As he dropped down behind me, his thighs came to rest on either side of mine. Burying his nose in my hair, he deeply inhaled, and his chest rumbled with approval. The scent of the cherry shampoo probably still lingered in my strands from yesterday’s wash.
I couldn’t stop myself from grousing. “Your head is not right today.”
“It was never to begin with.” He licked the shell of my ear, from the lobe to the cartilage at the top.
I shuddered at the contact,feelinghis grin widen at my reaction.
“Ooh, are those what I think they are?” Tearing himself off me, Zion lunged for the finished wreaths gracing the center of the blanket.
Before Tarri or Amari could intervene, he’d already managed to grab three. A second later, one sat on his head, the combination of twigs and flowers as wild as the man himself, another on mine. The way he stuck his tongue out while adjusting my wreath lured my smile out.
“Here.” Content with the final result, he kissed the tip of my nose. “My perfect birdie.”
Imelted.
Yes, he might have been what others called deranged, a tad broken, okay, irreparably, and he kind of got off on torturing people, not adding in his fascination with blood, or how he called it, the life essence, but he was also good.
To me. And Gedeon.
The others, not so much. But who cared about them? They deserved the long-overdue punishment.
“What’s the third one for?” Ava pointed to the circle of daffodils Zion was fiddling with.
Focused on his work, he stuck extra flowers in any gaps he could find, overloading the frame in petals. Slowly, oh-so-slowly, as if he could taste each sound coming out of his mouth, he revealed, “Gedeon.”
My eyebrows furrowed. “What?—”
“Watch.” He leaped to his feet and sprinted across the field, toward a familiar shape approaching our group.
Dressed in black as usual, Gedeon paused ten yards from us, his hand raised to stop Zion from coming closer. “What do you think you are doing?”
Zion prowled right up to him. “Decorating.”
“No.” Gedeon leaned back as Zion tried to crown him. “That is not a decoration. It’s atorture device.”
Zion pouted. “But it would make you so beautiful.”
Launching one attempt after another to place the wreath on Gedeon, Zion danced around him, spinning on his heels, twirling around, ducking to avoid Gedeon’s swats and cackling like a maniac.
Their choreography was a testament to grace and coordination. Years of training turned their battle into a show, not one of them backing off, yet also not ending the fight.
Offense, defense, a turn, a twist, a grunt, a laugh—a mesmerizing flow of two people who’d found each other at last but couldn’t come to terms with it. Couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t spend a moment without checking if it was true.
Gedeon backed a step, a second, a third, all the while Zion stalked him, closing the distance between them.
“What if I say please?” Zion raised the wreath in hopes of setting it on Gedeon’s head. “A nice, very nice please?”
Gedeon dashed aside. “Then you will pay for it.”
Laughing, Zion chased Gedeon like a kid after a gummy worm we so rarely got to enjoy at schools in Ilasall.
The cotton-like clouds parted, and golden streaks of sunshine incinerated the heaviness ordinarily trailing Gedeon. He was failing to contain a smile.
My ribs contracted so harshly theyached. I didn’t know it was possible to feel so much, but I did.
I stuck my palms between my thighs to hide the tremors. How could having Gedeon back feel so good and so bad?
The three of us used to spend mornings together and fall asleep in cuddles each night. Giggles would burst out of me from how Gedeon would doze off and unconsciously reach for Zion. How he would pretend it was an accident, that he’d mistaken Zion for me in the dark.
