Chapter 15 Kali
KALI
Iscooped up the no longer scalding hot water and plunged my face into my hands, rubbing my skin raw.
But it couldn’t wash away the whirlpool of conflict.
My life had been stolen from me because Gedeon wanted me.
No further explanation. Like it was enough to appease me, and I would happily accept my new life.
Yet a prison cell was all they’d provided me with. Zion had trailed me as I’d stormed out of the dining room and steered us along the tangle of endless hallways and stairwells to the same room I’d woken up in earlier.
I’d checked the door and was surprised it wasn’t locked. It could have been for all I cared, as he remained leaning against the hallway wall like a guard dog.
So I’d ignored him completely as I’d torn off the loose, dark purple t-shirt and pants off me and lowered myself into the steaming bath that had taken way too long to fill up. It could have easily fit at minimum two people, more likely four.
Time had left its marks in the chipped porcelain and cracked marble, but someone had maintained the black-and-white bathroom as the tiles squeaked from cleanliness and hot water ran from the faucet.
I’d never experienced such luxury before. How could I? I had been marked as non-fertile, so nobody cared about citizens like me in the city.
But the last half-hour I spent soaking hadn’t cleansed the dirt Ilasall had left on me.
Nor the memory of the dinner with the irksome bastards who ran this compound.
And the bruises one had created on my neck and shoulder from days ago and the swollen lips another had caused after I’d fled the dinner a few hours ago.
No matter how vigorously I scrubbed myself or how many times I shampooed my hair, I couldn’t get them out of my head. Whenever I closed my eyes, two heads, one full of black messy waves and one of short golden-brown hair, popped up in my vision.
They had built a free city. No oppression, no population control, no classification of fertility. No rich or poor because of what your reproductive organs could or couldn’t do. No despicable tyrants exercising control over their subjects.
And here they seemed to care about their people. Jayla and Eislyn had appeared more than content during dinner, chatting with the men around them unreservedly. Not mentioning Sadira, who’d take a jab at both Gedeon and Zion for nothing but the sport she’d made of it.
I liked her.
“How’s the water?”
Water splashed out of the bathtub and onto the tiles as I startled.
Gedeon stood in the doorway, gripping the top of the frame and leaning forward.
His thin, long-sleeved cotton shirt was stretched taut across his chest, outlining every large and minuscule muscle, and the sliver of brown skin above the hem of his faded black jeans beckoned tingles to swarm low in my stomach.
“What are you doing here?” I hurriedly brought my knees to my chest to cover up. He’d already found his way into my pants a few days ago, but there was no way I’d give him a show right now.
“Watching you.” He crossed his ankle over another, and his shirt rose higher, revealing a strip of curly hair right above his belt buckle. “Something we have done twenty-three times by now.”
He kept track of the number of times he’d stalked me.
“In the forest, not the bathroom,” I spat out.
What did he want now? Because I wanted to spend an hour alone. I’d given up on escaping today. Wagered Zion would stay in the hallway throughout the entire night.
“Talking about that.” Gedeon unlaced his dark leather boots, tucked the worn laces inside, and put them by the door neatly, the shoes an inch apart, aligned with the white-colored wall.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Joining you. I deserve a treat after you tested my patience all evening.” Hooking the hem of his shirt, he ripped it over his head.
My throat closed up at how appetizing he looked.
Light and uneven scars marked his chest, stomach, and arms, but a small, still-fresh cut above his hip caught my attention. The one I’d given him. If it scarred, he’d carry it for the rest of his life—a reminder of me, someone who wouldn’t go easy on him.
I continued my inspection upward, pausing on a circular scar below his right collarbone. An old gunshot wound?
His broad shoulders held a certain power to them, as if with a flick of those muscles he could call for that authority surrounding him wherever he went.
But now I knew where it originated from.
Blotches of ink marked the top of his shoulders and the sides of his waist. His back had to be overfilling as the multiple tattoos seemed to crawl from behind.
Like claws or talons creeping up, a hint of the coming violence to anyone who had the audacity to oppose him.
As if my perusal had made it ache, he rolled his shoulder with the gunshot scar. “Like what you see?”
My cheeks heated, but I lifted my head higher, deciding not to give a shit. He thought me to become his, so I could act similarly. Shamelessly. He did have a body carved from the night—like his eyes. All his raised scars resembled the disorderly black streaks in his dark brown irises.
He unhurriedly pulled his belt out of the loops and my pussy pulsed in tandem with the clings of the belt buckle being undone.
Oh, no.
I swiftly turned around and fixated on the white tiles lining the wall the bathtub was pressed against. There was no way I was letting my body win.
“Move forward,” he said from right beside me, and water rippled as I jolted. I hadn’t heard him come closer from how loud my pulse had been rushing in my ears.
“You’re not getting in here,” I sputtered.
He was not taking a bath with me. Over my dead body.
“What the—”
Firm hands sliding behind my knees and back and shifting me forward squashed my protest. Water sloshed over the bathtub’s edge, enlarging the puddles on the shining but cracked marble tiles, as he seated himself behind me and stretched his legs down either side of me.
Hugging my knees, I gaped forward without a clue on what to do. I was naked in a bathtub. I couldn’t get up and run—Zion was on watch, and from what I knew about him so far, he’d go feral if he saw me dripping wet.
Large hands landed on my shoulders, and I stiffened. Not from fear or Gedeon’s touch—no, for some reason, he didn’t evoke such apprehension—but old habits didn’t break easily. Self-preservation had instilled wariness into the marrow of my bones.
“Breathe,” he said, his knuckles digging into my upper back.
A couple of minutes later, I couldn’t pretend I hated this anymore. His thumbs massaged my muscles and kneaded the knots at the top of my spine. So good, so mind-numbingly good.
His thigh scratched against my own, and I blinked a few times, just to be sure. “Are you wearing pants in a bath?” He hadn’t taken his pants off.
“Would you like me to take them off?”
“No,” I rushed out, but a trace of hesitation was evident in my voice.
He pulled on my upper arms. “Lean back.”
“Why?” I was not exposing myself to him. Even though I did sometimes dream of him looming above me. Inside me.
“I have said it before, but I will say it once more. I do not repeat myself.” He splayed his palms on my stomach and tugged.
I lost my hold on my knees and my back hit his chest with a thump, the coat of water clinging to our bodies, gluing us together.
“Let this be your next lesson. When I give you an order, you follow.”
“In your dreams,” I sneered, struggling to get up. A bathtub full of water didn’t give you much purchase.
“Relax, and this will not take long. I am only here to make my promise true.”
“Who says I want it?” First, I needed to know what he was talking about. We hadn’t agreed on anything.
He remained silent, and I thrashed, spilling half the water on the floor in clear puddles, the glossy surface sparkling in the dim light from above the sink—the single source of illumination I’d chosen to turn on.
“I can wait,” he stated as a set-in-stone fact.
Shortly, my core began to ache from exertion, and I surrendered to the fatigue with an exasperated huff.
Often it was easier to give in and wait out them exploring your body in the ways they hungered for and couldn’t get anywhere else.
And you were free to leave immediately after.
Or, in this case, I hoped Gedeon would remove himself from the bathtub and, even more hopefully, out of my room.
I crossed my arms and my bent legs to pretend I had any shreds of decency. “Do your worst.”
He chuckled. “You do not want that, little death.”
What was up with all the names here? I was anything but little. At least the death part was true. I would become his death if he didn’t let me go.
His warm breath served as the sole warning before his lips lowered below my ear and trailed down the column of my neck.
My head tipped to the side. I could withstand whatever he wished to do to me.
After trading countless favors with citizens of Ilasall, sex—and my body—had ceased holding value to me.
The quicker I gave in, the faster things were over.
And if I could remotely enjoy their groping, then why shouldn’t I take that morsel of pleasure?
As my thighs clenched in anticipation of his bites, like that time in the forest, his kisses persisted in staying light and gentle, teasing and promising more. He cupped my pussy and stilled, not doing anything more but softly nipping up and down my neck and shoulder.
Frustrated, I wriggled. If he was intent on torturing me, he better made it good. Because otherwise, what was the reason for him to delay taking what he wanted?
“So impatient,” he murmured. “But do not worry. You will come today. You will scream. And you will pass out with me on your mind after.” He nibbled on my earlobe. “I will make it hurt, Kali.” To emphasize his words, he tweaked my nipple and sank his teeth below my jaw.