“Where…” I trailed off right as he sucked in the blue lump, and the last-in-existence colorful bit vanished. “Did you just eat my candy?”
“No.”
I took a step toward him. “Zion.”
He swiftly hid the three bare wooden sticks behind his back, as though he could turn the evidence invisible. “Yes, pretty birdie?”
“What did you do?” I hissed, huffing at Gedeon seizing my waist to restrain me.
Nobody. Ate. My. Sweets.
“No one.” Zion shuffled sideways, closer to the bonfire. With a flick of his wrist, he fed the three sticks to the flames. “Yet.”
“I didn’t askwho— That’s not—” I mumbled as I tried to pry myself out of Gedeon’s hold by stomping on his feet and swiveling to elbow him. Unfortunately, the bastard knew my go-to moves too intimately. Giving up, I bit out, “Fine.”
Twisting us around, Gedeon positioned himself between me and Zion.
Traitor.
Shaking my head, I poked my protruding stomach. “I look more pregnant than Eislyn.” The reason my pants stayed up with only four buttons instead of six was probably because of thenumber of desserts I’d inhaled. The gallon of water I’d drunk. And the couple of bites of cotton candy I’d managed to eat before Zion had devoured all three clouds, which I was still sour about.
Zion dropped to his knees before me. “It’s a food baby.” He caught my hips, his smile so reverent it bordered on terrifying.
“What are you?—”
He buried his teeth below my navel.
I jumped, pushing at his head to get him off me before the slight ache had a chance to grow into actual pain.
“What?” He kissed the spot he’d nibbled on. “I wanted a taste. Everything we ate today was delicious, so the baby should be too.”
I lacked the words to form a response as he stood up, his form rippling from his graceful movements.
“You should know that this will not absolve you of your sins.” Gedeon seized Zion’s waistband, pulling him away from me. “You have ten minutes to go get whatever you have stolen from Aria, and not a second more.” Gedeon jerked his chin at the tables on the far side of the square. “Meet us at the car.”
Walking backward, Zion agreed, “Okay,” and then added, “my strawberry.” Laughing, he rushed off before Gedeon could come after him.
The man beside me smirked at Zion prancing through the crowd. His loose pants fluttered in the wind, molding around his toned legs, and warmth spread in my chest at how easily Gedeon had fallen for Zion. How it’d changed him. Softened him. Taught him how to be more open. Lured more smiles out of him.
Zion had filled the gaps I couldn’t. And because of that, dread spooled around my bones.
I’d thought war was what I wanted.
But what if it meant losing the two people I couldn’t imagine my tomorrows without?
41
GEDEON
Bricks, concrete, and blocks of cream and brown and white and blue blurred into one long smear as we rode across Conall’s compound.
Our driver took a right turn, the thirty-seventh in total during our ride. An eerie quiet met us, not a wanderer in sight. The late night had lured their people to take refuge in the dwellings, the windows dark and glossy. Slumber ruled over its subjects with full might tonight.
A faint cry drew my attention to the flush creeping up Kali’s neck as she squirmed between me and Zion in the backseat, and I dropped the mask I had worn for the last decade.
With them, I had no use for it. They saw right through its cracked porcelain, the fractures like rivers flowing with the story of my past.
But if they thought I would not wield the power I held over them, that I would not use my reins to remind them of the repercussions for their actions, they were greatly mistaken.
