Page 104 of Cold-Blooded Creatures
He was giving me a chance to do whatever I wanted.
I launched, biting, licking, and nibbling his lips, devouring his mouth as if it was my last meal in this world. Coffee mixed with the flavor of him swirled on my tongue as I sucked on his. He tasted like both heaven and hell from the tales I’d read. I could happily drown in that sea they’d taken me to if dying by water filling your lungs felt like this.
Running out of air, I pushed him away. “Was that satisfactory enough?”
Gedeon shifted in his seat, smirking—full of himself. An ordinary morning occurrence by now: breakfast, Gedeon’s smugness, and then Zion’s lunacy. Only today, the second and the third steps had switched places.
“You’re most delectable.” Zion licked a path up the shell of my ear.
Goosebumps broke out down my arms as I shuddered.
He truly was as mad as they got.
Yet his eccentricity mixed with affection had a certain…appeal. One I dreamed about some nights. Couldn’t get out of my head in the mornings. Impatiently waited for it to pop up.
“We had a deal.” I grabbed my coffee from the table to have something in my itching hands. It didn’t help. It wasn’t the cup they called for, but I barked at them to shove it.
I finished the last bit of the drink so good I could bathe in it, and my sadness must’ve been visible because Gedeon picked up my empty cup and rose from his seat. “I’ll make you another,” he said as he turned on the silver kettle sitting on the counter.
“Talk,” I told Zion, imbuing my command with the authority Gedeon often exercised. It was worth a try.
He clasped the legs of my chair and twisted me toward him, grimacing from how his stitches probably stretched out. The screech of wood scraping on the white with gray veins tiles earned us one of the disapproving looks from Gedeon’s arsenal, and I hid my stupid giggle in a pretend cough.
“When I was a kid, I wanted a pet, like my sister.” Zion’s voice took a quiet note, but he quickly rid himself off of it. “She was obsessed with birds and begged for one. One day, my parents conceded. They brought home a small, rusted cage with the tiniest bird inside. My sister was two years younger than me, so I helped her take care of it. Mostly she wanted to release it out of its cage and follow it exploring our rooms. Something about it hopping around and fluttering its wings made her happy. But every time, after a few hours of freedom, it returned to its cage. We’d never had to chase it; it always came back itself. You acted similarly in the forest. Always fled back to Ilasall.”
“So I’m your pet bird?” Birds chirped and sang, were feathery and soft, the opposite of rough, unpolished, and bad-mouthed. They were beasts soaring the wild skies, not captives locked in cages. And survived on picking up worms, not making bargains. Transactions didn’t exist in their short lives.
“Kind of.” He snatched the new cup of coffee Gedeon had extended toward me. “Want a sip?”
“Oh, for gods’ sake.” I pushed away from the table. I’d call him deranged, but a thank you was not the reaction I’d be going for. “I’m going to work.”
Gedeon halted, mid-sitting down. “You are going towork?”
“That’s what I said.” I snatched my cup from Zion, spilling half the coffee in the process, downed what had remained, and shoved the porcelain back into his now wet hands. “Here. I have nothing to do and it’s been driving me crazy. I talked to Jayla, and she said a spot had opened up at Vice. I took it.”
“I’ll come with you.” Rising from his seat too fast, Zion winced.
“No, you won’t. I don’t need you ripping your stitches open. I’ll be perfectly safe there.”
“He is coming with you,” Gedeon said. I opened my mouth to object, but he shook his head. “I won’t hear it. The soldier carried orders to eliminate you, and I will not have you walking around without protection when you have no knowledge about how to fight a trained soldier. Zion can take care of himself. He has done it with his bones broken. I have to finish sorting out the mess that broke out last night in the training rings, so he will go with you. Or you are missing your first day at work and coming with me. Choose.”
“You’re a control freak, you know.”
Zion snorted. “Oh, he knows. It’s his most treasured quality.”
Gedeon arched an eyebrow. “What will it be?”
I counted to three to calm my flaring nostrils. “Fine. He can follow me around like a guard dog.”
“See? We can agree on things.” Gedeon left a kiss on my forehead, one from his other unending arsenal, and chuckled as I rubbed the spot. As if he was aware each time he did that, I floated for the split second his lips lingered on me.
“We can agree I need to kick your ass,” I mumbled.
“Tell me a day and time, and I’ll help,” Zion drawled, as we moved toward the kitchen’s exit.
“What if I make it up to you?” Gedeon asked.
I slowed down to ensure Zion’s stitches didn’t tear from walking too fast. “How?”
