Chapter 54 Zion #2
“Disgusting,” Ezra sneered. His light brown skin gleamed with a sheen of sweat, his glands working overtime, the perspiration soaking the clotting or freshly opened wounds, halting their efforts in closing up.
“We will level your pathetic compounds to the ground and test your people for fertility, exactly like it should have been done from the beginning. You are mutts living like this, watching out only for ourselves, oblivious to the cities’ struggles, ignorant of how your lack of care drives everyone to the extinction of the human race. ”
His tirade dripped down my vertebrae, settling in the discs and imbuing them with an itch to stab the throat of the moron brainwashed by Ilasall.
“I warned you,” I ground out. “I told you what I would do if you poked at Gedeon again.” I stepped toward my knife resting on the edge of the table—
Gedeon’s grasp on me tightened, preventing me from launching onto the shackled and naked worm. “It’s not worth it. I doubt he will give up any useful information today.”
My fists balled up. “But your brother keeps insulting you.” And his lower legs hadn’t yet experienced my blade’s kiss. We had work to do.
“Ezra is not my brother. It’s not blood that determines the relationship.
He will never be what Conall was.” Gedeon came to stand beside me, his palm skimming down to rest on my hip.
“But I’m done with him for tonight. What I want is to enjoy my evening.
” Gripping my jeans waistband, he yanked, spinning me around—
I swayed on my heels, the moldy basement walls swimming—
He caught me by my throat once more. “Let’s go.”
My pulse rushed straight down, right to my groin. “What about Ezra’s feet? His toes are still intact.”
“I don’t give a shit.” Gedeon leaned into my face, his voice so dangerous it carried notes of a dark promise. “I’m fucking you, Zion. Now.” The dim light drowned his face in the shadows. “So either you go willingly, or I will bend you over Ezra and have my way. Your choice.”
It was happening. Finally.
Wired beyond control, I cursed the zipper in my jeans. If not for the durability denim offered, I would’ve already incinerated the three pairs I owned and worn sweatpants instead.
“See you tomorrow, little rattie.” I snatched my knife off the table. Returning the weapon to its sheath on my bicep, I stared Ezra down. “Get it? Because you’re a rodent gnawing on your own tail. Only, so insignificant, your father won’t do anything to help you.”
“You have no clue who you’re talking to,” the viper-like man snarled. His cuffs clanged against the metal surface he was lying on. “My father will serve your balls on a platter to—”
I poked one of the five vertical slices turning his cheek into bars of a cage. His head whipped aside, the movement dragging my digit across the severed nerves, and his scream echoed in the vast space like a thrum of drums.
“Bleh. Your mouth is nasty.” To clean his blood and saliva off my finger, I dragged it across his lips, making sure my nail ripped the healing cuts. “Anyway, I’ll send Eislyn to say hello to you in the morning. I might be late for our next session if Gedeon rearranges my insides.”
“Zion,” Gedeon called out from the bottom of the concrete stairs. “You have ten seconds to finish up.”
Excitement surged through me. Unhooking the button in my pants, I studied the damage Eislyn and I had inflicted on who used to be part of our inner circle yet turned out to be Ilasall’s puppet. My new plaything for the next few days. Perhaps even weeks.
“Why don’t you use the time to say goodbye to your toes?
I’ve never peeled a person’s feet before, so we may need to sacrifice your left foot for a test drive.
” Three of Ezra’s toes seemed to be of a similar size, and it gave me an idea.
“We can flay your toes and then use the bits as hats for your missing fingertips.” Flicking the meat where his nails had once been, I relished his cry.
“If we cover your wounds, I’m sure you’ll feel better. ”
“Four,” Gedeon counted, his drawl sinking into my pores and luring me away from my doll. “Three.”
“Sweet dreams.” I patted Ezra’s carved stomach, a laceration in each dip of his torso. His flesh squelched, and scarlet drizzled down his sides in tandem with his wail.
Gedeon leaned against a wall. “Two.”
Two and a half seconds. That was how long it took me to cross the space between us and crash into him.
But his grunt didn’t satisfy my appetite. It fed it. Stoked it until I ceased thinking, until my hunger chewed up my thoughts and transformed them into a heady rush.
Our mouths collided, violent and brutal, bruising, as I scrambled to unbuckle Gedeon’s belt.
He shoved me away. “Upstairs.”
Staggering backward, my chest heaving as fast as his, I ruffled my hair to invite my focus to return.
“Ezra doesn’t deserve to hear you choke on my cock before I rip you apart,” he rasped.
I squeezed myself over my jeans to push the tension away, to placate it long enough for the climb out of the basement.
In a flash, Gedeon snatched my wrist. “Did I say you could play with what’s mine?”
His growl almost brought me to my knees.
“If you need another lesson that badly, I can oblige.” He wrenched me out of my spot, his clasp a claw around my joint.
As I stumbled behind Gedeon, the cement stairs scraped my leather boots, leaving scratches and dents. He pushed the door to the first floor open, the hinges screeching in protest—
We grew motionless.
At the far end of the hallway, Kali did too.
Steam rose from the sky-blue cup she held in the kitchen’s doorway. With her lips parted, she looked us up and down, up and down. Whatever spun in her mind, it slunk down her throat as she swallowed.
Leaning down, she scratched her chin, and the oversized t-shirt—unmistakably Gedeon’s—rose up her bare thighs. The few ceiling lights still on illuminated the muscles she’d put on by spending countless hours in our training rings.
Those long legs… I salivated.
“Little death,” Gedeon greeted her.
She lifted her chin. The sea of healing wounds on her face and above her chest demanded attention. “No.”
He smiled. “No?”
Kali blew the steam swirling above what probably was the herbal tea Eislyn had developed an addiction to long ago. “You heard me.”
His jaw feathered.
She was in big, big trouble.
“There you are,” a familiar voice piped up.
Together with Gedeon, we twisted toward the other side of the hallway.
Storming over to us, Jayla flicked her ginger braid over her shoulder. “I want my favor, Gedeon.”
I let the basement door slam shut. “He has more important stuff to attend to. Come back tomorrow.”
“First of all”—Jayla folded her arms, her yellow dress crinkling—“I’m not talking to you. And second”—she scrunched up her freckled nose—“you really need a shower. You reek of blood.”
“Thank you.” Backing away from her, I made a come-hither motion at Gedeon. “But go pester Ava for favors tonight.”
If steam could rise from someone’s ears, it would’ve from Jayla’s, based on her murderous expression.
Ooh, I should bring a pot of boiling water to pour into the hole Ezra’s ear had become for our next session.
“Do you know how long it took me to cut enough colored paper to fill that jar of confetti you gifted to Conall?” Jayla sputtered. “By hand?”
With the slash of her grumbles, the general mood plummeted. The news of what had occurred during our trip had clearly missed her.
“Ahm.” Kali stared into her tea, her eyebrows furrowed so hard two creases had emerged between them.
Gedeon rubbed his face. “I will take care of this.” He gestured to his study’s door. “Come on,” he told Jayla.
But the instant that door closed, I turned to Kali studying me. Her nipples peeked out through the thin cotton fabric, and her mouth opened to probably spew a protest—
“I’m starving.” For those mouth-watering thighs to clench around my head. For her little whimpers. Because she didn’t scream every time, not by far, hoarding her melodic outcries for the last of the line of orgasms we’d put her through. “Let me take a bite of you.”
“Zion, no.” She pointed a finger at me as I began my prowl toward her. “I said no.”
“Hmm.” Nearing the end of the hallway, I mused, “Two Nos make a Yes.”
She shuffled away from the kitchen. “Not if you can’t catch me.”