Page 177 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

If Kali thought being ours meant we would ignore her discomfort, she was terribly mistaken. Zion and I were theselect few permitted to cause her pain, specifically the type that made her beg for more as her thighs quaked from the strain of clenching her muscles too hard.

“Miss me?” Zion drawled as he returned, carrying a clear plastic bottle. He climbed right over me to get to the other side of her while lightly drumming his fingers down my back and grinning widely as I tensed. His teasing was sure to get him a lesson about the consequences of poking a sleeping wolf.

Tossing aside his clothing, he settled under the covers and pressed the bottle filled with hot water low on her stomach.

“How did you know?” she asked, adjusting the bottle’s position.

“It used to help my sister,” Zion explained, and without missing a beat, kissed her nose. “Now sleep.”

She covered her mouth to muffle her giggle, her eyes darting from him to me.

I rolled her onto her back. “Something funny?”

She loosened her grip for her voice to flow through. “Aren’t the two of you going to have a goodnight kiss too?”

“Did you like the show at Vice, little death?” I brushed the underside of her breasts through her t-shirt. She must have seen us in the corner booth before she had left.

Crafty, sneaky forest nymph, using us as a distraction to escape.

A tactic I could appreciate. But one that called for another lesson using the collar we had gifted her, now curled up in my desk’s top drawer in my study. The shape of it resembled the messenger’s bruising hold on her throat too much. For now. I had full intentions of replacing it with better experiences in the future.

Her nipples hardened, poking through the thin material, and her hand dropped aside, revealing her pressed-together lips failing to hold off a smile. “Maybe.”

Who was I to say no to her?

Seizing Zion’s nape, I yanked him toward me, right above her.

But instead of giving in, he fought for control, shattering my patience as his tongue explored my mouth and fogged up my mind. He had once said she tasted like addiction, but he felt like coming home after spending your entire life in exile.

I held his neck as we separated, my thumb idly stroking the underside of his jaw covered in faint stubble as I admired the brightness in his blue eyes, the angles of his high cheekbones, the arch of his upturned nose, the curve of his smug smile.

“That was—” Kali bit her fist.

Releasing him, I propped myself up on my elbow. “Yes? Finish your sentence.”

Her cheeks flushed. “Hot.”

Zion sat up on his heels. “You know, there are more ways to decrease pain.” He hauled the fluffy duvet off us and cupped her pussy over my black sweatpants.

She slapped at him. “I’m bleeding, for gods’ sake!”

“I’ve never cared about blood.” I braced an arm beside her head. “He especially.” Feather-light, slow and soft, I kissed down her neck. “And the only god whose sake we will do anything for is you. You are fucking divine, Kali. Our own little goddess of death.” She tasted like a liquid star, like she had fallen from that night sky of hers, so sweet I could not get enough of her.

She tipped her head back on the pillow, and I brushed my lips down her throat. I was not going to hurt her, not tonight, not when she was coming back to us, fighting the memory of that despicable messenger.

“You know I enjoy blood,” Zion murmured as his hand glided into her underwear, and she half-gasped, half-sighed. Mimicking me, he swirled his tongue along my spine. “And whenit’s yours… Bleed for me.” He viciously bit down on my hip, undeniably leaving a bruise.

“Zion,” I growled in warning.

Chuckling, he licked the imprints his bite had left in my flesh.

Biting was my thing, not his. Something about sinking your teeth into the flesh of your possession writhing underneath you always caused me to unravel entirely.

“She is tonight’s priority.” I paused nuzzling her neck to glance at him. “If you can be her pretty boy for the night, I might play with you later.”

He groaned, a primal sound coming from deep inside his throat, and it took every morsel of control left in me not to jump all over him.

I was done keeping him at arm’s length. I was done surviving in solitude to lead my people without any distractions, any possessions, any cravings, so I remained focused on one goal—to keep our compounds alive, to make them thrive.