Chapter 5 Zion
ZION
Ihad to go back underground to get rid of the body—more like whatever had remained of it—before the cleaners agreed to handle the mess. Apparently, collecting the remains of corpses in my basement was the most terrible thing I could ask of them.
Closing the door to our underground, I jerked my chin up to Eislyn by way of greeting. “Thanks for the delivery.”
Her idea of using the neuromuscular blocking agents to spice up my activities was wonderful. Thrilling. The assistant’s lack of movements allowed me to flay him as precisely as I wished.
She noted the scarlet specs decorating my clothing. “Let me know if you need more. Have you seen Eli anywhere? He was supposed to make a run to Damia’s for my med supplies.”
“He’ll be out shortly.” I had plans.
She darted back into the kitchen and shut the door. Like that was really going to keep me out if I wanted to go in.
Eislyn knew very well how my sessions down below riled me up. The more time I spent with those immoral worms, the tighter my jeans tended to become. And my zipper was driving me crazy right now.
I closed in on my apartment, one of the many down the hallway in the upper part of our central building, and Eli sleeping soundly in my bed with his arms tied behind his back roused my hunger.
His blond, wildly ruffled locks covered the milky white pillow, obscuring most of his face. He was passed out from exhaustion, all thanks to me. But no more rest, not when toying with that vermin in the underground had me this riled up.
Standing at the foot of the bed, I teased myself by pulling the white sheet off him purposefully slow. Hard muscles lining his naked back came into view, followed by the lateral scar slashing his spine into two, an old wound from his life outside the compound.
Deep in dreams, his face might have been innocent, but he could snap your neck before you’d notice him approach you.
I tugged the leather belt restricting his wrists. My pillow muffled his vague mumbles as he shifted. Unholy urges flooded me, and I pulled the belt harder.
Startled, he bolted upright. Sleep’s bleariness faded away from his amber eyes as they drifted down my front, pausing at the stretched material over my crotch, and rising back up.
I loosened the button at the top of my jeans. “Come here and pull my zipper down.”
His trained reflexes carried him to the foot of the bed, on his knees, those thin lips inches away from mine. I leaned in to bite the bottom one, but he ducked and sat down on his heels.
“That’s not what you asked for,” he teased.
He was not escaping me. I was set on feasting on his lips until they turned blue from bruising, taking days to heal, on display for everyone to see in the meantime.
“Take off your shirt,” he demanded with such intensity that I ripped the blood-stained material off me. It tangled around my head and took way too long to be discarded.
He kissed down my chest, abdomen, and below the navel. As his teeth firmly clasped the zipper and pulled, I staggered, grabbing his head to hold my balance as electricity shot down my legs.
Biting the denim on my left hip, he yanked them down. His tongue slithered across above the hem to my right hip and he repeated the action, pulling my pants and underwear down enough for my cock to spring free.
I grasped his jaw and told him the order he was so patiently waiting for. “Open up.”
He better not taunt me without caution. Eli was my upstairs plaything for now, and I didn’t care if I broke him. Bodies were to be used and thrown away. Like Ilasall’s guards and soldiers I’d haul to my workshop to play with in any way my knife desired.
Eli sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, and their imprints peeled away the last layer of my patience.
“Now,” I spat out.
His mouth parted, and the jaws about to consume me exposed themselves. My knuckles slid along his jawbone, and I marveled at his feathering muscles. He hated anyone acting soft with him.
I shoved his head down. “Do your job.”
As he took me in, his slick tongue spread wetness from the base to the tip, licking and sucking, and once he began humming, the world blurred.
My head dropped back, and the moment I closed my eyes, the long blond hair I was grasping turned into dark waves, amber eyes morphed into deep brown with black streaks, thin lips became thick and a pair of fair-skinned arms appeared out of thin air, sliding over my shoulders, down my front and up as they raked their nails up to my chest, leaving scarlet trails on my torso.
Grabbing his head, I thrusted into him, once, twice, thrice, and pulsed down his throat. He took each spurt openly, lapping up the drops.
He was good at giving head, but it wasn’t enough. Not with any of them.
“How do you feel?” Eli’s question brought me back to him spread out on my bed, my apartment, the compound I called my home, the city.
Fuck.
I reached behind his back to unbuckle the leather belt tying his wrists and collapsed on the bed beside him. Setting him free of restraints had sucked the last residue of my energy.
“You were quite wound up this time,” he remarked hoarsely, propped up on his elbow. His throat was probably sore.
Lunging at him, my teeth hooked around his bottom lip. He pushed against my chest, and I sunk my canines into the squishy flesh. Iron warmed my tongue as red bubbles formed in the curvature of my bite.
I had learned to savor the taste of blood. Desire it.
The flavor of a person’s life essence was a bit metallic, but so was I.
As cold as iron.
The door softly clicked, and I soundlessly cursed. But not a rustle sounded from inside and I slipped inside Gedeon’s bedroom, my steps silent.
Darkness drenched the space, fusing with the edges of black wooden furniture, and my vision ceased functioning. Moving along the path I’d memorized years ago, hopping on the non-creaking hardwood floorboards, I made my way to the bed.
The white sheets were pristine, neatly spread over the mattress with two same-size rectangle pillows on top, and not hugging Gedeon’s hips as usual.
The middle of the night hadn’t pulled him under its spell.
Watching Gedeon sleep for a few hours usually calmed me down enough to doze off. He’d never noticed me hovering above him, counting the rises and falls of his chest—proof his life hadn’t expired.
His windows overlooked half of the compound, and I pressed my forehead to the glass.
The chill numbed my nerves. Paralyzed them identically to that time I’d followed Gedeon out of the city and caught him frozen at the edge of the clearing in the woods.
Ten feet away from me, he’d stood, staring at her in shock.
She was striking. Her skin had glowed despite the paleness, and the bend of her knees had created an illusion she was about to pounce.
You’d have expected her to quiver in terror, but her smile had been vicious, like she’d found a bloody meal she desired to devour.
My knife had called to me from my pocket, nagging me to offer up myself to her so she could satisfy her thirst.
I gripped the window frame. My breath fogged up the glass, erasing the view of the night outside. Every time its sky was dotted with white, I’d crawl after Gedeon to the clearing and look after them both from afar.
But tonight, clouds had claimed the sky and obliterated her last chance of escape from Ilasall. She was locked in with the security upgrade being finished.
I left his bedroom and let the restlessness driving my legs lead me to the training rings. Going through the stances was the second thing out of two that could steady me.
“So, who was the poor fellow out of luck this time? Jayla still the one?”
“Eli.” I plopped down in an ebony chair in front of the matching desk in Gedeon’s study.
He had an unhealthy obsession with black wood furniture.
I had no clue where he continued to find it, anyway.
Most of it was long gone, lost in a different, better time, when humans freely roamed the continents, not shut in from the wild behind the few remaining cities’ walls.
“So that was why Eislyn was sulking. You locked him up in your apartment.” Gedeon leaned back in his seat behind the scuffed-up desk. “She will not get her supplies today, considering what you did to him.”
“Nothing he didn’t enjoy.”
“Wipe that smugness off your face, or I will be forced to move the compound someplace else to protect everyone from your proclivities.”
I knew his threat was empty. Everyone here was familiar with my tastes. Some got to take part in them too.
The room drowned in the early morning light, warm-hued streaks falling over the mass of notes in tidy piles lining his desk’s edges.
Not a single cue that the night had been consuming the world behind the windows mere hours ago and the thin glass had served as the sole protection from the lurking evil beyond.
Detestable, atrocious evil residing behind the circular wall that opened its gates only to sow ruin.
Gods, that plaything had gotten to me. I should’ve strangled him with his own entrails instead of slitting his throat.
“What’s on your mind?”
He knew something was off with me. He always did. Annoying as hell.
“Nothing.” Except I could still smell the malice on me from the Assistant to Ilasall’s Head of Military we had to take care of earlier. “Nothing of importance, anyways.”
I stuffed my disgust in that special little box behind my left eye. I’d sort it out later.
A wrinkle between Gedeon’s eyebrows deepened, and I shrugged. I didn’t have the capacity to deal with the box right now. I didn’t want to deal with it right now.
So I changed the subject. “Tell me you have an idea how to get around their new security system.”