Page 42 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

“I wanted you,” he stated.

“You wanted me?” Incredulity seeped out of my question. He said it so easily, I couldn’t believe it. It was a stupid, stupid reason to give to someone.

“Yes.”

“You kidnapped me because you wanted me?” I stood up. “What is wrong with you? You say your compound is a safe place, a sanctuary, yet you act like a beast from Ilasall, taking whoever you want for yourself without any regard for another’s wishes. You have no clue about my life, my plans, my future. You simply took it all away. Who do you think you are to make this decision for me?”

“That’s five questions,” Zion pointed out as he surveyed his dinner knife in the light.

I snatched it, cutting him in the process, and his eyes widened, as if I did something astonishing.

A screech of a chair’s legs dragging on the floor grated my ears, and I swiveled to catch Gedeon stalk toward me just in time to rest the tip of the blade against his neck, preventing him from coming closer to me than a foot.

Instead of backing off, he ran his knuckles down the sides of my neck and brought my hair to fall down my front over both shoulders, leaving part of it flowing down my back. “To answer your third and fourth questions, I brought you here because I craved you. I will not deny it—I am a selfish man and do not share, so I took you for myself. You will be mine whether you realize it yet or not. For who do I think I am? I am the leader of this compound. This is my dominion. I choose the rules. I make the laws. Ensure they are followed by our people. Now that includesyou.”

“I belong to no one except myself. If you need any help getting the message into your brain, then come closer. I’m sure Zion would appreciate your blood on his knife. He seems to have a thing for it,” I sneered.

There was no way I’d be his. I’d made sure I would never be owned by anyone at the cost of the closest person in my life. I wasn’t going to let it go to waste because of a jerk who had stolen me.

“Such a fascinating mind you have.” Gedeon leaned into the knife I held against his throat. His brown skin split and a trickle of scarlet colored the blade, the rest swirling to the hollow of his throat. “I will enjoy breaking it open. For now, let’s begin with the first lesson. Accepting your fate. You will be staying here from now on.”

“If you’re going to keep me here, then know that the only thing I’m going to bring you is death.”

“I look forward to it. I am your future, after all.”

The last bits of my patience dissolved. I was going to gut someone if I didn’t get a moment of freedom, of fresh air, of quiet. I could not stand him anymore.

“Deal with him yourselves,” I said and stomped out of the room.

15

KALI

Iscooped up the no longer scalding hot water and plunged my face into my hands, rubbing my skin raw. But it couldn’t wash away the whirlpool of conflict. My life had been stolen from me because Gedeon wanted me. No further explanation. Like it was enough to appease me, and I would happily accept my new life.

Yet a prison cell was all they’d provided me with. Zion had trailed me as I’d stormed out of the dining room and steered us along the tangle of endless hallways and stairwells to the same room I’d woken up in earlier.

I’d checked the door and was surprised it wasn’t locked. It could have been for all I cared, as he remained leaning against the hallway wall like a guard dog.

So I’d ignored him completely as I’d torn off the loose, dark purple t-shirt and pants off me and lowered myself into the steaming bath that had taken way too long to fill up. It could have easily fit at minimum two people, more likely four.

Time had left its marks in the chipped porcelain and cracked marble, but someone had maintained the black-and-white bathroom as the tiles squeaked from cleanliness and hot water ran from the faucet.

I’d never experienced such luxury before. How could I? I had been marked as non-fertile, so nobody cared about citizens like me in the city.

But the last half-hour I spent soaking hadn’t cleansed the dirt Ilasall had left on me. Nor the memory of the dinner with the irksome bastards who ran this compound. And the bruises one had created on my neck and shoulder from days ago and the swollen lips another had caused after I’d fled the dinner a few hours ago.

No matter how vigorously I scrubbed myself or how many times I shampooed my hair, I couldn’t get them out of my head. Whenever I closed my eyes, two heads, one full of black messy waves and one of short golden-brown hair, popped up in my vision.

They had built a free city. No oppression, no population control, no classification of fertility. No rich or poor because of what your reproductive organs could or couldn’t do. No despicable tyrants exercising control over their subjects.

And here they seemed to care about their people. Jayla and Eislyn had appeared more than content during dinner, chatting with the men around them unreservedly. Not mentioning Sadira, who’d take a jab at both Gedeon and Zion for nothing but the sport she’d made of it.

I liked her.

“How’s the water?”

Water splashed out of the bathtub and onto the tiles as I startled.