Chapter 55 Gedeon
GEDEON
Kali came out of the bathroom dressed in the black uniform t-shirt with Vice embroidered in white thread above her chest, hugged Jayla and Tarri, and strolled to the closest customer table, her greeting to them overpowered by the heavy beat of Jayla’s choice of music.
“I don’t like having her exposed,” Zion muttered from beside me in the corner booth.
“Me neither. But it was either this, or her tearing her muscles.”
We had made an agreement, or a deal, as she viewed them.
We relented in having her return to work—an uncontrolled environment—but for each night she worked at the bar, she would take a rest day between the training sessions.
Because if she did not slow down, her stubbornness was going to lead her to burn out. It was inevitable.
I placed my empty glass on the ragged table, the wooden surface bearing three stains of questionable origins and impossible-to-wipe-off condensation rings. “Do we know anything about who the rat could be?”
The messenger who had attacked Kali knew things the city should not have been aware of. Someone had filled them in on her history with Alora and her fertility status, the way she had tricked the system. And the only people who knew about that were our own.
Someone had infiltrated our ranks and was feeding the city information.
And they were smart. They had kept quiet while we had put an end to the auction, pretending we had the upper hand, and restrained from setting a trap.
Instead, they had identified Kali as easy prey and had patiently waited for the perfect moment to reach her, when she was alone, away from us.
They had similarly attempted to eliminate Zion a multitude of times, but that insanity of his had made him a difficult target.
But she was someone without experience and skills.
They were trying to lure us out. The traitor walking among us knew we were not ready for war and that meant the city did too.
Ilasall sought to push us into launching the first attack to avoid a repeat of what had happened twelve years ago.
Because if we were the aggressors, they could spin the story that we were the savages, the ones who had to be annihilated, so not even the dust of our bones remained.
And going after Kali had been the first move of the Head of Ilasall in our game match.
We stood on the opposing sides of a chessboard, him commanding the white side as their king and me matching his moves with a knight and a queen by my side.
The ones he strove to slaughter to throw me off the board.
“No. No one has tried anything at Conall’s compound, and Damia said things are quiet at hers too.” Zion grabbed his knife as a customer reached out to place a hand on Kali’s lower back.
Moving aside, she avoided his touch. He leaned sideways in his chair, about to slap her ass, but she spun away, muttering something indiscernible over the thrumming beats of music and storming off.
“If he lays a hand on her, he’ll lose his arm. His hand alone won’t be enough,” Zion ground out.
“Now, it will not.” I scooched to the edge of our booth’s seating as Kali whirled between the tables toward us, careful not to step on anyone’s feet while balancing a tray of drinks.
Zion smiled at her. “Pretty birdie.”
She ignored him, swiftly replacing our empty glasses with refills in total silence, her face distorted with a grimace and her cheeks pale.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his beer forgotten on the table.
“Nothing.” She stretched her smile wide, the facade painful to watch. “I’m good.”
“You are not.” I pulled her between my legs, stroking her hips with my thumbs.
More than four months had flown by since we had brought her to the compound, more than enough time to learn to read her body language.
“If you prefer not to talk for now, that’s fine, but we will later.
Something is bugging you, and I will figure out what. ”
Her forced smile faltered, and she rubbed her forehead, closing her eyes and slightly swaying on her feet.
My grip tightened. “But in case we have not been clear enough, there is something you should know.” I indicated to the idiot who had ignored my tattoo on her. “If he touches you, Zion will draw blood, and I, his bones.”
“Okay.” She murmured her consent and rushed to the table next to ours to take their order before I could question her lack of objections and huffs.
She might have escaped me for now, but I was not letting this slide.
The way she held herself was off, and a suspicion gnawed at me that she was avoiding us.
Sipping his drink, Zion tracked her movements. “I think she’s in pain.”
“Her shift will end soon.” I traced the cold rim of my glass. “We can find out the issue on our way home and then deal with it.”
He nodded. “Talking about problems. I have no idea which one of us is working for the city. The more I look into it, the more it seems that everyone could be it. Or them. We have no clue how many.” He put his beer on the table a bit too forcefully and the golden liquid sloshed over the rim.
“It has to be someone close to us or from operational teams. Otherwise, they would not be privy to the information they have.”
“So we’re essentially stuck. Living with a rat.” Flicking his hand to fling the sticky fluid off, he licked the pad of his thumb.
I swallowed as a need rose to suck the beer off him myself. “And if we do anything in the city besides our supply runs, a ploy for us to fall for most likely will await us. We cannot devise any strategies while we have a leak.”
“Fuck waiting,” he snapped. “I don’t have any patience left.” Zion picked his glass back up, downed half the contents in one gulp, and viciously wiped the beads from his chin. His lips glistened in the dim light as he rolled back his sleeves, revealing his veiny forearms.
My ink on his right arm.
My scars on his left.
My marks.
I had wounded him irrecoverably, yet I had not claimed him and his insanity as mine.
Deep down, I had an inkling that all this had been a question of time, not of want.
He had toyed with my head for too long and all I could think about now was teaching him a lesson about how to bow and for everyone to see him do it.
I had made sure they did with Kali at her tattoo celebration, but I was not delaying it with him.
I was doing it now.
Without a warning, I grabbed Zion’s throat right under his jaw.
“You will do what I tell you.” Except I was not talking about the city anymore.
“No games, no taunting, no goading.” I squeezed the sides of his neck, cutting off his flow of oxygen.
But instead of backing away, he leaned into my hand, melted into my touch.
“Only I will not be as nice to you as I am with her.” I could not stay away from him anymore.
“So let me make this clear.” As much for him as for me.
“And I will say this once.” Something I should have told him long ago. “I’m taking you for myself.”
My grip loosened as uncertainty prodded me with its talons. I could not hurt him again. Not in my darkest nightmares. “Say yes,” I quietly pleaded, searching for the answer in his eyes.
His throat bobbed in my grasp. “Yes.”
In the same sudden manner, I stole his lips for myself, nipping on them brutally enough to surprise him. The glass he held dropped on the table and rolled off the edge. But the sound of it bursting was not sharp enough to distract me.
Neither him, it turned out. He groaned into me, pulling me closer by my nape, his other hand snaking up my leg. His tongue spiced with alcohol welcomed my claim, stroking against mine, conjuring images of it stroking my cock, driving me wild.
His fingers tangled in my hair. “I’ve fantasized about you for so godsdamned long,” he breathed out, and bit my bottom lip so hard that burning heat spread across the crescent moon mark he had surely left.
I wanted to have him now, right this second, because Zion was mine. He had always been mine, and hearing him say he had dreamed about me made my cock swell to the point it ached.
I wanted to consume him, to have him, fully, from his body to his being, because if one thing felt right, it was him in my arms.
I wanted to hear his voice, feel his exhales on my skin, have his body tremble underneath me, see his grin when he caught me staring at him, tease him back when he threw around his flirtatious remarks, chase him when he provoked me, and fall asleep with him, our limbs tangled, so we would awaken in the morning together and leave Kali cocooned in her fluffy and unbearably-too-hot duvet while we made breakfast.
“Details,” I grunted out, and nibbled along his jaw, moving to his throat, and sunk my teeth into the juncture of his neck and shoulder, deep enough to leave a mark for all to see.
Reveling in his shudder, I licked the imprint I made, a bruise certain to appear tomorrow—a statement for any curious gazes.
Savage heaves rocked my chest as I found the prominent bulge in his jeans and palmed him over the taut material, his cock jerking and spurring me to inch closer to him, to erase any increment of space between us.
His head dropped back. “Outside.” A stuttering groan fluttered out of him as my tongue traced the hollow of his throat. “You going down on me.” His breaths grew choppier, his pelvis twitching as I rubbed him. “Her nails scraping down my abdomen.”
His hips bucking into my palm elicited tension to climb up my thighs, and I spread them wider to ease the pressure. As if it had found its master, his body had molded to mine perfectly, and I was not wasting time to adjust myself or take a break. I had waited too long for this.
“We have a free stage, you know.”
I whipped my head up to Tarri tapping her nails on our table, a tray of dirty dishes propped on her hip. “Everyone is already watching, so why don’t we move you somewhere with better lighting? Jayla said she’s been trying to get you there for ages.”