Chapter 23 Zion
ZION
Gedeon’s study drowned in a hush as suffocating as the heavy air before a storm.
Lounging on the light gray couch, Sadira and Ryder kept exchanging displeased looks between bouts of staring at Gedeon. The broody bastard was leaning against a windowsill, a statue of intensity.
Behind him, ominous clouds had usurped the sky. The atmosphere fizzled with charged particles, the early dusk as bleak as the mood of our group.
For the last five minutes, no one had uttered a word. Recounting the actual events that had led us to today had stunned everyone.
Bored, I strode past Kali sitting behind the desk, Eli and Eislyn on the sleek ebony chairs before it, Ezra sipping his tea on the couch’s armrest, and Jayla nestled in Ava’s lap on the suede armchair.
Gedeon ducked as I yanked open a window.
A blast of the evening’s cold assaulted us, but I turned my back to nature’s elements and took my position beside Gedeon, clutching the windowsill close enough for my pinkie to collide with his.
If I could, I would’ve climbed him right here, in front of everyone.
Standing close to him wasn’t enough. Even the howling wind lashing at my back and the chill burrowing underneath my knitted sweater couldn’t mollify the itch.
Last night, the precision with which Gedeon had wielded those two leather floggers, raining sparks of fire on my back and ass… It’d been the most cathartic experience of my life.
I’d awakened feeling cleansed this morning.
For gods knew how long, night after night, I’d slunk into his room and observed him sleep.
The steady rise and fall of his chest was one of the two things soothing enough to lull me to sleep.
Day after day, I’d followed him, doing his bidding, coordinating our operations and expanding our network in Ilasall.
The endless string of sunsets and sunrises had scarred me deeper than the burns on my forearm. But then we’d taken Kali for ourselves. Her threats had become my addiction, her whispers my obsession.
And watching her and Gedeon together had brought me to my knees. His absence had proved what I’d suspected: his commands had become my lifeline, his laughter a necessity to my survival.
He sought to protect us by denying himself what he wanted, but I was ready to give him anything and everything to prove him otherwise.
Including holding him, starting with his pinkie.
Next in line was his cock.
Jayla burst the bubble of bewilderment first. “So, ahm, to get this right—you were never taken by Ilasall?”
“Does he look dead to you?” Sadira snapped. She threw her head back on the couch’s backrest, the multitude of her black braids swaying with the movement.
The leader of our tech team, able to stay balanced in the most demanding situations, yet Gedeon had achieved the unachievable—rattling the woman—by simply marching into his study.
Fun.
“We’re not blind,” Ava coldly replied. “And believe me, we’re fuming. The only thing stopping me from biting your head off”—she fixed Gedeon with a glare—“is the fact that Jayla has food poisoning and I don’t want to let her go.”
“If it would make you feel better, I can hit Gedeon in your stead.” Kali reached for the glass of water dangerously positioned at the edge of the desk.
Probably on purpose, based on how she smirked at Gedeon each time she caught him side-eyeing it.
“The swelling in his jaw is from my own bout of healthy smacking, so this could be a perfect opportunity to maximize his pain.”
“I taught her a few moves.” I leaned sideways, bumping my shoulder against Gedeon’s. “You’re welcome.”
He grunted in response, but his pinkie hooked over my own.
It’d been surprisingly difficult to leave him to marinate in our bedroom alone while Kali and I had tended to the most pressing matters of our compound. Thankfully, for me, it’d entailed teaching three close combat classes back-to-back today.
It also meant not much thinking had been involved in my day, which I couldn’t say about Kali.
Her day had consisted of re-planning the distribution of our meager food reserves.
At least with spring about to reach its middle, we could harvest certain vegetables and plant new crops for reaping in summer and autumn.
Reaping. Such a peculiar word. Delicious, in a sense—if we considered Gedeon to be a kind of crop. Perhaps corn. An eggplant. A cucumber.
I could harvest him every single morning for breakfast and still not have enough.
“Well, knowing we don’t have your trust is fantastic.” Ezra fiddled with his crimson cup, and the steaming liquid almost sloshed over the rim. “Just what I needed to top off my dinner tonight.”
Gedeon’s second finger crept over my own as he explained, “It’s not that I do not trust you. It’s that I can’t trust you.”
Ezra paused with his tea midway to his mouth. “As if that’s better.”
Before inviting everyone to the meeting, Gedeon, Kali, and I had reached an agreement.
We would use Gedeon’s return as a way to flush out the rat—the traitor lurking in our ranks.
In this room, we had gathered seven people—five, if we eliminated Eli and Ava, due to them having grown up in the compound—and one of them had to be at fault.
Someone was surely going to leak the information about Gedeon’s reappearance to the city. We could catch them in the act.
“Why?” Eli twisted in the chair to face Gedeon, but his hand remained on Eislyn’s thigh. “Why can’t you trust us?” The warm table light cast shadows on the raised scar running from his lip corner to underneath his jaw, the forked end hidden by his blond stubble.
“I cannot tell you,” Gedeon stated. Inch by inch, his palm glided over the back of my hand until he enveloped it.
Maybe he was not a vegetable, but a berry. A strawberry. His fingers, like stolons slithering toward me, the slender stems seeking to twine around my wrist.
I liked strawberries. Lush and juicy, sweet but with a note of our sourness, the acidity as sharp as broken glass.
Irrefutably perfect. Like Gedeon.
The conclusion settled in my gut with rightness.
Shifting in her seat, her knee bumping Eli’s, Eislyn beamed at Gedeon. “It’s nice to finally see this.” She gestured to his palm resting on my own. “We’ve been guessing how long it would take for you to break and give in.”
He smiled, and my limbs went limp at the tenderness in his expression. Yeah, he was definitely a strawberry. His thick lips had a perfect cupid’s bow, the dip carved out to fit both the strawberry leaves and for my tongue to trace the slope.
So, of course, I had to ask, “Who won?” I would reward the winner myself. They’d get a pass to skip my next close combat lesson. Or better, their entire class would get one. I’d rather spend my time licking my strawberry up and down and all around.
“I did,” Ryder piped up. Sitting on the couch, he tousled his tight brown curls. The cloud of locks bounced around his shoulders. “I voted on Zion making the first move.”
Gedeon fixed me with a dirty look. Nobody had been aware of our situation until now. Well, as far as he knew.
My thumb hooked around his. “Ava might have seen a thing or two in the shooting range.” After accidentally catching me going down on Gedeon, she’d drilled me for details I was more than happy to provide.
Gedeon stared her down. “You saw?”
Ava glowered right back at him. “I lingered nearby in case you’d need…help. You were so angry, Gedeon. And rage can persuade anyone into making the wrong decisions.”
“And he did make one.” I raised our interlaced hands, my grin so wide it ached. “I’m the worst decision he could take.”
Groans enshrouded the study. Their cacophony blended with the storm-bringing wind, caressing my ears and ruffling my hair.
“Can you close the damned window?” Nestled in the armchair, Ava pulled Jayla’s legs to lay over the armrest. “She’s trembling.”
Reluctantly releasing Gedeon’s hand, I slammed the glass shut. Although Ava’s mood was as sour as the weather was drab, as if the air itself wanted to unleash its misery, neither could douse my mood.
My strawberry had returned to me.
Now, if I lured my pretty birdie to perch on my palm once more, I could finally rest.
Hoisting her feet onto Gedeon’s desk, Kali shot daggers at me. “You look too happy.” She pushed her empty glass across the desk with her boot. “Take this before I hurl it at you.”
“Oh, no.” Jayla covered her mouth. The woolen blanket fell to her waist, exposing her oversized monstrosity of a sweater. “She said hurl. I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Jayla, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we’re here to discuss matters other than your food poisoning,” Ezra said, re-tying the bun sitting low on his nape.
He’d had the habit for as long as I’d known him—since Gedeon’s contacts had rescued him from the city.
He was one of the few city-trained soldiers we had living with us.
Tugging the sleeves down to her fingertips, Jayla grumbled, “You’re mean.
But I don’t have the energy to search my brain for a comeback today, so be nice and quiet, and I won’t add you to the list of people who owe me favors.
Because he”—she pointed at Gedeon—“owes me a dozen for the shit he pulled with his fake death.”
Gedeon crossed his ankles. “What if I promise to climb on stage at Vice?”
Jayla’s eyes popped out of her sockets. “You said you’d never do it.”
“I have conditions.” He raised his forefinger. “One, no one besides me, Zion, and Kali would participate. And two, the show would be up to us. No meddling.”
“Deal,” she rushed out. “I’m still mad at you, but consider your debt to me repaid.” But then Ava whispered in her ear, and she swiftly added, “If you complete your part this year.”
Gedeon’s glower increased by a notch.
Ava beamed at him. “I know how you work, Gedeon. I won’t sit back and watch you trick Jayla. Vice might be her choice of payment, but it’s not mine. You’ll be hearing from me.”