Chapter 62 Gedeon
GEDEON
Scouring the closet for a clean hoodie, I ignored the unusual hush. No voices or footfalls trickled through an open window in our bedroom.
Dusk had already descended, and the timer of four hours before we set off to Ilasall had started.
Yet our scouts had reported the city functioned as normal.
Because of Ezra’s escape, undeniably aided by the traitors marinating in our ranks, Ilasall had to be aware of our approach.
As surprise had ceased being a tactic we could use to our advantage, it was all going to come down to the numbers of knives, handguns, and rifles.
Of legs and arms. Of men, women, and children.
War boasted a rule of no exceptions.
Death didn’t care how skilled or old you were.
Dressed in a pair of form-fitting sweatpants, Kali squeezed in beside me to delve deep into my shelves. I didn’t need to ask to know she was searching for one of my hoodies.
Did she own any herself? More than a few. Zion had relented and sworn he wouldn’t throw them into the closest fire.
However, her own clothes seemed to be an unacceptable option. She had never said anything, but whenever I discarded my worn hoodies, she would snatch them right out of the laundry hamper.
I had resorted to piling them on an empty shelf, away from the clean clothing. At least this way, she didn’t need to look for them.
Wriggling into my black hoodie, she glanced at me. Once. Twice.
Thrice.
I raised an eyebrow. “Something on your mind?”
Freeing her dark hair from the trap the neckline had become, she muttered the one syllable I refused to accept, “No.”
Kali was mine, same as Zion, and that included her dreams, insecurities, worries, and desires. And nothing, nothing, would prevent me from mincing her fits of self-doubt until not a dust mote remained.
Grabbing her by the front of my clothing, I yanked her close. She stumbled, gasping as she crashed into my chest, her weight a soothing presence.
“I will not tolerate secrets between us.” I locked her against me. “So let me make myself very clear. Either you speak up, or once I find out whatever you are keeping from me, I will string you up on the roof and make you come so hard the entire compound will hear your screams.”
“You wouldn’t.” Her squeak came out as the most feeble protest in history.
My lip corners tilted up. “Not only would I, but I would also make sure Zion filled you afterward too. Nothing more beautiful than our woman hanging in restraints and dripping our cum for all to see, but never to touch.”
“That’s—” she sputtered. The redness coloring her cheeks washed down her arms, and her palms seared my chest. But a challenge kindled the forest fire in her eyes, the irises containing so many hues of green they resembled nature’s flames. “Why should I tell you anything, then?”
My lips skimmed the shell of her ear. “Because you always choose the safe option.” Her hum morphed into a vibration drifting down my abdomen.
“It’s impossible for me to get tired of ripping confessions from you, but we are about to be late.
So unless you want to invite our friends for a show on the roof, you better tell me whatever it is. ”
As she mulled over my warning, her face scrunched. They had become the most effective method of convincing her to open up. Without a push, she would close off and bottle everything up.
“Fine,” she huffed, and her shoulders deflated. “You didn’t notice it, but last night, Zion and I, we left in the middle of the night.”
“And?” I quickly pulled on a fresh-out-of-the-laundry hoodie. “That’s not all, is it?”
Kali peeked at the bathroom, the absence of the shower’s pitter-patter a signal Zion had finished washing up. “Remember when I told you I got a silhouette of a blackbird tattooed?” She tapped above her chest. “To remember you by?”
The ink she had chosen to mimic the ones on my back due to a belief my supposed death was her fault. The assumption was so erroneous, I had lost it when I had learned of it.
I leaned against the closet, the wood as dark as my clothing, the hinges creaking from my weight. “Yes.”
“Well, I got another one.” She tugged the neckline of her hoodie down, exposing—
I blinked.
Under her right collarbone, a silhouette of a raven had joined the blackbird, both of the animals spreading their wings to escape the pile of feathers clinging to their talons.
Instead of boasting a mark of death, her fair skin now displayed…
Gathering saliva to moisten my suddenly dry mouth, I rasped, “Does it mean…”
On one hand, I could count the number of times the ability of speech had abandoned me, and this moment had officially claimed another finger.
“It’s for you.” She re-secured her grip on the thick fabric.
“I didn’t want to carry a reminder of how I stabbed you anymore, and as we don’t know what will happen tonight, I wanted to have something that would let me feel you and Zion close to me wherever I end up.
” Her gaze dropped to her sock-clad feet, and then bounced back to me.
“Dain had pierced his ear to state his connection with Conall, Aanya, and Nissa, and I, well, I chose this.”
She had done this for me. A permanent brand, ink you couldn’t get rid of, yet she had gone through with it. Painted herself in my color, announced to all she belonged to us. Not admitted it when pressed, no.
She had turned herself into a walking statement.
For once in my life, I was glad I was leaning against something. My own two feet failed to hold me up.
“If you don’t like it…” Kali released the neckline, and the thick cotton sprang back to its original place. “It’s okay. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
“No.” I caught the fabric, gently pulling it down to reveal the work no one but Dorrian could have done. “Don’t ever hide it.”
Gingerly, I brushed the slightly irritated patch of skin. Warmth seeped into my thumb, as if an electric current coursed along the surface of the tattoo.
Cupping her neck, my voice hoarse, I murmured, “Thank you.” And kissed her as softly as I could, mustering the last dregs of tenderness I had left in me after years of leadership.
The way she melted…
It broke my heart.
I could provide her with hot water, proper housing, well-balanced meals, all the luxuries a person could dream of, yet all she needed was a little bit of kindness.
Affection.
Resting my forehead against hers, I inhaled her exhale, her body pressed against mine acting as a barrier shielding me from reality.
“You are something else,” I breathed into her.
“What are you whispering about?” Zion popped out of the bathroom. “Is it my cock? Because then I agree, it is glorious.” Barefoot, with only a pair of low-slung jeans hugging his hips, he padded across the bedroom. His muscles stretched and contracted and—
My jaw dropped.
A piece of metal sticking out of his right pectoral sparkled in the dim light spilling from the bedside table lamps.
“Are you checking me out?” He spread his arms wide. “Because I can do better.” Twirling around, he wiggled his ass and then spun back to face us, lowering into a half-lunge and flexing his biceps. “What about this angle?”
Kali’s giggle couldn’t dissipate the haze liquefying my brain as I stared at the tiny rod piercing Zion’s flesh. A bar with two balls at the ends poked out of his nipple.
“Oh, this.” He flicked the piercing, but not a hiss betrayed the twinge he had surely felt. “Got it last night.”
I stared. And stared.
And stared some more.
Nothing could free me from my stupor.
“Wait.” Zion rushed over to the gray dresser sitting under the window and returned with something in his hand.
“See? I’ll be able to switch the bar to this in nine to twelve months.
” The steel ring the size of my thumbnail had two beads on it, both of them shaped like tiny birds, so minuscule you couldn’t tell the species. “Lucia crafted this for me.”
The same woman who had forged Zion’s chains, Kali’s collar, the full-body leather sheaths Zion had ordered and I had picked up, the ones Kali had no knowledge about, and now the jewelry Zion planned on wearing.
Kali flipped the ring on his palm. “We wanted to match.”
Without a second thought, I curled his hand into a fist and pulled him close. He was not my first kiss, not by far, but his lips taught me that others’ were nothing. His mouth told me no one else would do, and his tongue spelled out that this feeling went deeper than my pride.
Only I could not find the words to say that before them both, I had nothing to hold on to. That with them at my side, I wasn’t afraid to die anymore. That even if I ended up in a pit of hell, I would survive. That thinking about them would be my salvation.
“As much as I enjoy seeing you like this”—perched on the bed, Kali waved at us—“we’re going to be late.” Bending down, she slipped on her boots. “And I need food instead of being stuffed with fluids on the rooftop.”
Zion whipped to face her. Then back to me. “Roof? Stuffing? What did I miss?”
“Nothing important.” Turning him around by his shoulders, I nudged him toward the closet. “Get dressed.”
“Nothing important, my ass,” Kali mumbled as she laced her shoes. “It’s not like yours is on the line.”
Godsdamnit, her brattiness was enticing.
Two minutes later, with her outfit complete and Zion’s knife strapped to his bicep, we descended the stairwell and marched down the streets to the main square. Step by step, the intensifying gloom trailed us, twilight right on our heels.
Yet neither us, nor our friends, could sleep. Same as the rest of our people who weren’t currently crawling through the catacombs weaving under Ilasall.
Some stayed inside, choosing to spend the last hours with their families or partners. Some roamed the streets to drive the restlessness out of their systems. And others, like us, gathered in the center of our compound to sit around bonfires.
Reds and oranges flickered in the darkness like an omen of the future, the dozen erected blazes the last ones of their kind. Starting tomorrow, kindling would be used only for funeral fires.
Responding to Jayla’s screech of delight at the sight of us, Kali dragged Zion toward our friends—our family. Both of their forms glowed from the flames dancing all around us, and warmth spread beneath my ribs at the sound of their laughter.
With Kali, I had become obsessed in an instant, at the first look of her. By how she had challenged me with her mere presence. And once in my grasp, it had been a question of weeks before I had fallen for her, hard and fast, embedding myself into each crevice of her fascinating mind.
But with Zion…
A part of me had always been his.
I had not fallen for him. I had tumbled. Plunged right into the ocean of his bright blue eyes, never to arise again.
Not that I longed to.