Page 68 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

But he didn’t ask them to stop. Not once.

A soft kiss landed on my inner wrist. “It’s called a flogger. It can be gentle.” Gedeon matched each whip with a feather-light touch of his lips. “It can hurt.” He nipped on a sensitive spot, and a prick climbed up my nerves. “It can bring you both pain and pleasure. Put you on edge. Make you crave more. Beg for it.”

The frequency of the whipping increased and so did his barely-there kisses. I had to clench my thighs to prevent a whimper from escaping.

With my legs trembling from the non-relieving tension, I somehow managed to ask, “Why did you take me?”

Warm breath trailed from my wrist to my inner elbow, and he murmured in my ear, “For years, I have grown our compound.”

Crack.

“I have killed, protected, and punished.”

Crack.

“I have sacrificed everything to get where we are.”

Crack.

“I gave and gave.”

Crack.

“And I wanted to take.”

Crack.

“Then I saw you in that clearing.”

Crack.

“You did not flinch at the sight of me.”

Crack.

“You showed no fear, worry, or trepidation.”

His hand rested on my nape, his fingers idly stroking. “Your faint smile was enough for the chains to lock me to you. And from how you stomped over to me with such ferocity, seeking to punch me square in the jaw, I instantly knew it was you who I wanted to claim.”

“Who says I wanted to be claimed?” Independence was the precise reason why I’d done what I had. Why my nightmare haunted me. How I’d earned my relative freedom in Ilasall and lost it because of them.

Blond hair swayed around the man’s stony jaw as he slowly dragged the leather along Zion’s spine. A split second later, another strike echoed.

“Because you need someone to hold you up, to follow you to the end.” Gedeon’s thumb stroked idly along the side of my neck. “Because no matter how lost you are, you keep carrying on, keep fighting. Because you need someone to free you from yourself.” He removed his palm from my nape, and the emptiness gnawed at me, tempting me to lean into him.

“I’m perfectly fine by myself,” I muttered, though my chest tightened at what now sounded like a lie.

I expected an instant arrogant remark, a smirk, something of an answer, but it was as if he hadn’t heard me. Dimness deepened his clenched jaw as he fixated on the stage where Zion’s back moved with his breaths.

“What happened between you?”

They unchained Zion, helped him get up, and conversed with him in such hushed voices I couldn’t hear them despite sitting so close to the raised platform. Once he nodded, they moved him to the chair in the center of the stage and tied his wrists to the backrest.

Gedeon finally spoke. “Something I cannot undo.”

So I wasn’t the only one with secrets. “If you could, would you go back and change it?”

“In a heartbeat.”