“Father,” Gedeon mimicked Peter’s cadence.
Frozen to her spot, Kali released the door, and it slammed shut. Six hundred feet up, the morning light spilled through the wall-sized windows, drenching the apartment in dawn as much as the news drenched me in a cold sweat.
So that was what Sadira and Ryder had discovered about Gedeon’s origins.
I closed my hanging mouth. Gedeon was obviously aware of this, based on his unperturbed behavior.
Blinking a few times, digesting the new information, Kali whispered, “Father.”
I barely contained myself from doing the same. The Head of Ilasall was Gedeon’sfather.
Like water and oil, the son and father couldn’t have looked more different. From bits and pieces I’d collected over the years, I knew the woman who’d given birth to Gedeon had been the polar opposite of Peter: dark-skinned, curly-haired, thick-lipped, but her son… Gedeon was a mixture of his parents, stuck in between two ends of a gene stick, his jaw too similar to his father’s to deny the relation.
I twitched from the itch to send my knives flying, to see them sink into Peter’s chest.
The man had tried to assassinate his own son too many times to count over the years. He’d also sent a soldier to take out Kali, then a messenger to rape her, drag her back to Ilasall, and turn her into a pet.
Gedeon’s fingers hooked around a loop of my cargo pants, locking me beside him.
“I was wondering when we would finally get a chance to meet.” Striding away from the windows, Peter wandered over to Livana. His arm curved around her waist, his hand coming to sit too low on her belly to be considered proper and discreet—the two rules all fertile folks swore by in Ilasall. “I’m happy to see my son is not a coward and has come to join his father in restoring our city to its former glory.”
“It seems you are mistaken,” Gedeon said as his hip pressed against mine. His body heat seeped into me like a soothing essence. “Didn’t you get my message stating my intentions? I believe my brother was supposed to deliver it to you.”
Gedeon had assigned the task to Ezra. But he was a traitor, so he’d probably discarded?—
“The engraved skull of the soldier I’ve sent to take your…” Peter’s lips curled as he scrutinized Kali, from the blood soaking her locks to her soldier’s uniform. “Woman?”
“She’s not a woman,” Livana sneered. “At best, she’s a girl.” Her long crimson nails snagged on Peter’s shirt button. “Atruewoman knows her place.”
“You’ll eat your tongue for that.” I found the rubber handle of my knife sitting in its chest sheath?—
Gedeon seized my wrist before I could unleash the exquisite destruction my weapons harbored. “Remember our promise,” he said, low, so only I could hear. “He belongs to Kali.”
I vibrated with hunger, with the need to push every single pain button Livana owned. The bitch deserved totasteher derision.
Kali dabbed a finger on one of the countless cuts decorating her arms. “It’s okay, Zion.” Strolling across the apartment like she owned the space, she tapped the green-banded woman’s nose. “You’re just a doll, Livana. Nothing more than a pussy to fuck.”
Her scarlet-painted mouth dropped open. As she furiously rubbed the crimson dot soiling her unblemished skin, pride flared beneath my ribs.
My pretty birdie was magnificent.
Peter scowled, but didn’t say anything, instead tracking how Kali hopped onto the kitchen island, the dark gray veins weaving through the white counter like tendrils of poison Eislyn and Eli had poured into the city’s military’s water supply.
If you considered the number of black-banded battling the still-functioning soldiers—mechanical toys you could find joy in disassembling—we had a solid chance at victory.
“Do you really think Peter will keep you for long?” Kali picked the flakes of blood caked on her forehead, the streak reminiscent of war paint our ancestors had used to adorn themselves with. “Once you get pregnant, he’ll find someone else to wet his flaccid dick.” She flicked the particle off toward Livana. “You’re not special whileheis the Head of Ilasall. He can choose a new toy any time he knocks up his current one.”
“It’s a woman’s purpose to have children. If I have to wait until I give birth before I can return to Peter’s side”—Livana gazed at the man twice her age—“then so be it. It’s worth it.”
Observing the show with a smirk, Gedeon shifted, and something hard brushed against my hip, calling out my grin. He was more than enjoying the spectacle our woman was making of the couple leading Ilasall.
His hand slithered under my shirt at my hip. “She’s beautiful like this, isn’t she?” Gedeon murmured into my ear, the warm puff of air shooting straight to my groin.
“Yes.” I squeezed my knife to feel something else besides him so close to me. The hardwood floor rocked underneath me, and if not for Gedeon to lean on, I would’ve teetered.
The exertion of the past hours had smashed into my senses. Exhaustion combined with adrenaline and the heady rush attacking me any time Gedeon or Kali entered the room, scrambled my mind, disintegrated it into ash.
“So compliant.” Scrutinizing Livana, Kali dangled her legs off the edge of the kitchen island. “Did he beat the common sense out of you like the others are so fond of doing?” She fixed the Head of Ilasall with a look. “Because I’m starting to suspect that’s what you teach boys at school,Peter.” She spat out his name.
