Page 67 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

“Here you are!” Jayla waved from the foot of the stage and hurried over to us. “I got you the front table, the best seats in the house. Everyone else is already there, except Gedeon and Ryder. But they’ll pop in at the last minute because they know I won’t let them off the hook if they’re late. You look amazing, by the way.” Babbling, she led us to our table where Ezra and Sadira awaited us, both dressed in a similar fashion to us, Sadira in what resembled a pair of dark red overalls with nothing underneath, and Ezra in a matching t-shirt with multiple rips in it, revealing his toned torso to the public.

Sadira snorted at the sight of me. “Oh, this is going to be so much fun.”

“Want to bet?” Ezra traced the rim of his empty—if you didn’t count the few ice cubes melting at the bottom—glass. “Breakfast delivery to your apartment for a week if he leaps off the stage in the middle of the show.”

She clinked her glass against his, and the crimson liquid nearly sloshed over the rim. “Deal. I say he’ll suffer through the show but will carry her off immediately after.”

He? My puzzlement grew higher and higher the longer I listened to Sadira’s and Ezra’s conversation. But despite my frown, neither of them deigned to clarify who was the person they were discussing. Or what the damned show Jayla had convinced me into attending was either.

“Shut up.” Eislyn elbowed Sadira as she sat down between them, and we filled in the remaining seats around the woodentable. I didn’t have the time to voice the questions bothering me before the hanging lights went off and a singular light bulb illuminated the center of the stage.

The beating bass gradually subsided and a slower and smoother rhythm replaced it. A sensual melody weaved through the crowd like the rare snowfall in winter, the large snowflakes formed from music floating and swirling as the chatter hushed.

Jayla stepped into the light and strolled to the front of the stage like she owned the place. She spread her arms wide, her smile sparkling. “Welcome to Vice. We all know why we are here, so let’s cut to the chase. I know you all have missed our shows, as we took a break,” she paused, surveying the mood of the place, “but we had a good reason.”

Tense silence enveloped the room, and I wondered how it would taste if I cut a piece of it with my knife I’d left in my bedroom.

Her smile turned devious, her signature tell something was about to come, and I could barely stay still from anticipation.

“It’s been a long time since we had our own second-in-command join us on stage,” she announced.

The crowd went wild. I covered my ears as everyone around our table yelled, whistled, and stomped their feet as loud as they possibly could. Ryder joined us, shouting something incomprehensible, and plopped down across the table. Minutes ticked by before everyone calmed down enough for Jayla to continue her speech about tonight’s participants. I didn’t recognize a single name besides Zion.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

“Everyone here knows Zion’s…habits. And people love to watch him get on the other side of them. Enjoy the show.” Sadira raised her drink with a nod. “I know I will.”

An unexpected jolt of pain bloomed on my bare shoulder, and I almost leaped out of my seat.

Gedeon slid into a chair on my left. He looked me up and down, from the slit in my skirt, exposing my thigh, to the leather strips of my top clasped around my neck. “I should have expected Jayla to set me up.”

“Set you up?” I inspected the pink flush on my shoulder. He’d bit me. Again.

Instead of answering, he smirked.

I ignored him, not granting him a reply to what was probably supposed to be a compliment of sorts, but the presence of him sitting so close to me beckoned me to squirm in my seat.

The noise in the bar hushed, and the rogue clangs of glasses being put down on the tables died out. Zion marched onto the stage with an escort of two: a generously curvy woman clad in a pair of leather shorts hugging her wide hips and a black mesh shirt with nothing underneath, and a shirtless man with a stony face, the single light bulb above the stage accentuating the contours of his muscular physique.

Pulling a pair of scissors from the waistband of his leather skirt—had he and the woman coordinated their outfits on purpose?—the man began cutting Zion’s t-shirt from the collar to the hem.

Dim light deepened Zion’s slight frown as he scanned the bar behind us while the duo worked to remove the fabric. He spotted us, and the wrinkles on his forehead smoothed out. A lopsided smile took their place.

They tugged the scraps of his t-shirt off, revealing his scarred torso, and a need rose to sink my teeth into those sharp shoulders. Whoever had created them, they’d undoubtedly done it for this exact purpose.

As the woman bent him over the table, her full breasts swayed under her loose, transparent shirt. The man cuffed Zion’s wrists to the far end, so his upper body stretched out and his hips dug into the edge of the table. He tugged on therestrains, but they had no give, and snickers rolled over from the spectators.

Fingers curled around my wrist, and Gedeon kissed the stitches through the gauze on my palm. “Eyes on the stage.”

His order furled around me like a tether, yanking my attention to the raised platform and the show.

There was definitely something wrong with me.

The woman passed a shimmering silver handle from her right to her left hand, and multiple black thin strips, the leather matte and seemingly soft, whooshed in the air as she flicked it back and forth. Satisfied with the results, she drew a high arch in the air with the instrument and the leather landed on Zion’s bare back with a crack.

I gasped sharply. It had to have hurt.

At least a dozen whips fell, and his back flushed, its shade certainly similar, if not identical, to my cheeks. A few strikes later, the woman gave the instrument over to the deeply tanned man, who continued in a harsher manner, and bright red streaks appeared across Zion’s rippling muscles.