Page 122 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

“Proud or not, doesn’t change the fact that I’ve betrayed the one person I truly cared about to not have a life with a green band.” My confession morphed into shards tearing apart the gashes my actions had left deep inside me. “Do you know if you’re fertile?”

“We’re not,” Gedeon said.

“How do you know for sure?” I pressed.

“Can you imagine us with kids? Raising them for war. Like we had been. Our parents foresaw that. I have no recollection of it, but somehow, they got us tested. The results came up negative.”

“Zion?” I had to erase any lingering doubts.

“He’s right. They tested us together with Conall and Damia.” Zion rubbed circles on my inner wrist. “Is that why the green and black wristbands the soldier had left on your pillow freaked you out?”

The pressure in my chest eased. I’d sentenced Alora for a reason. I wouldn’t let the price she was still paying for my freedom go to waste. “I presumed the city had figured it out. But he left both, not just the green band. I think they’re supposed to remind me that Ilasall owns me, whether I’m there or not.”

“This is where you are wrong.” Gedeon stood up and extended a hand to help me rise. “They have no claim on you. They lost it the day I saw you.”

I’d abandoned my morals to earn my relative freedom in Ilasall. To avoid becoming someone’s property. To live with a shred of independence. Yet hearing them stake their claim on me, seeing Gedeon’s ink painting my skin, enduring Zion’s grins that lured my own out… I craved to bottle the feeling. Control it. Surrender myself to their words and whims and have them yield to me in return.

And not suffer through their friends—perhaps now mine too—congratulating me with knowing smiles and wishes. “I don’t want to go back to the party. You can go and celebrate, but I’m not going to.”

Zion leaped up. “I’m not letting you slip away.” He launched toward me, and the world turned on its axis as I hit a muscled back.

He’d thrown me over his shoulder.

“Put me down!” Beating at his back, I tried to push myself off him. A sting bloomed on my butt, and my hands rushed to cover up. “Did you just smack my ass?” I glared at Gedeon.

“I told you it’s mine.” Upside down or not, his smirk was as irritating as always.

And maybe a little bit hot.

Enough to make my face heat.

Zion zoomed out of the room, wind rushing past us as he carried me up the floors. He put me down inside my bedroom, and I stumbled from a sudden rush of dizziness. Which they used to their advantage. Murmuring, “This fucking dress,” Zion tore it off while Gedeon unlaced my boots. He threw me onto the bed, and the mattress absorbed the blow as I bounced on top.

“Don’t move,” Gedeon ordered before disappearing into the bathroom.

I crawled under the sheets and rolled around so the fluffy duvet tucked me into a heavenly cocoon of coziness. It also became the perfect hiding spot for my blush as Zion undressed, revealing the muscled and toned lines of his chest, abs, and damn, even his ass was spectacular.

Utterly naked, he stalked toward me, and I pulled the cover up to my eyes to mask how my tongue hungered to explore the texture of the most recent scar on his stomach and the smaller ones scattered across his abdomen.

“Something you want?” He wiggled his hips, making his cock bounce around.

The duvet muffled my giggle. Crazy idiot.

Holding a towel, Gedeon snapped from the bathroom’s doorway, “No. She needs to rest.” When he tugged on the sheets, I clutched them tighter, burrowing myself deeper. He sighed through his nose. “Do you really want to start a fight? I thought we had established you are not going to win.”

“Fine.” I pushed two corners of the duvet from underneath me, one toward Gedeon and one toward Zion. “You can have these corners. It’s not my fault you didn’t give me bigger bedsheets.”

Zion jumped on the bed, ripped them away, and rolled onto his back, with me squealing on top of him. “I will sit you back on my cock if you don’t stop squirming.”

“I said no more fucking tonight,” Gedeon growled.

I muttered into Zion’s chest, “He’s such a controlling jerk.”

Gedeon pushed my legs apart and ran a damp cloth up my sticky thighs to clean me up. Finished, he tossed the towel on the floor and pulled the too-small duvet over us. “Nowhere to run now,” he murmured, his chest pressed to my back.

“Shut up or fuck me.” I wiggled against his groin. “Your choice.”

He grunted, gripping my hips and stilling me, much to my amusement.