“But…” Nancy slipped on the fresh trousers. “This is what we’ve dedicated our lives to. To the chance of one day becoming a demiurgus’s cherished mate. And he won’t browse us. The mating instinct will tell him.” Her voice turned dreamy. “It will guide him.”
I snorted, picking at the hem of my shirt. Mating instinct. Yeah, sure.
Nancy was fussing with her shirt buttons, but she shot me a betrayed look. “Are you not excited?”
I cleared my throat and sat up straighter, trying to feign some enthusiasm. “I mean, yeah, sure. Of course. It’s what we’re here for, right?”
“So why did you call him a perv?” she asked, sounding personally hurt by it as she crossed the room and sat down at her dressing table.
“I guess it… it’s just a shock to have one of them actually come here,” I answered uncomfortably. “It hasn’t happened the whole time I’ve been here.”
“Penelope said it hasn’t happened for forty years,” Nancy said excitedly, leaning in close to the mirror as she applied mascara. “I can’t believe it. I’ve only been here for two years and it’s already happening.”
My gut clenched with unease as I watched her. She was young—just twenty-three. In that moment, I felt monumentally guilty that I lived here, that my aunt literally ran the place, instead of trying to shut this cult down. But until now, it hadn’t ever felt like there was any real danger of a demiurgus actually showing up to take one of the members away. It hadn’t felt real. More like they were all just playing make-believe in here, wasting their lives by wishing for things that would never happen.
But now it was happening. And the demiurgus might pick someone as young as Nancy.
I was the only person to have ever been in the cult as a child, and I’d been largely left alone while I was growing up. They’d just let me live here, knowing my aunt was my only family, and hadn’t actively tried to drag me into their beliefs.
That had come after, when I turned twenty-one and was deemed an “eligible mate” for a demiurgus, because I hadn’t already left. But again, there’d been no danger of it ever actually happening, so I hadn’t cared.
If the demiurgus picked Nancy, or someone else just as young, would that be it? They’d spend their life doting on him and deferring to him as his mate, thinking it was what they truly wanted, but was it really? They’d all come here willingly. They’d all joined of their own accord. The cult didn’t go into the city trying to recruit new members. We kept to ourselves, and I suspected that was mainly because too many of us meant too many humans who would just stay here forever, never actually becoming a demiurgus mate, and that might start to bring unrest. More minds to doubt, more mouths to whisper. More competition.
“Okay, I think I’m ready.” Nancy screwed her mascara shut with trembling hands and blew out a breath. Her dark eyes drifted to me in the mirror. “Are you going to get changed?”
I made a face and glanced down at my pink trousers. “No. Why would I? These are my clothes.”
She stood up and smoothed down her beige shirt. “I’m not sure why the high priest lets you wear them.”
I rolled my eyes, easing out of my chair with a groan. “It’s not a rule to wear all beige. Why do you?”
“Because I want to be picked for me, not for catching a demiurgus’s attention with bright clothing.” She flushed. “Sorry. I don’t mean to imply you’re trying to—”
“I know. Don’t worry.”
“It doesn’t matter what we’re wearing,” she added dreamily, her gaze growing vacant. “He will pick his mate by looking at their soul. Their essence. He will find the one who aligns with him perfectly.”
Brown eyes snapping back to me, she beamed wide around a sigh. “Oh, Beryl, I so hope it’s me.”
I sure as shit don’t.
“Well, best not keep the Greater One waiting,” I drawled, managing to keep most of the sarcasm out of my voice. Nancy was too flustered to notice anyway, fussing with her curly dark hair as she hurried to the door.
Robbie caught up with us in the hallway, fiddling with his glasses as he fell into step beside me. A line of other members were ahead of us, everyone heading down to the courtyard to meet this mighty sex god. What a crock of shit.
“Oh my gods, I’m so nervous.” Robbie’s eyes jumped between me and Nancy. “They have, like, the best eyesight ever, right? What if he writes me off immediately because of my glasses?”
“They’re not like that, Robbie,” Nancy said, her voice soft but utterly convinced. “He would never reject his mate over something so silly.”
“If that’s true, why do they keep our medical records spring-loaded and ready to hand over?” I asked dryly.
I could feel both their minds churning to come up with a good answer, until Nancy said, “Well, they live longer than us, don’t they?”
“Not that much longer,” I muttered. Demiurgus lived to be about one hundred and twenty.
“They will want to make sure their mate is healthy,” Nancy continued, “so they can be with them for as long as possible. And it’s probably also to see if there are any ailments they can help us with.” She gripped my arm excitedly. “Beryl, you know some of their natural remedies are far superior to modern human medicine. They have already cured so many things. I bet a demiurgus’s mate is the healthiest human alive.”
I grunted, eyeing the courtyard as it came into view through the big double doors at the end of the hall. Several cult members were already out there, excitedly lining themselves up into the neat rows they practised every week on the off chance a demiurgus made an appearance.
At least all that time spent wasn’t going to waste now, I supposed.
When we emerged into the courtyard, I immediately spotted my Aunt Violet pacing back and forth with a harried look on her face as she stared down at her tablet. Leaving Nancy and Robbie to join the orderly rows, I sidled over and squeezed her elbow.
She jumped, then relaxed when she saw it was me. “Beryl.” After glancing around, she lowered her voice and muttered, “What the fuck?”
“I know.” I looked over her shoulder at the set of huge black double doors the demiurgus would soon be coming through, accompanied by the high priest and his entourage. “What’s going to happen?”
“It’s never happened in the whole time I’ve been here, but as far as I know, he’ll come out, look everyone over, then pick his mate.” She shrugged uneasily. “That’s it.”
“And then what?” I muttered, glancing back worriedly at the people organising themselves into neat lines.
“Then his choice is asked if they want to be his mate. They can say no, which”—she snorted—“is not going to happen. Or they can say yes straight away, or request time with him in private to decide. If they say yes, their medical record is handed over to him. Then after he’s read it, they’re both asked again if it’s still what they want. If it is…” Violet pursed her lips. “They leave with him.”
I gawked at her. “Just like that? Just… straight away?”
“Not necessarily. They can wait a while before moving out. But I don’t think any of them will want to,” she added grimly, looking back at all the cult members.
“Yeah, they all look like little kids on Christmas morning,” I muttered with a snort.
Violet gripped my arm, her green eyes—just like mine—growing tight with worry. “Beryl, maybe you should go back to your room. If the high priest notices you’re not here, I’ll just tell him you’re sick. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of other humans for the demiurgus to choose from.”