Page 21 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

“Who are you?” I wanted to yell, but a whisper left my mouth.

I was so, so tired. All I wanted was to crawl under my bedsheets, bury my head in my flat pillow, and let everything go.

A clang echoed somewhere near me. Confused, I surveyed my trembling hand.

Empty.

The knife I’d been holding had dropped to the floor.

I bolted to the door. My foot sunk into the cracked linoleum floor with the first step, my legs leaden. The second step was all it took for my knees to give out as I collapsed on all fours.

The chill from the floor seeped into my knees and palms and squashed my resistance. I slumped on my side, spending the lastthreads of my energy to roll onto my back so I could see my bedroom doorway.

Cloaked in darkness, the figure prowled toward me, step after step, closer and closer. He squatted down, and the streetlight streaming from the kitchen window illuminated his face, revealing the familiar features.

But his eyes remained hidden in the shadows, so dark I could drown in them.

And I did.

7

GEDEON

She looked so peaceful.

Her knees bent, an arm thrown over her belly, her cheek resting on the distressed linoleum floor. Loose dark waves had fallen over her angular face, and I tucked them behind her ear, revealing the bruises along her neck and shoulder I had caused.

When she had tramped over to me in the forest and landed her punches, something had clicked. Her strikes had matched my pulse, and I could not hold myself back from touching her. She had not seemed against it, either.

I could not wait to see her fighting again. I wished she would have fought me here, but I needed to get her out of the city quietly and doubted she would have gone without making a scene.

Her chest heaved in a steady rhythm, but I knew that once those forest-green eyes popped open, she would unleash the destruction she was carefully planning in her dreams. Murder was painted on the knife she had found to defend herself against me.

Admiring her passion, I indulged myself in observing her sleep for another precious minute.

I was late. I was supposed to have crossed the wall by now, but she had not come home on time. Worry had been eating a new piece of me for each minute her apartment’s door had stayed closed.

She had stopped at a bakery. I leaned down to inhale her hair, her scent as sweet as the pastries she was so fond of.

Plucking the green band out of my back pocket, I replaced the black identification marker on her wrist, scooping her up and throwing her over my shoulder. The cracked mirror hanging by the door reflected her ass propped up high in the air. Zion had been right; the curve was gorgeous. The sight of it was as alluring as the scent of her, fire and smoke, dew and crisp air.

The city streets leading down to the gates buzzed with citizens hastening after their urgencies and ignoring the passed-out woman I carried. The green sparkles from our wristbands erased any suspicions they might have had.

This city. Your ability to produce offspring should not give you the right to do whatever the hell you wished.

Yet I found pleasure in stealing her for myself. It was beyond the time I deserved to take what was rightfully owed to me.

A tanned man halted in front of me and whistled an amused note. “What did she do?” His green band glittered in the streetlights.

With his stance so weak, one kick to the back of his kneecaps would send him tumbling down where his chin would meet the top of my knee. Blood would not have time to spill from his mouth before I would snap his neck.

“I caught her running away.” My grip on the back of her thighs grew firmer to hide the waking need to extract his femur bone and use it as a bat to bash his face in. Something about using a person’s skeleton parts against them always brought me satisfaction.

I despised the green-banded people of this city. You could teach the young ones, as their thirst for understanding the world was still malleable, but the ones a few years into their service for the city were too far gone because of the greed and power they held due to their balls able to produce kids.

“Mine did that once. Now, I keep her leashed whenever I leave the house.” A predatory expression twisted his features, and he shifted his weight, his hand sliding into the front pocket of his navy uniform pants.

I nodded a thanks for the recommendation as I walked past him. He was going on the list of people I would unleash Zion on when he got restless.