Chapter 36 Zion
ZION
“Please don’t.” Gravel crunched under Eli’s boots as he widened his stance and folded his arms over his chest. “I’m losing my patience and want this to be over as quickly as possible. And you riling her up is not helping.”
“You need us more than we need you. Or have you forgotten our agreement?” Ava plucked a double-edged and handle-heavy knife from the sheath at her thigh and inspected the glinting blade in the midday sun baking the back of my neck.
“We can leave right now, you know. I can teach them the basics myself.” Unsatisfied with her examination, she rubbed the blade on the sleeve of her long-sleeved burgundy cotton shirt.
“You made a deal with them?” I asked Eli.
“He did.” Tarri pulled her green sweater over her head and tossed it onto the time-worn bench.
“He teaches us how to stick a knife into someone from afar, we tell him the titles of Eislyn’s favorite books,” she shared, catching the flyaway of her light hair, frizzed up by the sweater, to fall back into place at her jaw.
Eli hooked his hands through the blond waves behind his head and pointedly stared into the tiny rocks scattered on the dusty ground. “Thanks for that.”
I doubled down, laughing. That’s why he hadn’t told me or Gedeon that Kali had escaped. Embarrassment could be a powerful motivator.
“That is exactly why part of our deal was that no one hears about it,” he hissed. If you could incinerate a person with a look, ashes would float in the air where Tarri was standing and bending her arm repeatedly to nail the throwing motion.
“I didn’t know you were such an avid reader,” I remarked.
“I’m not. But for her…” Eli scanned the vast field covered in a blanket of grass beginning to wither on our left, the three other sides of our training space framed by tall, dilapidated buildings. “I want to know what she likes about them so much.”
I opened my mouth, but Jayla anticipated my response.
“Don’t you dare say anything. You’re just as obsessed with Kali.
Won’t let her live a little without hovering at her back.
” She handed her a short knife, and they joined Tarri practicing how to hold the double-edged blade without cutting yourself.
“How did you slip past Gedeon?” I asked Kali. We couldn’t have her wandering around without protection. Not after she remained alive solely because she’d been doing exactly that—roaming the forest during the night the soldier had sneaked into our rooms.
Plus, having her glare at me during the days did things to me. And at nights… Having her in my arms and off-limits was the most mind-scrambling torture a person could possibly endure.
“I didn’t have to,” she answered without actually answering, unless you counted her smug smile as a response.
I prowled closer and tugged the waistband of her leggings. My knuckles grazed her belly, as soft as when her t-shirt would ride up during the night and she’d snore faintly. “Pretty birdie,” I cautioned.
“Fine,” she huffed. “I got bored with you both not leaving me alone and”—she cast a glance at Ava and Jayla—“I needed some fun. With girls. Nothing has happened in the last three weeks, and I shouldn’t be watched every second of my life. Especially at night.”
Since the soldier had sought our deaths, we hadn’t let her out of our sight, not leaving her alone during the days or nights. She’d fight me or Gedeon, or both of us, and always lose the battle. Her body felt exquisite when she’d fall asleep and mold her curves to ours without realizing it.
I traced the contour of her hips, up and down, my fingers barely grazing her, and savored the pink creeping up her cheeks. “That doesn’t explain why you are here and not with one of us.”
“Gedeon thinks I’m with you. But you’re here now, so I don’t see the problem. And we’re taking Ava down, so either help us or go sit in the corner. Because I’m not leaving.”
Sneaky, sneaky pretty birdie.
“You’re taking Ava down?” I echoed, spinning her around and joining their group as Eli gave notes and fixed stances of Tarri and Jayla as they attempted to make their knives sink into the array of wooden targets resembling human body shapes, the paint indicating the various organs dull and half-flaked off.
Ava struck right to the center, and the three of them collectively groaned.
Eli wiped the smugness off Ava’s face by setting five knives flying and hitting his chosen target in a vertical line, from the top of the chest to the pelvis, crossing the center, much to Ava’s chagrin and everyone’s delight.
“It’s supposed to be Tarri’s welcome to our compound present.
Ava promised she’d invite us over for a girls’ night if we could do better than her.
” Kali stuck out her tongue from intense concentration and released her knife with a motion lacking the fluidity it required for success.
It soared over the target and fell into the grass behind it.
“Godsdamnit.” She threw her head back in frustration.
She was so cute. Like a pretty little bird learning how to fly.
“Break!” she yelled and rushed to retrieve her knife. Walking back, she tried to flip the weapon over in the air, but Eli shouted at her to get back and not act stupid with it.
“I understand you want to learn the trick, but be careful.” I hooked my thumbs through the loops of my faded black jeans. “How will you touch me without your fingers?”
Her eyes glinted deviously. “I have my tongue for that.”
“Fuck,” I hissed, shuffling on my feet to adjust the stretch of my pants across my hips. Imagining her tongue sliding down, down, down…it had brought me to the brink of explosion. Implosion. Both.
How I was going to get through their lesson without constantly thinking of her tongue, I had not a faintest idea.
“Exactly.” She grinned and resumed listening to Eli lecturing them on the movements, distances, and dangers of doing idiotic shit with knives with me as the prime example.
So, of course, I had to stand up to my reputation. I threw blade after blade, chuckling at how Kali’s glower deepened as they kept failing, and Ava and I succeeded, and at how she huffed when I would flip my knife over in the air and catch it by the handle, exasperating Eli.
“This is not fair. You have years of training,” she grumbled at me, then returned the knife she’d borrowed to Ava. “I’m done. You win.”
“Which book titles should we tell him? The soft ones or the…” Ava wiggled her eyebrows, and they burst out laughing.
“What do you mean the soft ones?” Eli asked, picking up five water bottles from the wobbly bench and handing them out.
Tarri snickered as she untwisted the cap of her steel bottle. “Oh, you’re in for a ride.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll start you off easy,” Jayla added, shrugging Ava’s previously discarded leather jacket on.
“We don’t want him to run away screaming, do we?” Kali tugged the sleeves of her white cotton shirt down.
Eli looked like he was about to break in half. “How you handle her, I have no idea. She’s driving them all nuts,” he muttered.
That was her. Simply divine.
“If you think we’re mad, you really don’t know Eislyn then.” Tarri plopped down on the bench and gulped down half the contents. “You can’t even begin to guess what’s in her favorite books.”
“Talking about not knowing things.” Kali pointed to the light brown package I had deposited on the bench. “What’s that?”
I sat down next to the paper bag, its opening folded underneath it. A circular shape stood out through the wrinkled material, but not enough to figure out what was inside.
“A gift.” I tickled her waist and used the moment of weakness her squeal provided to pull her down into my lap. “For you.”
“Another one? Is that why you measured me the morning after you gave me that guard?” She reached for the package.
I pushed the brown paper bag out of her reach. “Yes and no.”
“What does that mean?” As impatient as she was, she refrained from tearing into the package, and pleaded, “What’s in the bag?”
“You’ll see in three days.” I manipulated her to straddle me. “And for this, I didn’t need to measure you. The one I had to do that for, you’ll receive in a few months.”
Her face dropped. “That long?”
“Patience. I promise it will be worth it.”
That seemed to placate her as she picked up her water bottle from the bench and unscrewed the cap.
I had full intentions of unraveling why making a bargain—gaining something for a price—or offering a promise always won her over. Every time without a miss.
Tarri nudged Kali with an elbow. “So, ready for your initiation?”
She inhaled water. Coughing, she wiped her chin with the back of her sleeve. “My initiation? What the hell is that?”
“Your tattoo. Ava came up with the name. It’s in three days.” Tarri frowned. “Did nobody tell you?”
“No.” She slapped at my chest with so much indignation it permeated her voice. “You assholes. I’ve been asking about it for weeks.”
I drew an invisible pattern on her right forearm, where the ink would lay. “We drew up a design for you.”
A week after she’d requested the tattoo as one of her conditions, we came up with the idea and invited Dorrian to visit us.
Gedeon figured it’d be good for her to spend some time in the compound before we inked her because, once she was, she was ours.
Even if she refused it. Even if she tried to run away.
Ours to hurt, to fuck, to worship.
“It’s supposed to be a surprise. But if you want to see it, I’ll show you.” Anything to make her smile.
She thought for a minute. “Okay. But you better make it good,” she said, and surveyed Jayla and Ava sprawled on their backs on the grass, succumbing to autumn’s attack, the first blades drying up, and Eli inspecting the dents in the targets.
“Don’t you feel bad that I’m getting the tattoo and you’re not? ”
“Not in the slightest. It means Gedeon and this crazy one will think of you even more as theirs, and believe us, none of us want that. We already have to deal with them daily and it would only make it worse.” Ava snorted and laughed at something Jayla had murmured to her.
Tarri propped her chin in her hand, elbow on her thigh. “Jayla said it’s been months since the last celebration here. And I’ve heard quite a few things about them.”
“What’s so special about it?” Kali squirmed in my lap. “It’s just a tattoo.”
“Behave, or I’ll make you come in front of your friends.” Her wriggles made it hard to focus. Or, more like, impossible.
Her cheeks flushed.
Oh, I was doing this. In three days.
Ava raised onto her elbows. “You really have no clue?”
“No.” Two lines appeared between Kali’s eyebrows. “What is this celebration?”
“We’ll have sooo much fun.” Jayla snickered deviously, and Tarri kicked her with her boot. “Oh, stop it, you’ve already been rehearsing for it. I saw you in the hall that night.”
Ava elbowed Jayla. “Don’t be jealous.”
“Rehearsing?” Kali asked.
I nipped at her neck, and she tilted her head so I could lick the hollow of her throat—she liked that spot. “We’ll show you.”