Page 133 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

“Lotion.” I began untangling the mess her hair had become. She couldn’t sleep if it was knotted. Outright refused to. “It will help with the bruising.”

Clearing her throat, she grumbled something incomprehensible. “Did you turn my ass blue?”

He finished massaging the residue on her upper thighs. “Not this time.”

“What does that me?—”

I smothered her question by turning her over and licking the tip of her nose, relishing her giggle.

Gedeon pulled the fluffy duvet I’d stolen from Kali’s bedroom—she loved it too much for me not to have taken it—over us, and we sandwiched her between us.

“You’ll suffocate me,” she complained. “I can’t move.”

“You don’t need to. I have you right where I want—my bed,” I said, and she rolled her eyes.

The scent of sweat and sex wafted off their bodies, and I floated in the cloud of it. I could eat them up.

She had said people in the city believed we were cannibals.

43

GEDEON

Ishoved a pillow into my face as the light pouring out the windows grew blinding. It had to be late morning with the sun so high.

All responsibilities aside, I dreaded getting out of bed.

Last night, Kali had accepted the strikes so well, raising her ass up for more, and it had taken every shred of self-control to not push her limits, to not trample them into dust.

But she was more important than my wishes.

And the way Zion had carried out my orders with such eagerness, I had almost lost it at one point, ready to bend him over the footboard and?—

No.

I could not risk hurting him again.

That damned night haunted me. Seeing the funeral flames lick his flesh because I had told him so, because I had decided a permanent reminder would be a suitable punishment at the time, ignorant of the fact that the city had wrecked my mind into splinters and hurled them into a chasm and I was not thinking clearly, had incinerated me. I had become a carrier of the cold, repelling any warmth courageous enough to reach for me.

He had survived the night, but that was it. Survival did not equal a life.

I rolled to my side, and anxiety crept under my ribs at my fruitless search as empty bedsheets greeted me.

“Get away from me, or I will shove one of these fries up your cock,” Kali threatened, her voice muffled by Zion’s bedroom door.

I snapped my head toward it.

“Why don’t you try?” he proposed.

She yelped. “Stop slapping me and open the door. Or I will ask Gedeon to do the same to you.”

“I would love that.”

The door handle clicked, and they entered the bedroom carrying three plates brimming with golden fries and tomato sauce drizzled on top.

“You made fries for breakfast?” I asked incredulously.

“He did.” Kali elbowed a half-naked Zion, only a pair of gray sweatpants hanging low on his hips, his muscled and scarred abdomen tensing as he strolled behind her, grinning at her swaying hips with every step as she made her way toward the bed. “I figured he owed me for testing my patience.”