Page 84 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

Gedeon and Zion observed me with careful expressions, and I couldn’t stop smiling at them, their faces foggy and blurry, so beautiful, beautiful,beautiful.

Zion knelt in front of me. “Pretty birdie?” He took my bloody hands in his own, equally crimson, and scarlet, and red, so many shades of red, bright and deep, and screaming dead, like the guard—dead.

So dead I could dance from happiness.

The realization cleared me up.

He was dead.

Actually dead.

“I’m fine,” I assured them, and rolled my eyes at Gedeon frowning at me. Wavering a bit, I stood up and surveyed the remains of that revolting guard. “It’s just…this”—I waved at the mess I’d made—“was kind of satisfying. And it made me wonder if there’s something wrong with me.” There probably was.

Zion cleaned up my knife on his jeans and passed it back to me. “Not in the slightest.”

I could pretend it was the truth. At least for today.

“So, when do I get the tattoo?”

Gedeon chuckled.

I wanted to punch that amusement off his jaw.

28

GEDEON

The slick eyeball slipped from my grip and rolled down the ebony desk in my study, leaving a mucus trail. Lunging out of my seat, I snatched it before it could hit the floor and impaled it on the tip of a serrated knife I usually carved bones with. Right around the pupil, speckles of green lined the edge of the iris, but its shade was repulsing, not the green blaze, the flaming forest fire of my little death.

She had gone off the rails a week ago, and honestly, I was impressed at how many times she had stabbed that guard. Usually, a person would be completely drained of energy and motivation to continue after a few knife thrusts, as it required more effort than you would think. But the way she had ferociously pierced his flesh again and again made my chest expand with pride.

Her tattoo celebration was scheduled for a little over a month from now, and then she would be officially marked as mine. She might pretend I had asked for her body alone, but she was going to belong to me completely and utterly, her heart, mind, and soul. I was making sure of it. Whether she realized it or not. Because her body was not enough for me.

A dull bang rang out as my door hit the wall and Zion barged in. “What the fuck is an eyeless man doing in my basement? Eislyn said he’d managed to climb out and terrified our kitchen staff. I had to get Eli to help me take him back and cuff him on the table.”

“I wanted to see if it was possible to carve out a person’s eyes.” I scraped the eyeball off my knife and into a jar to join its brother. The experiment had failed. Eyes were too mushy and small of a body part to brand them with my name. “He’s the guard from the gates who ogled at her ass when I carried her out of the city. You can play with him now. I’m done.”

“Ugh, half the fun is gone when he can’t see. He keeps begging without me doing anything.” He pouted his lips. “And I want him beggingbecauseof me.”

I picked a tissue out of a box to clean up my desk from the slimy mucus that the slippery eyeball had left on the ebony surface. “Give him to your catch-and-play team to practice, then. I heard you approved a newcomer. You and Ava can give Amari a lesson or two.”

“Wait. You had to go back to the city that night to get him. Where did you keep him this entire time?” Zion gripped the top of the door frame. His muscles tensed and his t-shirt lifted to reveal a slit of sandy skin above his well-worn jeans, one of the three pairs he continued wearing for the last who-knew-how-many years.

I resumed cleaning my desk. “I had tied him to a tree not far from here. I considered about playing a treasure hunt game with her, but I figured she needed a break, and I ran out of patience in making sure he stayed alive.”

“Got it. I’ll give him over to Ava. Half of the latest group of newcomers in training haven’t played with anyone so far. Time to change that.” Releasing the door frame, he tugged his t-shirt down. “Six o’clock. We’ll be waiting at the central square. Andbring that knife.” He pointed to the blade I was polishing with the fresh tissue and strode out of my study without closing the door.

As always.

A crowd swallowedme as I moved along the streets, everyone ordered to gather in the main square. I greeted the passing acquaintances or paused to exchange a few words with those brave enough to introduce themselves to me, yet I mostly kept to myself, as my thoughts would not cease spinning.

With all of us, the three compounds, cut off from the cities without the ability to resupply ourselves, matters were going to get difficult. So far, our resources had not been depleted. Our reserves brimmed with items we could not manufacture ourselves, such as weapon parts, and with our own capabilities to make whatever else we needed, we could last a couple of months before the loss of our supply chains would impact us drastically.

Approximately eight to ten weeks. But no more.

Add in sitting here idly with our smuggling operations on pause, and the combination grated at me. It delayed the inevitable attack we sought to launch on the cities and sent the general compound’s mood spiraling.

And now this, our own people working against us. It occurred every year or so—a group of morons deciding to come up with a foolish scheme to satisfy their greediness.