Chapter 7 Gedeon
GEDEON
She looked so peaceful.
Her knees bent, an arm thrown over her belly, her cheek resting on the distressed linoleum floor. Loose dark waves had fallen over her angular face, and I tucked them behind her ear, revealing the bruises along her neck and shoulder I had caused.
When she had tramped over to me in the forest and landed her punches, something had clicked. Her strikes had matched my pulse, and I could not hold myself back from touching her. She had not seemed against it, either.
I could not wait to see her fighting again. I wished she would have fought me here, but I needed to get her out of the city quietly and doubted she would have gone without making a scene.
Her chest heaved in a steady rhythm, but I knew that once those forest-green eyes popped open, she would unleash the destruction she was carefully planning in her dreams. Murder was painted on the knife she had found to defend herself against me.
Admiring her passion, I indulged myself in observing her sleep for another precious minute.
I was late. I was supposed to have crossed the wall by now, but she had not come home on time. Worry had been eating a new piece of me for each minute her apartment’s door had stayed closed.
She had stopped at a bakery. I leaned down to inhale her hair, her scent as sweet as the pastries she was so fond of.
Plucking the green band out of my back pocket, I replaced the black identification marker on her wrist, scooping her up and throwing her over my shoulder.
The cracked mirror hanging by the door reflected her ass propped up high in the air.
Zion had been right; the curve was gorgeous.
The sight of it was as alluring as the scent of her, fire and smoke, dew and crisp air.
The city streets leading down to the gates buzzed with citizens hastening after their urgencies and ignoring the passed-out woman I carried. The green sparkles from our wristbands erased any suspicions they might have had.
This city. Your ability to produce offspring should not give you the right to do whatever the hell you wished.
Yet I found pleasure in stealing her for myself. It was beyond the time I deserved to take what was rightfully owed to me.
A tanned man halted in front of me and whistled an amused note. “What did she do?” His green band glittered in the streetlights.
With his stance so weak, one kick to the back of his kneecaps would send him tumbling down where his chin would meet the top of my knee. Blood would not have time to spill from his mouth before I would snap his neck.
“I caught her running away.” My grip on the back of her thighs grew firmer to hide the waking need to extract his femur bone and use it as a bat to bash his face in. Something about using a person’s skeleton parts against them always brought me satisfaction.
I despised the green-banded people of this city.
You could teach the young ones, as their thirst for understanding the world was still malleable, but the ones a few years into their service for the city were too far gone because of the greed and power they held due to their balls able to produce kids.
“Mine did that once. Now, I keep her leashed whenever I leave the house.” A predatory expression twisted his features, and he shifted his weight, his hand sliding into the front pocket of his navy uniform pants.
I nodded a thanks for the recommendation as I walked past him. He was going on the list of people I would unleash Zion on when he got restless.
The man’s words were reminiscent of what Eislyn had shared about her assigned partner, whose ghost haunted her to this day. Finally, after two years, she had dared to venture out into Ilasall to search for the man.
Her stories of him were a drop in the ocean of a thousand similar ones. Like him punishing her for taking too long to heal after the birth of their fourth child.
The day I had met her, I had wanted to find him, drag him back, and let Zion have his way.
But when I had asked Eislyn if she would be okay with that, she had meekly said no.
I had to threaten half of the compound to stay in place that night and grant favors to the other half who cared less about the consequences than getting rid of a man who would acquire another innocent to use at the next auction.
At least today she had Eli coming with her to search for the bastard.
She had trained extensively these past months, and I would not be surprised if she had a few painful tricks up her sleeve that she had picked up from all those nights in the basement with Zion.
That rat of a man was going on a death ride.
“Going somewhere?” Two guards in dark green and black uniforms blocked the small city gates at the end of a narrow street.
Shit, they were not supposed to be here. It must have been the new shift in place of the one we had taken care of.
Time to improvise.
“She tried to run away. So I am going to teach her a lesson.” I lifted my treasure’s wrist, jingling our glinting green bands, and parted her legs to reveal a few yards of rope I had attached to my belt.
A precautionary measure if the drugs had not worked as intended.
“I am going to strip her naked, tie her up to a tree, and leave her there for as long as it will take for her to realize that I own her. I will force my cock down those pretty lips and fuck her tight little pussy until she cannot stand anymore. I will mark her in bruises so she knows who her owner is. Only after she begs me to take her home, my home, will I bring her back.”
For an added effect, I squeezed her ass, hoping these perverted worms would let me through. Of course, I could simply dispose of them—the tiny gates were down a deserted street—but I had her to think of. I did not want to hurt her by throwing her limp body onto the road.
They exchanged looks and the shorter of them motioned toward a digital lock. It beeped and lit up, and the gates began sliding aside automatically as the system recognized the guard. They were probably planning to spend their night jerking off to the fantasy I had described.
“If you need any help, we’re here for the rest of the night. Give us a shout.” The guard moved aside to let me through, his focus set on her ass in a leering manner.
He was not going on the list for Zion to toy with. I was taking care of his eyesight myself.
I moved through the gates without a hitch and hurried to the forest to avoid the risk of staying too long in the open area.
Wildness had overgrown in the field, providing us with perfect opportunities to crawl inside the city and out.
They kept clearing the field around the wall surrounding the city, but it was possible to sneak through it if you knew the guards’ rotations.
Hidden from the city’s eyes by the thick foliage, I tensed my diaphragm and, ignoring the protest of my lungs at the forced break, listened: a snap of a branch breaking free from a tree, a shuffle of feet on crunching leaves, a chirp of a bird, and a dull, percussive thump.
“Yes! It stuck!”
The joyous screech had to be Eislyn.
“Oh, shut up, like you can do it better.”
A single thump sounded more to the right of the previous one.
“You were saying?”
The question had to have come from Eli. He was teaching Eislyn how to throw knives.
“Here. This is a single-edged, handle-heavy knife. It’s not balanced, so take it by the blade and throw it, handle-first. Place the blunt side of the blade into your palm and keep your pinky free from the sharp tip or you’ll cut yourself.”
Their chatter increased in volume as I strode closer to them, her arms swaying and bumping against my lower back, snagging on my shirt.
“Yeah, that’s good. Now position your dominant leg back—yes, yours is the right one—and place your weight on it.
Okay, now that oak you are targeting is quite close to you, so you want your knife to turn over in the air quickly.
Bend your forearm toward your bicep and lift your arm so the knife rests alongside your head.
Yeah, like that, just don’t bend your wrist.
“It’s more about the movement than strength at this point. You want to shift your weight from the leg behind you to the one in front while swinging your arm forward. Try it, but don’t throw the knife yet.”
“Stop it,” Eislyn snapped. “Go ahead and play with your catch. Let me concentrate.”
Now that had to be directed at Zion.
I emerged to the right of the maple tree Zion was leaning on. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“He kept distracting me.” Eislyn spotted who I was carrying and grimaced. “You know she won’t go easy on you for this.”
“That’s what I’m looking forward to,” I said, then shot a glare at Zion tugging at the hips of the passed-out woman I had thrown over my shoulder, as if to take her from me. “Do you want me to make you Eislyn’s next target?”
Eislyn jumped up and down, clapping her hands, and exclaimed, “Can I? Can I practice throwing the knife at him?”
“No doubt. Go ahead.” I would enjoy nothing more than throttling Zion myself sometimes. Unfortunately, I could not. After spending twelve years growing a community with someone, getting rid of them stopped being a great idea.
“Sometimes I wish you’d actually let me,” she muttered.
Eli gently spun her to face the oak she was keen on destroying and continued their lesson.
“Remember, during the motion, you have to keep your wrist in a fixed line with your forearm. Do not fold it backward.” He took a step back, examining her form and stance.
“That’s good. Now don’t release the knife intentionally—the blade should slip your grasp from the momentum.
And don’t worry, it won’t cut you. Now throw it. ”
With a determined huff, Eislyn swayed her arm forward. The knife completed three full turns in the air and embedded in the oak with a thump. Splinters of destroyed tree bark showered the gnarled roots peeking out of the green-with-yellow-streaks moss.
“Yes!” she squeaked, jumping and rushing to pluck the knife out of the poor oak.
I sighed at Zion drawing patterns on the back of my prey’s thigh with his forefinger. If anyone else did that, I would dissect their entire hand, but the same could not be said about him. Instead of displeasure, it roused a different sort of—
No matter.
There was nothing I could change here. The actions of my past could not be erased, and keeping him at arm’s length ensured his safety. A dubious one, but nevertheless, better than becoming a bigger target than he already was.
So I willed myself to ask him, “Where is Ezra?”
We were not leaving anyone behind. And while I had paid a visit to my obsession, and Eli and Eislyn had hunted her ex-partner, Ezra was supposed to get the microchips together with Zion.
“We got separated. He probably hung back to talk with some of our contacts.” Zion gestured toward the oak Eislyn was set on wrecking.
Ezra was coming up the side of it and headed straight to me, whistling.
“I didn’t think you would go through with it,” he said as Zion crept back into the depths of the forest, likely to scout the area for any unexpected patrols.
We were not taking chances. They could still be wandering around if their security update had not progressed as planned.
“Those two are already insufferable. Now they brought her here? She will burn us down. I would in her place,” Eislyn complained to Eli. As she cast a glance at me, her eyes popped out.
Eli did not hold back a chuckle as she swiftly turned away.
“Did you find him?” I mouthed to Eli, not wanting to ruin everyone’s mood.
He gave a barely-there shake of his head to avoid drawing Eislyn’s attention. The first time she had dared to step into the city, and they could not find her ex-partner. Teaching her how to throw knives was his attempt to cheer her up.
Zion reappeared to my right, hauling an unconscious man by his tied arms. Twigs and wet leaves stuck to his clothes in clumps, same as his greasy brown hair, the straw-like strands crusted with blood.
“Who is that?” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “It’s been two days, Zion. Two days.”
Two days since he had toyed with the Assistant to Ilasall’s Head of Military. Usually, it would calm him down for a minimum of a week or two. Not only for a couple of days.
“He threatened her on her way home from the Spire.” He carelessly deposited the short man on the blanket of moss, too good of a bed for a vermin like him.
“I followed him to make sure he didn’t seek her out.
” Zion threw his knife in the air, observing it flip over, the steel catching the moonlight filtering through the thick foliage, and caught it by the black rubber handle. “But he did.”
I squeezed her thigh so hard that a bruise was certain to appear tomorrow. “Have fun, but do not kill him. His bones are mine.”