Chapter 11 Kali
KALI
“Here you are.” Zion walked into the room, surveyed the table and the available seats, and offered me his hand. “Come sit by my side.”
Obviously, the answer was no.
There was no way I’d be staying.
I turned on my heel but, instead of the exit, I was met with a wall in the shape of my stalker and kidnapper. His throat bobbed and a wrinkle between his black eyebrows deepened as he tracked Zion hovering nearby.
Instead of smoothing it out, I dug my nails deep into the flesh of my palm. Hot liquid drenched the fabric, and a wave of acute pain washed away that traitorous demand inside of me.
“Ignore them. You can sit with us.” A high voice flowed behind me with such gentleness I wished I could bake it into one of those heavenly-smelling pastries lying in piles on the black table.
I could practically feel how a flaky puff imbued with her kindness would warm me from the inside out.
It wouldn’t even need a filling. Her voice would serve as it.
I turned around to find a tiny woman—exactly the size of those cream puffs I loved. She barely reached my chin, but that tenderness of hers seeped from every pore of her delicate face, framed by the chocolate bangs tickling her forehead and running down to her dimpled chin.
“I’m Eislyn. These are Eli, Ezra, Jayla, and, well, you’ve already met Ryder.” She pointed out the people lounging around in the coziest room I’d ever been in.
Large corner lamps cast a soft glow on the dark gray walls covered in paint brush swirls, as if someone had lost their patience and made a mess.
The faint illumination sent the rest of the room into a comforting dimness as intricate cut-outs decorated the light gray lamp shades, the carved-out holes summoning shadows to twirl on the walls in a hypnotizing dance.
“And, well”—Eislyn glimpsed behind me—“we kind of know your name, but what is it?” Words spilled from her small mouth so fast that the last few tangled together.
“If you know, then why do you ask?” I gave her a once-over, noting her faded denim shorts almost hidden by the white-and-yellow-striped t-shirt falling to her upper thighs.
So my dark purple set of clothes hadn’t come from her.
“You don’t have to act politely with me.
I may sit at this table and eat your food, but I assure you, I’m not here of my own will.
Give me a day, and I will level this place to the ground. ”
They could pretend to be friendly, but I didn’t choose to be here. They had taken me away, and everyone here had made their peace with it, including the petite woman and her kind voice.
I dragged my gaze from her mouth hanging open at my proclamation to the rest of the room. Closest to my left, a lean but harshly toned man sat behind the long, battered ebony table with steel legs.
Blond waves draped over his temples and hugged his shoulders hidden by the blue t-shirt, but they couldn’t mask the alertness wafting off him, the disquieting stillness in him, the way the corners of his eyes crinkled in his intense evaluation of me, how his thin lips tensed and stretched the raised scar running from their right corner to his jaw covered by a faint stubble.
He was the personification of a protective fence, like Ilasall’s wall.
“Nice to finally meet someone with such passion and eagerness.” A man sitting on the other side of the unoccupied chair attracted my attention. “It’s refreshing.” He stretched his pale lips into a smile. They looked bloodless, like it’d been a while since their last meal.
I wanted that meal of blood too. I’d dreamt about it every night since the nightmares had begun. Thirteen years without food to placate your hunger or blood to quench your thirst steered your ambitions to become deadly.
He hooked his light brown hands on his nape, below a low and messy bun of frizzy hair. “Ezra, by the way.” He jerked his chin toward the curly blond hound of a person on his right. “He’s Eli.”
Behind them, a lanky woman lounged on a dark gray velvet couch, her legs propped on the backrest and her head hanging upside down from the edge. You’d skip right over her if not for the mass of flaming hair flowing down to the floor.
She had to be Jayla.
“How much longer do we have to wait? I’m freaking famished.
She’s awake and understandably wants to kill Gedeon and Zion, so can we just help her finish this and eat?
” Jayla rested a hand on her chest. “I’m not sure how long I’ll last before starvation claims me.
” She rolled onto her side and jumped from the couch, her movements throwing half of the white-and-black pillows onto the hardwood floor.
Heading to Eli, she whispered something in his ear that made him laugh—as if she was someone he actually liked having around for no other purpose than her being her—and plopped down in the seat across from him.
I jerked at the realization, snapping my gaze to my captor hovering at his post in the doorway.
He dipped his chin, the curl of his thick brownish-pink lips betraying his amusement. “Nice to meet you.”
Arrogant bastard.
“Wish I could say the same,” I deadpanned. “Jayla may be dramatic, but I’d like to take her on her offer. I’m sure I can spare her life in exchange for support.”
So he was called Gedeon.
That meant step one was complete. Three more until my escape.
Two. Who was everyone else?
Three. Where was I? What was this place?
Four. Why was I here?
“That sounds like a plan. Want any help?” Zion led me toward the table and sat down near Ryder. His thumbs kneaded my waist in an attempt to pull me down into his lap. Yet the sensation was utterly different from what I was used to in Ilasall. Demanding but…safe?
Which was freaking me out and freezing my tongue.
Silent or not, I didn’t belong here. This wasn’t a friendly visit to your friends. Not that I had them in the first place. I had to get out of here, find my way back to Ilasall, and make those heads roll.
Giving up, he pulled out a chair from underneath the table. “I promise, I don’t bite. Well, only a little bit. But in a good way.”
He should meet my teeth. They’d rip his throat out.
Men, same as women, weren’t complicated creatures. Beg them to let you fall to your knees, and minutes later, they’d drop their head backward, exposing the arteries running along their necks. And if they were black-banded, the city held no interest in the state of their being: breathing or not.
Only I wasn’t in Ilasall anymore.
Zion gestured to the seat he’d offered to me. “Sit. There’s a draft, and I don’t want my food to get cold.”
Groans sounded around the table, and Jayla slapped her forehead. “You truly are insatiable,” she said, then explained at my confusion, “He thinks you’re his dinner.”
“I’m a person, not a fucking meal,” I hissed at him.
“Debatable.” He reached for a pitcher of water and poured me a glass. “Here. I don’t like my meat dry.”
I didn’t know if it was the unblemished pair of navy sweatpants hanging low on his hips, masking my stab wound on his thigh, a patch of sandy skin visible where his long-sleeved shirt had risen, or the wide grin tugging on his high cheekbones, but I took the seat.
Plopped my ass down like a soldier after an order.
Clearly, I had problems. Not that I wasn’t aware of them, but I had to move, not let them pull and push me around like I was part of… whatever this was.
“Why am I here?” I snapped. “What do you want? Why won’t you let me go home?”
“Home? You call Ilasall your home?” Gedeon slid into a seat across from me and cracked his neck. Pure night reflected in his eyes beckoned me to stay in place and not sprint through the door we’d come through.
“What do you know about home?” I retorted. Home carried a whiff of the past, a withered undertone of a meaning that had ceased to exist. So no, Ilasall wasn’t my home. No place was.
Buttery sweetness invaded my nostrils, and I glanced down, pressing my lips together to avoid licking them at the sight of piles of fresh food spread out on the table.
Trays and trays of various puff pastries—my favorites—colorful bowls brimming with steaming vegetables, plates so full of roasted potato wedges they were on the verge of falling out, and was that a pan filled with meat?
Saliva overfilled my mouth. How did they have so much food? Food I couldn’t get in Ilasall, food the non-fertile of us couldn’t afford.
“I like her mouth,” Jayla said, plucking a thread from the neckline of her short, gauzy green dress. Based on the subdued color choices in others, my purple outfit had most likely originated from her closet. Noticing Gedeon’s disapproval, she added, “What? It’s true. She’s going to eat you alive.”
“I wonder what else her mouth can do,” Zion drawled.
“It can bite off your tiny dick.” Fuck. Them. All.
Laughter broke out around the room. Eli punched at his chest repeatedly until his choking eased and he joined the others in their mirth, looking straight at Zion for some reason. Gedeon smiled, actually, genuinely smiled for the first time since he’d kidnapped me.
He was beautiful.
Scowling, I grabbed the dinner knife from my plate and stabbed it into the table, the cool metal handle vibrating in my grasp.
“Why am I here? What do you want?” Zion’s calloused palm wrapped around my fist, and I ground out, “Say something, anything about my mouth again and I swear to the gods, I’ll use this knife to cut your tongue out myself. ”
“Nice threat.” A woman with ebony braids swooshing back and forth with her movements settled near Gedeon. Her smile glinted with amusement as she asked him, “Has she tried to kill you yet?”
“I was thinking about doing it with this knife.” I pointed to the utensil embedded in the wooden surface.