Page 72 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

A tormentor, the foliage rustled along the tree line.

Their responses licked me with flames of ice and fire. My betrayal and her gift. My promise and my failure. But my tainted heart glued my mouth shut, and no pleas left my tongue. Why would they? I hadn’t earned them.

And they weren’t what I craved.

Was I a terrible person to stay? To leave her behind? To let everyone suffer for only those gods knew how long simply because I’d been offered a way out? And because I wanted it?

As if my wishes were more important than getting Alora out of the life I’d forced upon her.

I curled up in a ball and begged the earth to soak up my traitorous tears. I wished to become one with the dirt, with the blades of grass poking my chin and nose, with the night’s dew hugging me like a blanket.

I wished to become one with nothingness.

24

GEDEON

“So I guess that means I’m off my breakfast delivery duty.” Ice cubes clinked against the glass as Ezra mixed whatever his drink was with a wooden cocktail stick. “He didn’t carry her away. She ran off herself.”

Zion seized his own glass, downed the remnants of his amber-colored beer, and slammed it into the table so fast and hard the glass burst. Blood speckled the ragged wooden surface and the sticky floor as he flicked his hand.

Oblivious to the sting from years of exposure, he ran the same hand through his short golden-brown hair and scarlet streaks colored his strands like war paint, a result of a battle.

“She’s not getting away.” He hurried toward the exit, and I raced after him. Someone had to have his back.

My chest tightened as we explored the streets, him shouting her name and his echoes the only response reaching us.

Grabbing his bicep, I brought his attention to the place she frequented. “The forest.”

We rushed down the outskirts of our compound, where the buildings gave way to the field of tall grass leading to our forests. Something called her to return there again and again, and I hada suspicion she had made some kind of bargain with the night sky in her mind.

She had to be at the clearing I had asked Ezra and Sadira to show her.Otherwise…I gritted my teeth.

“Pretty birdie,” Zion yelled, running in front of me and swiveling on his heel to squeeze between two trees as our feet carried us across the damp forest floor, the odor of rotting leaves drifting up our nostrils.

We slowed at the first sign of broken branches, signaling someone had carelessly marched through here. It had to be her. The tree line signaling the start of the clearing loomed before us.

“Pret—”

I clapped his shoulder. “Keep quiet. She might run again.”

Her unmoving figure lay twenty yards from us. If not for her chest rising, you would think she had given up and claimed herself as the death she was.

“Stay here,” I told him and walked to her. “Little death?” I brushed away the strands plastered to her wet cheeks, so pale, not far from transparent, as if the dew had replaced the blood flowing in her veins.

She hugged her knees, and the shimmering paths of her tears sliced at my ribs. She was battling her demons, the ones we all had. Some stalked us in reality, some haunted us in our minds. Hers were consuming her from the inside out.

Crouching down, Zion checked the pulse point on her neck. “It’s racing.”

“I told you to stay,” I gritted out, and squatted to pick her up.

“And? I’m not going to stand aside while she drowns.” He pinched her thigh, and she whimpered.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I snarled as she squirmed in my grip.

“Bringing her out of it,” he said, helping me to maneuver her. “Pain does it for some.”

“What—” She pushed at my chest. “Let me— Let me go.”