Chapter 16 Kali
KALI
He’d been stalking us. Watching from afar.
His attention flicked to my cheek, and before I could demand more answers, his lips ghosted over the shallow cut, showering me in tingles. With kiss after kiss, he followed the vertical line he’d carved himself.
Which was also how I’d recognized him back in Ilasall. He’d marked me the same as I’d done him. Minutes before I’d accidentally stabbed him, I’d also sliced his cheek.
“Did you hurt your knuckles?” Taking my hand, he inspected the redness above my bones. In some spots, cartilage peeked out.
“I’m fine,” I muttered.
His mouth set in a thin line. “Do not lie.”
Resignation permeated my whisper. “They’re not what hurts.”
“I know.” He rained feather-light kisses on each joint, warm and tender.
Prickles slithered inside me and gathered in my core, my body responding in a way I wasn’t certain I agreed with.
Finished, Gedeon pressed my palm between his pectorals. “But feel this.” His hammering heart. “It doesn’t beat for just anybody.”
Thud by thud, the rapid pace rattling his rib cage placated my spiraling thoughts. Warily, I reached for the hem of his soldier’s shirt and pulled the fabric all the way to his armpits, exposing the puckered scar on his abdomen.
An inch-and-a-half of raised skin was all that remained of my mistake. As I traced the rough contour of the healed stab wound, even the wind seemed to pause, the stillness surrounding us in a bubble. The clouds stole the moon once more, and I suspected the forest itself awaited my next move.
Gedeon shivered, his muscles rippling under my touch, blurring the demarcation line between reality and nightmares. In the sleeping realm, too many times blood had poured out of him as he collapsed at my feet, leaving me to dig a grave for him.
A shudder raced down my spine. “You survived.” I voiced my doubts.
“I have told you this before.” He cupped my neck. “You cannot get rid of me, especially so easily as with a blade.”
“I never wanted to—”
He crashed his mouth to mine, consuming my protest. I relished how the pain from my hair catching on the tree bark joined his nibbles on my bottom lip.
Clutching his shirt, I lost myself in the sensation of his tongue dancing with mine, the sear of his claim as hot as a blaze, as brutal as a storm, as soft as my fluffy duvet.
My toes curled as the thirst for more stirred awake. I lunged, attacking his lips, nipping until they flushed and his grip on my waist turned punishing.
“You remind me what it means to live,” he murmured, his hand snaking under my shirt and dragging my bra down for my breasts to spill free.
He pinched my nipple, but the ache morphed into a bloom of heat, and I cursed my pussy for rejoicing the way it knew best—by soaking my panties.
Unbuckling his belt, I snarled, “I hate you.”
“Anything you feel for me, I will take it.” Dropping to his knees on the muddy grass before me, he frantically yanked my pants and panties down and over my left boot. Not bothering with the other leg, he positioned my bare thigh to rest on his shoulder.
“I will conquer the cities for you.” His hot exhales branded my exposed flesh. “Bring the head of your enemies—anything, anything to have you feel for me, hatred included.”
“I don’t think this is rig—”
He descended on my pussy, silencing my hesitation. I grabbed his hair to keep my balance as he licked along my slit, gathering my wetness and swirling his tongue around my clit.
Loathing, detestation, abhorrence—none could describe the emotion clinging to me identically to how the night’s humidity coated my skin. The need to sob and embrace Gedeon warred with the compulsion to beat the crap out of him and scream until my vocal cords gave out.
With my bottom lip quivering, I shoved the traitorous feelings deep down, into the bottomless crevices, and focused on that building sensation of—
He sucked on my clit, and my hips bucked of their own accord. Continuing his assault, he grunted his approval at my gasps and tugs on his locks, the strands as black as his darkened eyes drinking me in.
Yet it wasn’t enough, not by far.
“Ge-deon,” I moaned, earning another grunt from him, and yanked his head back.
His chin glistened, and he slowly licked his lips, first the top, then the bottom one, a rumble rising from his throat.
“I don’t know how I managed to go this long without this.
” His grasp on my thigh turned compressing, branding—my capillaries were surely rupturing and would paint my skin with deep purples in the shape of his fingers tomorrow. “Without you.”
Between my pants, I confessed, “I don’t know if I can forgive you.”
Rising, he wrapped my leg around his hip. “I have nothing but time. I can wait.”
“But I can’t.” Not when I doubted I’d see him again. This had to be a dream. Only my mind could be cruel enough to conjure such a scenario as this.
Yet I desperately searched for the button on his pants, his belt already freed from its buckle. Both of us scrambled to shove his pants down enough for—
He plunged inside me in one deep thrust, filling me so fully, so completely, so thoroughly, a soundless gasp wrenched out of me and a groan from him.
As my nails dug into his back, his teeth sunk into my flesh, destroying my pain receptors. The ache nagged at the hole in my chest to shrivel up as I clenched around him.
He replaced his mouth with his hand, his thumb kneading the area he’d assaulted. Thorns of pain latched onto the minor injury.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
“I…” Not many things in my life felt this right. Listening to his request, not an order, but an actual question, I admitted, “I do.”
“Good.” He withdrew and pushed back inside, drawing a whimper out of me. “Now hold on.”
I tightened my hold on him.
He set a vicious pace, overpowering my common sense as the slapping of our bodies filled the forest. Lifting my thigh higher, he deepened the angle, and then caught my throat.
Him seizing control of my airway felt so natural a tear fled the protection of my eyelashes. Instead of crushing my windpipe like the messenger Ilasall had sent, Gedeon compressed the sides of my neck, constricting my oxygen flow.
Soon, my weight lightened. My grip on his sides relaxed as I lost coordination of my body and floated somewhere between pleasure and pain, consciousness and unconsciousness.
“Let it go. All of it.” His distorted encouragement joined the rhythm of him moving inside me—brutal and unrestrained.
My pelvis tightened so hard it bordered on ripping—
He released my neck. “Come for me.”
I crashed in a dizzying rush, spinning and spinning, like the whirl low in my abdomen.
His thumb found my clit. It spurred the snap to close in on me—
Gedeon bit the seam of my throat and shoulder, and the sting shredded the veil of delay.
I split apart.
Convulsions rocked through me as I spasmed around him, hard enough to make his pace falter, his grunts stutter. Drowsiness carried me so high, I cried out, contracting again and again.
His pace quickened, turning jerky and violent—
He stilled, throbbing inside me, his guttural groan tickling my ear as he filled me. His chest heaving, he rocked in and out, coaxing my disorientation to subside.
Leaning against the tree, I scratched his scalp, stroked his shoulders, touched him any way I could, refusing to entertain the possibility of separation.
“I don’t think I can let you go,” he murmured. “I want to carry you to bed and have you fall asleep on top of me.”
His words slammed me back to reality, and I pushed at his chest to put some distance between us. “You can’t. You chose to leave us, Gedeon. You can’t change your mind now.”
“Kali…” Abruptly pulling out, he fixed his pants, his jaw creaking from how hard he ground it. “Fuck.”
“Exactly,” I seethed, maneuvering my panties around my boot and yanking them up. The waistband snapped against my belly, yet the bite of cotton did nothing to lessen my glare at him. “This all is a fucking mess.”
Running a hand through his hair, he scanned the treeline on the other side of the clearing.
Moonlight highlighted the tension in his features.
“Remember when I explained to you how we raise our children? The fairy tales about kingdoms and wars that the teachers read to kids before their naps and the games they play outside, inconspicuous yet molding their minds into what we need them to be?”
“Yes,” I said, and swore at my boot getting stuck in the leg of my pants.
Gedeon took over, gathering the fabric of my pants and slowly gliding it up my calf and thigh. Kneeling on one knee, he secured the single black button and my zipper. “Sometimes, you have to sacrifice the king for the queen and her knight to win.”
“That’s not how fairy tales work, Gedeon, and you know it.”
He rose to his full height, owning every inch of his stature. “Rules do not exist in war, little death.”
“Don’t call me that.” I pulled the sides of my jacket together to ward off the cold, both nature-born and induced by him.
He smirked. “And why should I not?”
“You know why.” Ignoring the wetness drenching my underwear, I gestured to his stomach. “I almost killed you, Gedeon.”
He caught my wrist. “Almost. I’m not that easy to murder.”
“Don’t joke like that.” One tug, and he released me. Disappointment washed over my senses, and I folded my arms to keep them away from him.
“I have told you this before. I will not leave you alone, Kali. I am your future, and I fully intend to keep my promise.”
A snort fled me. “Good luck. You have no idea how hard I wish to strangle you.” Twisting on my heel, I trudged deeper into the forest. “You chose today, of all days, to appear. Why now? Why not a year from now? Or better yet, a decade?”
Deliberately loud footfalls told me he was set on following me. “Because I could not stand aside and allow Ilasall’s military to take you away.”
Stopping and turning to him, I rubbed the tattoo I’d gotten under my collarbone, currently hidden by my uniform shirt. “You’re an idiot.”
“I am a strategist. You have an army willing to listen to your commands now, Kali. A united one.” He took a step toward me, shoulders slumping when I backed away. “It’s called a long game.”
A twig crunched under my step, the strength required to break it insignificant compared to the effort it took me to say, “You may be smart, Gedeon, but sometimes, you can’t see what’s right under your nose.”
He arched an eyebrow. “And what are you hiding there?”
“That you hurt me.” I rolled my right sleeve up to my elbow to expose the ink he’d designed with Zion. “I asked for one thing—your trust, and you couldn’t even give me that.”
He took another step, and I held my hand up.
“No. Don’t say anything, or I will ensure your death myself.
” Slinking deeper into the shadows roaming the forest, I said, “I have a shift at Vice, but once I return”—I lifted my chin in hopes to level my voice as the words eroded me like acid—“I hope you will be gone.”