boiling, and she swallowed, not wanting to be there with them. She couldn't handle the anger coming from everyone around her; even Letari was angry, staring down the vampire with a hostility born of her need to protect her sister.
"Well, this isn't fair, I'm one of the last to get a taste of her…" Dirdos said, intending it to be funny and sulky, but his words were like a slap to the face, and she stared at the floor, her face white.
"Ah shit… no… I didn't mean it like that," the dragon said, his voice sounding disgusted with himself.
Standing, she decided it was a perfect time to go talk to the Gods, and she dodged his attempt to grab for her, heading for the door.
"And then there was none," Versalis said, taunting the dragon on his old joke on how many men had a chance with her.
She knew the dragon was chasing after her, but she refused to look up as they all followed to see what she was up to, and a warm hand slipped into hers. Kai clung to her hand, and she smiled very slightly, keeping her eyes down to avoid their seeing her pain.
"Etani wait," Dirdos called, but she didn't stop.
"Back off for now," Daemon said, slowing to let the dragon catch up. "You can't say that and not expect a response."
"When I said it, at least I meant it as a joke, regardless of it being in poor taste," Dirdos growled.
She refused to cry again, bottling up the hurt and disappointment in him and shoving it all down to leave her feeling cold inside. She was not weak, and she would not cry again, not for any of them. She had allowed them to convince her that she was a creature who should experience emotions, and she was not.
She was not an emotional creature, and she worked to pull up her walls around her, to shut herself down and she exhaled slowly, her face set and eyes hard as she pushed the door to her royal suite open and the room looked up.
"So, who's removing this?" she said, lifting her arm bent before her face, with her wrist facing them to show the sharpest contrast between her skin and the band. "Any volunteers?"
They looked from her face to her wrist, and then at each other, nervous at her appearance and the hostility in her voice.
"No one is removing it," a cold voice said, and she turned to look at the man who had done it. His face was hard, and she figured he was still sore about her trying to kiss him.
"And why not, Sobek?" she asked in a coldly dangerous voice.
"You're a wildly unpredictable, exceptionally dangerous creature, who needs to be put down."
She smiled at that, slinking closer to him as her anger boiled up in her. Anger she could work with, anger she revelled in. "I'm starting to think you don't like me any more…" she purred, watching others tensing out of the corner of her eye.
"You tried to kill me," he snapped, but she only laughed, her laugh making many shift anxiously.
"I tried to kiss you, that's only one of the ways I could kill you."
Placing her hands on the armrests of his chair, she bent forward over him as he leaned backwards away from her.
"Give me back my magic," she breathed, his tension clear for everyone to see as she loomed over him.
"Get away from me," he growled, legs tensed to push himself as far back from her as was possible.
"How immortal are you?" she asked, her eyes going down his face to his throat and then down to his chest. "Immortal enough to have your heart ripped out?"
A low growling started from her right, but she didn't look away from Sobek as her hand lifted and she pointed at Anubis in warning, his growling cutting off sharply.
"Shut up dog," she said quietly, everyone able to hear every word she spoke as she leant even closer to Sobek, doing her best to get into his personal space as much as possible. "Give me back my magic or we find out just how immortal you really are…" her hand was back on the armrest, nails digging into the wood like butter.
It was so rare for her to tap into the part of herself that was cold, that it took them all by surprise, but she knew that would only last so long, they would be hostile soon.
"Never," he growled.
She moved without thinking, jerking her hand forward and she smiled as her fingers cut through him.
He screamed as his sternum split and blood gushed down his front, her fingers stopping just shy of his heart as she forced herself to calm down and stop.
They would not obey her if she killed him, but she wanted them to be aware of her threat.
"I will not be used, Sobek," she said over his gasps of pain.
Others in the room had stood, but none approached her, uncertain of what to do and what damage would be caused if they pulled her off him. "I will not be used by any of you. Hecate tried, and she is trapped. None of you have access to her, only I do. You have all betrayed me… twice. There will not be a third time."
She stared into his eyes as she dug deeper, and he screamed as what had healed was torn back open again.
"Etani, stop…" Kai whispered, but she was ignoring him.
"All you had to do was ask me. All it would have taken was a simply 'Um, hey Etani, could you agree not to kill us all or tear down the worlds?'" she said sarcastically. "That's it. A simple promise not to wipe you all off the map. But instead, you decide to go against me. You know that thing that adults do? That thing civilised beings do. Talking?" she was getting nastily sarcastic, and she tried to pull back, but it was incredibly difficult while she was angry.
Kai touched her shoulder gently, and she held up one finger, asking for him to wait but he was insistent.
Looking up at him, he stared down at her with wide eyes.
"You can't kill him," he pleaded, and she frowned, not wanting to accept that.
"He bound me… made me vulnerable…" she said, trying to make him understand her reasoning.
"I know, but you still can't kill him. You have to stop."
"Why?"
"Because if you kill him, they will never help you," he breathed, and she paused, her eyes going to Sobek and his smug agony and then to the others, their fear and anger.
"They have already proven that they do not care about me," She whispered, seeing their faces changing. "I'm just something to be used."
"It doesn't matter, we care about you," Kai said gently, his hand on her shoulder and pulling her backwards gently.
Looking down at Sobek, she felt that same hatred she had felt since he had first bound her.
"You are responsible for anything that happens as a result of your binding me," she whispered.
"If another creature takes me and tries to force me into bringing down this world, it will be you who is to blame."
"No one will take you… you have them," he wheezed, motioning to the men around her.
"Yes, because that stopped the witches…" she growled.
"Blame them for not protecting you."
"I blame you, Sobek. You sit there all smug while my friends suffer as a result of your actions. You value me but you do nothing to keep me safe, or protect my value, and when thieves come running, you blame others. You are a weak little traitorous coward."
He growled, but she ignored it, sliding her hand free of his chest and he gasped in relief.
"You are a monster. You care not for anything but your own selfish desires and have no thought for what happens to your toys. None of you do. What happens when someone decides they want to be the only God of this world? What if they want all the humans gone? Or the connection between Faerie and this world severed?" she turned on the room, her clean hand sliding into Kai's and he gripped her tightly. "You're all fools if you think none of your fellows are thinking about it, thinking about what they could gain from this."
Her eyes found each of theirs, but she could only see carefully guarded faces and she laughed.
"Even in this room there are those who would do it if they got the chance."
Shaking her head in disgust, she allowed Kai to lead her away, and she clung to his hand, Bast following along behind them with Cat in her arms.
Dropping Kai's hand, she wiped her arm on her dress and reached for Cat, the little feline coming to her eagerly.
"Is that big meany Goddess looking after you?" she asked him, making the feline Goddess snort her amusement.
Kai was staring at her jealously, and she turned so that he couldn't see Cat. He leant sideways, and she turned further until her back was to him, making him growl in protest.
"Stop teasing him," Bast scolded her.
"Do you think anyone will try?" Uzo asked quietly, his face pained as he watched her.
"Yes," Daemon said immediately. "You could almost feel it in the room. All that tension."
"I thought that was because I was three seconds from ripping Sobek's chest out," she told Cat, but he was busy licking her arm clean of blood.
"Not entirely. Maybe it's because of what I am, but I could feel it. It's alarming just how many are struggling to restrain themselves."
Looking up at him, she frowned and hissed when Cat bit her. He hissed right back at her and settled down into a moody stillness.
"I suppose this means I'm not going to get much alone time…" she sighed.
"Not bloody likely," the demon growled. "I will not allow you to be taken by any one of them."
He was trying to hide it, but she could tell he was afraid for her safety.
"Why are they all so keen to get their own world?" Dirdos asked, reaching over her defensive posture to scratch Cat between the ears, and ignoring her threatening growl.
"Think about it, you could be the one and only God with every human worshipping you," Daemon said slowly.
A thought popped into her head and she smiled.
"What exactly is stopping me from simply leaving?" she asked, and they looked down at her in confusion.
"Leaving?" it was Kai who spoke, sounding devastated.
"What is stopping me from say… unwinding Faerie and creating another world and simply going there? Away from everyone else."
Daemon was staring at her, horrified by the prospect. "You can't create one on your own," he said but his eyes narrowed at her lifted brow.
"You think it would be hard for me to find a willing male?"
Dirdos' hand started to rise, but it dropped at the furious glare from the demon.
"We could bind you to this world," the demon threatened, and she looked up at him.
"Do not threaten me, Daemon."
"Do not threaten to leave," he shot back.
"Do you expect me to stay here forever?"
He stopped and looked at her, his face hard as she looked back at him. There was a tension between them now, and she didn't like it at all, nor had she forgotten his possessive growl in the room.
"I expect you to be here with us," he growled.
She was fuming, and he met her glare with his own.
"I don't belong to you; you can't make me do anything."
Tension flared between them and she was sure he was thinking of his growled words in her ear, just as she was.
"You need to stay with us," Kai pleaded, and she looked up at him, frowning as she saw his pain. "You can't go anywhere."
"You could come with me," she said, unsure why he thought she would leave without him.
"We can't, we have contracts with Alaric."
Her face fell, and she shook her head, not wanting to be away from him.
"Daemon back off," Dirdos growled, and she turned to find Daemon almost close enough to bite her, his face furious.
"You're not going anywhere," Daemon fumed, ignoring the restraining hand on his shoulder.
"Back off," Uzo hissed, adding his hand to the restraining grip on the demon.
Taking a step back from him, she studied his face for a long moment, trying to understand his anger.
"We can discuss this later," she said slowly, wary of him.
"I can keep you safe. Right here," he growled.
"Like you kept her safe with the witches?" Dirdos growled.
"That wasn't his fault, Dirdos. No one knew what the witches were capable of."
"Like he kept you safe when the Gods came for you?" Uzo asked, and she was unable to deny that truth.
"I can," he growled, staring into her eyes intently.
She let out a slow sigh. She wanted to believe him; she really did. But she didn't know if she could trust him.
"We will see," she said gently, dropping her eyes and heading back down the hall with Cat chewing on her finger and Kai trailing along behind her.