“What are you whispering about?” Zion popped out of the bathroom. “Is it my cock? Because then I agree, it is glorious.” Barefoot, with only a pair of low-slung jeans hugging his hips, he padded across the bedroom. His muscles stretched and contracted and?—
My jaw dropped.
A piece of metal sticking out of his right pectoral sparkled in the dim light spilling from the bedside table lamps.
“Are you checking me out?” He spread his arms wide. “Because I can do better.” Twirling around, he wiggled his ass and then spun back to face us, lowering into a half-lunge and flexing his biceps. “What about this angle?”
Kali’s giggle couldn’t dissipate the haze liquefying my brain as I stared at the tiny rod piercing Zion’s flesh. A bar with two balls at the ends poked out of his nipple.
“Oh, this.” He flicked the piercing, but not a hiss betrayed the twinge he had surely felt. “Got it last night.”
I stared. And stared.
And stared some more.
Nothing could free me from my stupor.
“Wait.” Zion rushed over to the gray dresser sitting under the window and returned with something in his hand. “See? I’ll be able to switch the bar to this in nine to twelve months.” The steel ring the size of my thumbnail had two beads on it, both of themshaped like tiny birds, so minuscule you couldn’t tell the species. “Lucia crafted this for me.”
The same woman who had forged Zion’s chains, Kali’s collar, the full-body leather sheaths Zion had ordered and I had picked up, the ones Kali had no knowledge about, and now the jewelry Zion planned on wearing.
Kali flipped the ring on his palm. “We wanted to match.”
Without a second thought, I curled his hand into a fist and pulled him close. He was not my first kiss, not by far, but his lips taught me that others’ were nothing. His mouth told me no one else would do, and his tongue spelled out that this feeling went deeper than my pride.
Only I could not find the words to say that before them both, I had nothing to hold on to. That with them at my side, I wasn’t afraid to die anymore. That even if I ended up in a pit of hell, I would survive. That thinking about them would be my salvation.
“As much as I enjoy seeing you like this”—perched on the bed, Kali waved at us—“we’re going to be late.” Bending down, she slipped on her boots. “And I need food instead of being stuffed withfluidson the rooftop.”
Zion whipped to face her. Then back to me. “Roof? Stuffing? What did I miss?”
“Nothing important.” Turning him around by his shoulders, I nudged him toward the closet. “Get dressed.”
“Nothing important, my ass,” Kali mumbled as she laced her shoes. “It’s not like yours is on the line.”
Godsdamnit, her brattiness was enticing.
Two minutes later, with her outfit complete and Zion’s knife strapped to his bicep, we descended the stairwell and marched down the streets to the main square. Step by step, the intensifying gloom trailed us, twilight right on our heels.
Yet neither us, nor our friends, could sleep. Same as the rest of our people who weren’t currently crawling through the catacombs weaving under Ilasall.
Some stayed inside, choosing to spend the last hours with their families or partners. Some roamed the streets to drive the restlessness out of their systems. And others, like us, gathered in the center of our compound to sit around bonfires.
Reds and oranges flickered in the darkness like an omen of the future, the dozen erected blazes the last ones of their kind. Starting tomorrow, kindling would be used only for funeral fires.
Responding to Jayla’s screech of delight at the sight of us, Kali dragged Zion toward our friends—our family. Both of their forms glowed from the flames dancing all around us, and warmth spread beneath my ribs at the sound of their laughter.
With Kali, I had become obsessed in an instant, at the first look of her. By how she had challenged me with her mere presence. And once in my grasp, it had been a question of weeks before I had fallen for her, hard and fast, embedding myself into each crevice of her fascinating mind.
But with Zion…
A part of me had always been his.
I had not fallen for him. I hadtumbled. Plunged right into the ocean of his bright blue eyes, never to arise again.
Not that I longed to.
63
