Chapter 57 Kali #2
Three days remained until we marched to Ilasall, but it felt like the war had already found its way to me. A lone thought about returning to an empty bed would weaken my knees.
Lowering our pet to the floor, I hung my towel on the hooks lining the wall. If I left the bathroom with the fluffy fabric covering me, Zion would shred it like any other offending piece.
Marble tiles changed to hardwood floors as I strolled back into our bedroom. Curling up beside Zion, I nestled into him, savoring the weight of his arm on my waist.
“Will you ever tell what was in the package?” I asked, toying with the hem of the duvet. Not knowing drove me crazy. After learning a world outside Ilasall existed, secrets had become a nuisance I wasn’t willing to tolerate.
He stuffed his nose into my wet strands. “It’s a—”
The bedroom door opened. Warm light spilled onto the floor, distorting the shape of Gedeon’s shadow growing on the wall.
Whether I wanted to admit it or not, relief filled me at the sight of him.
Noticing us comfortable in bed and not in the shower, Gedeon dragged a hand down his face, muttered something incomprehensible, and vanished into the bathroom.
As the pitter-patter of the spray reverberated off the tiles, I huddled closer to Zion, stifling a giggle at his grumble about my cold feet. “It’s either me wearing socks or using you as a heater.”
“We should bring you down to Eislyn,” he groused, drawing idle patterns on my belly. “No one’s limbs should be this cold.”
“Not all of us are walking furnaces,” I protested. Admiring how Gedeon emerged from the bathroom, as bare as the rest of us, I wiggled out of Zion’s hold and threw the giant duvet aside—fine, perhaps, it took me, like, three tries, but still—and patted the empty space. “Come here.”
Standing at the foot of the bed, Gedeon glared at the mattress. Not once had he slept between Zion and I, but this was the perfect opportunity to change it.
“We need to protect our strawberry.” Zion sprawled across half of the mattress, effectively eliminating any other option of where Gedeon could settle in. “What if someone barges in?”
Gedeon took a slow, deep, controlled breath.
Yet he clambered onto the dedicated spot. Together with Zion, we launched, pushing Gedeon onto his back and plastering ourselves to his sides. Not a minute passed before his muscles loosened. And as the night invaded the room, so did the calmness.
Looking from Zion to me, he asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You’re relaxed.” I rested my palm on his pectorals in a hunt for his heartbeat. Thud. Thud. Thud. “It’s a rare sight.”
Gedeon stared at the ceiling, at the limit of the room—at the limits we all had. His chest rose with his inhales, but if not for that, he would resemble dead weight. A skeleton about to start decaying.
He was here, but he wasn’t present.
Though it didn’t surprise me. Yesterday and today had been difficult.
Witnessing him and Zion crumble at Conall’s house, at the feet of their friend’s corpse, had been a harrowing experience.
It’d forced me to question whether I’d looked the same after I’d learned of Alora’s end. As catatonic as my men had been.
Although pushing forward despite my invisible scars was the only language I spoke, somehow, they’d found a way to teach me more: affection. Kindness. Support. All wrapped up in a ribbon of protectiveness. A bit over the top, but soothing nevertheless.
I could provide the same for them. Undoubtedly, I was going to fail a thousand times before I succeeded, but Eislyn had said it was the intention that mattered, not whether the execution was flawless.
“Gedeon?” I whispered, and his eyes met mine.
“It’s okay if you feel like you’re not well.
” Zion’s faint snoring accompanied my murmur.
“Feeling doesn’t make you weak. It’s the opposite.
Strength comes from emotions.” I kissed his jaw, the stubble as rough as Shadow’s whiskers.
“I know it may not seem like it, but things will get easier over time. It’s a…
promise.” The second one I’d ever given him.
And one I’d poured all of myself into. “You don’t need to look for the light.
It will find its way to you. Just— Don’t run away from it. ”
Not how I’d attempted to do it.
Gedeon’s small smile dissipated the last heaviness hanging around him. “Thank you.” His gaze bounced to Zion and his slightly open mouth. The man could pass out anywhere, any time.
“You would do anything for him, wouldn’t you?” I asked.
“That and more,” Gedeon replied without delay. “Does it bother you?”
I didn’t need time to figure out the answer. It’d resided in me since the beginning. “It makes my heart feel too large for my chest.”
The kiss he marked my forehead with flipped my belly. “I don’t deserve you.”
“You truly don’t. You still have to work off your debt for kidnapping me.”
“Only me?”
“Zion gave that slimy guard for me to torture and kill. I count that as payment.”
He smirked. “So I need to kidnap someone else for you, then?”
Oh, he was going to loathe my wish. “You need to let Zion fuck you.”
His heavy sigh fueled my glee.
“That’s what I want.” I shrugged. Well, more like I tried to. “We can make it easier this time. I can simply watch.” For some reason, I couldn’t picture Gedeon being in the middle of the sandwich like Zion had been, trapped between Gedeon and me.
“I want to return you back to Ilasall,” Gedeon deadpanned. “They can deal with your brattiness themselves.”
I stuffed my face into a pillow to muffle my laughter. Not once had he proposed a lighthearted notion like that before.
Collecting myself, I brushed a rogue strand off Gedeon’s temple. “What did Eli and Eislyn want earlier?”
His jaw flexed as if the darkness wreaking havoc in our bedroom had wormed inside him. “Ezra has escaped.”