Chapter 61 Kali
KALI
As Zion and I marched down the street toward our central building, dawn colored the horizon in yellow and bright blue, not a cloud in sight.
I side-eyed him. “Does it hurt?”
“It’s…pleasant.” He threw an arm over my shoulders, the fresh roll of gauze wrapped around his forearm a stark contrast to the navy shirt concealing his newest…body decoration. “It makes me want to play.”
Instead of responding, I plucked out my strands stuck underneath Zion’s limb. Thankfully, no more than three people roamed the road this early—the fewer witnesses to my blush, the better.
Holding the entrance door open for me to pass, he grinned, stoking the fire licking my cheeks. The madman had tried to drag my pants down the instant Dorrian’s needle had touched me.
But the truth was the truth. I couldn’t deny the last time Dorrian had used me as a canvas for his art had ended up with me fucking Zion, per Gedeon’s orders.
Only this time, I’d made the choice to pay a visit to Dorrian myself, not because of a deal, or a bargain.
I did it as a promise, one I intended to keep.
The round lights installed in the ceiling battled the dimness swirling in the hallway as we trudged past Gedeon’s study, the dining room, the kitchen—
I grew rigid.
The first of daylight caressed two figures covered in white. Snow-like flakes covered everything, from the silvery counters and appliances to… Was that an apple pie cooling on a rack?
Flour obscured Greyn’s sharp features as he pointed at Ryder. “He’s teaching me how to bake.”
Damia’s second-in-command was at our compound. The impossibly tall man with blond hair pointing in all directions had arrived without informing anyone.
And had decided to spend the night in the kitchen with Ryder—the loneliest person I knew.
His caramel curls might have been tight, his freckles—striking, but I’d caught our friend watching couples and families with not composure but with desire.
Not envy or jealousy, no; he didn’t harbor resentment.
Ryder merely yearned for someone to have a life with.
“To bake.” My lips curled upward. “At five in the morning.”
Blocking the doorway, Zion pulled me into his side. “Greyn wanted to say they’re stuffing their pies with the two sausages dangling between their—”
“I got it!” I screeched. I didn’t need him conjuring an image that could ruin baked goods for me forever. “As tempting as your offer is, two dicks are enough for me. I really don’t need four.”
Somehow containing himself from pointing out Ryder’s stupor, a rolling pin dusted in flour stuck in his hand, Zion shrugged. “I still want a piece of the pie after you’re done.” Steering us away from the kitchen, he yelled, “One without meat.”
“Did that really just happen?” Ryder’s shock followed us as we neared the stairwell leading to the upper floors, and my snicker echoed up the shaft.
Since the day I’d met him, Ryder would find a way to make anyone smile. Feel safe. Even the last batch of people we’d smuggled out of Ilasall had clicked with him. There was something about him, like…
An aura of kindness.
A type of tenderness no one had experienced in the city. And once you got a taste for it, you craved it like oxygen.
Similar to how I yearned for more time with the two men who could send me into a frenzy with one command or melt me with one look.
While my feet carried me up the stairs, my mind buzzed. Sixteen hours. That was how long Ryder had with Greyn before we had to depart.
Before we offered our lives to the fate awaiting us at the gates of Ilasall.
As Zion creaked open the door to our bedroom, the streak of light spilling inside reminded me of an hourglass—of golden sand trickling to the bottom, each grain one minute out of the nine hundred and sixty I had left with Gedeon and Zion.
His footfalls soundless, Zion headed straight for the dark wood closet. Either oblivious to Gedeon’s aversion to chaos or purposefully messing with him, Zion kicked off his dirty boots and stuffed them onto the lower shelf.
“Here.” He threw me a clean t-shirt from a heap of colorful ones, the garment obviously his and not Gedeon’s. “It’s cotton, so it shouldn’t irritate your skin.”
Following his example, I discarded my clothing into the laundry hamper shoved into the corner of the wall-sized closet, the ebony scuffed and scratched from years of use.
Marveling at Gedeon slumbering in bed, on his back, an arm thrown over his eyes, I whispered to Zion, “How he doesn’t wake up is incredible.” Tension had finally abandoned him, allowing him to sail the seas of his dreams freely.
“He’s always been a heavy sleeper. Never heard me pace around in his room.” Zion inspected his chest, the area Dorrian had prodded and poked now swollen and reddened. At least it’d ceased bleeding.
Dorrian had warned him that the spot would be sore for a week after the procedure, that it might itch—badly—but Zion had only threatened he’d do it himself if he kept talking instead of proceeding.
“How long have you been watching him?” Tugging the oversized burgundy t-shirt over my head, I used the fabric to hide my smile. To this day, whenever he couldn’t rest, Zion would sit in the corner and watch the bed until rest’s tendrils dragged him back to sleep.
Zion tugged the neckline of my t-shirt to check the patch of my skin Dorrian had abused. “Since we moved in here.”
My eyebrows dipped. Ilasall had attempted to raze their compound a little over twelve years ago.
But I’d thought their family houses still stood.
Everyone here lived with their siblings and parents and kids and who I learned to be grandparents and great-grandparents.
Housing was limited, with so many dwellings in an uninhabitable state.
Satisfied with his inspection, Zion adjusted my t-shirt, making sure the fabric stayed loose.
“After the war, none of us wanted to live in houses that used to belong to our families. Walking past the vacant rooms…” he trailed off as Gedeon rolled over onto his stomach, unconsciously wrapping himself in the fluffy duvet he claimed to be too suffocating.
Shaking his head, Zion fished out a couple of wool blankets from the closet.
“I get it,” I said as I tiptoed toward the center of the bed—it’d become my spot.
As if I needed to be coddled in my sleep.
Sure, one soldier had sneaked into our central building and almost slit Gedeon’s throat, but the key word was almost.
And the training I’d put myself through over the last months had to count for something. When your days consisted of close combat sessions, group formations, battle strategy, and dirty fighting, you learned a thing or two.
Especially when one of your teachers was a sadist with a proclivity for flustering you. And then fucking you until you became a whimpering mess.
The mattress dipped under my knees and hands as I clambered onto the bed.
“After Alora and I were separated”—more like, after I’d betrayed the only friend I’d loved—“I spent nights and nights staring at her bed in our dorm.” I scooched closer to Gedeon so Zion could nestle in beside me.
“But the hole in my chest never closed up, not even years later.”
Sacrificing Alora to get the black wristband instead of taking my chances in Ilasall’s fertility testing had encased my heart in stone. All feelings had fled me the moment I’d broken my promise to her.
By forcing her to actually be screened for the ability to conceive children, I’d condemned her to becoming the property of a green-banded man.
And all he’d done was turn her into a baby machine, use her to boost his career, and climb the ranks in his chosen governmental division, one of the six: Nutriment, Labor, Health, Education, Military, or Welfare.
Not a single establishment was owned by an individual in the city.
“You’re shivering.” Zion pulled me closer, careful not to aggravate the barely aching area above my chest. Tucking the two wool blankets boasting yellow and green squares around us, he kissed my nose, and I floated in the sensation.
It was eerily similar to how it’d felt whenever Alora would take my hand when we were younger.
It’s all going to be okay. We’ll be okay, I’d told her thirteen years ago.
And another thirteen years later, nothing had turned out to be okay. I’d been kidnapped and thrust onto the threshold of a brewing civil war, and Alora had died during childbirth, her corpse probably used as fertilizer, all because of my selfishness.
Some said that forgiveness was earned, not given, but the dead couldn’t speak.
So I had two choices: either push forward with the weight of my actions strangling me or move against the current and…forgive myself.
If only I knew what it meant.
I stroked Zion’s pectoral, right above the dangling bit of metal Dorrian had…inserted. “What’s it like to forgive?”
Zion caught my wrist, giving it a peck. “What do you mean?”
“I—” I swallowed. “I understand Alora’s death is my fault.” Before he could say anything, I rushed out, “No, please, let me speak.”
Except words refused to come to me.
Thud, the surge of my heart struck my ribs, like a soul knocking on the gates of the living realm.
Thump, the thunder of my pulse cracked the barrier.
Boom, the explosion rattled my bones, and someone from the other side shook me.
One, two, three, my heartbeats marked the passing time, and the understanding gradually dawned on me.
“I don’t know why, but I think Alora would want me to let go.
There has to be a reason why she remained quiet throughout her life and didn’t inform anyone about my actions.
I just… I don’t know how I feel about letting it go.
” I traced the discoloration on Zion’s forearm—the burn scars from the punishment Gedeon had wrongly judged to be fit.
“But I think you already did.” Looking up at him, I asked, “How did you forgive Gedeon?”
He stayed quiet for a while, long enough for me to debate whether he’d fallen asleep.
“It wasn’t a choice,” he said at last. “I didn’t wake up one day and decide to do it.
After my family was slaughtered, I had few options.
Live in the wild, move to another compound, or help rebuild this one.
This was my home, so I stayed. Yes, I was messed up, constantly spiraled out of control, but Gedeon would always drag me back home from a brawl in some corner bar, throw me in the bathroom to sober up, and deal with the consequences himself. ”
Staring at the ceiling for a long while, he spoke again. “I don’t know when, but I started spending time in our underground. And over time, things changed. I stopped feeling so angry,” Zion said. “So no, I don’t blame him for his past actions. We all did some messed-up shit.”
Gedeon grumbled in his sleep, his knee kicking the backs of my legs, and I stuffed my face into a pillow to muffle a snicker. If he was awake, he would’ve jumped to check if I was okay, uninjured.
Turning my head, I peeked at Zion. “Thank you.”
The first rays of budding dawn deepened the blue in his eyes. “For what?”
“For sharing.” I brushed the line of his jaw, the day’s stubble pricking my fingertips. “For being here, and not…away.”
He tightened his hold on me. “I’m not going anywhere.” Glancing over my shoulder at Gedeon, Zion added, “He won’t either.”
“I think I’m beginning to believe that,” I admitted. The minuscule piece of metal glinted on Zion’s chest, and curiosity got the better of me. Again. “Do you think he’ll like what we did?”
Zion grinned. “If he doesn’t, he’ll just fuck the audacity out of us.”