“No.” His fingers drummed on my waist. “To whatever you are thinking….” His voice dropped an octave, then two, the sound so deadly I drooled. “The answer is absolutely no.”
Never had I suspected that being refused would tighten the zipper in my jeans. But starting today, this was going to become my new favorite game: pushing Gedeon to the brink of breaking and then swallowing his disapproval.
Utter perfection.
Sprawled on our bed,Ava assured me, “We’ll be fine.” Her hands already boasted a dozen scratches, yet she again teased our kitten by dragging the felt mouse along the sheets. “Jayla has been begging me for a pet since she met Shadow, so this will give us a trial run to see if cats are for us.”
“Are you sure?” Kali popped out of the bathroom, carrying a fabric bag—ooh, I hoped she’d packed the cherry shampoo—and stuffed it into my backpack she’d commandeered for herself. Apparently, incinerating her possessions meant a crime so great that she now held the full rights to my closet. “I know it’s a lot for four days. Cleaning the litter box, the meals, playtime?—”
“As I said, don’t worry about it.” Ava tugged on the toy until Shadow leaped onto it. “If this works out, I might cave in and beg our neighbors to reserve me a kitty if their cats ever get pregnant.”
“Jace’s cat is due next week,” I pointed out while checking if the water bowl was full, the litter box fresh, and all Shadow’s favorite toys in their basket. Gedeon had bought all he could find.
“We could ask Eislyn to put in a good word for you,” Kali proposed. “I’m sure her assistant would be happy to discuss the options with you.”
Ava scratched behind Shadow’s ears. “Hmm. Anyway, I need?—”
“What are you doing?” Kali gawked at me as I rummaged in Gedeon’s backpack, unloading its contents and stuffingspecialclothing inside, fitting the fabrics around a giant jar of colorful flakes. “Gedeon has already packed. I saw him do it.”
“Do you want to know a secret?” I fastened the steel buckles. From the outside, the backpack displayed no signs of tampering. Just as I’d planned. “I’mimprovingthings.”
Ava’s snort matched Kali’s eye roll, and I bopped the latter’s nose. “See? It’s working. Now let’s go.” Throwing an arm over her shoulders, I steered us to the exit, the door as black as all the others in the hallway.
Kali dug her heels into the floor, her resistance charming. “Not before you tell me what this”—she pointed at Gedeon’s backpack I was carrying—“is about.”
Strolling backwards, I mouthed,Something fun.
32
KALI
“So this is you.” The stocky man, who Conall had introduced as Clyde, opened the door to a red-brick house in Conall’s compound. “In my opinion, you got the best one.”
My jaw fell.
The vaulted ceiling rose two stories high, with exposed rafters running across it, resembling parapets I’d seen in books depicting castles erected hundreds of years ago. Or perhaps thousands. Nobody knew anymore. The tomes I’d bought on the black market had taught me that calendars had been changed after the cities had walled up, decades before I was born.
Although the house was tiny, as Zion had described it, but compared to Ilasall’s apartments, it was huge.Endless. Mind-scramblingly vast.
With a hand on my lower back, Gedeon gently pushed me to walk deeper into the dwelling. My boots squeaked on the gleaming white wood floors.
“They’re like nature’s hooks.” Zion spun around, his head tilted back as he salivated at the wooden beams above us. “You don’t even need to install anything to hang the chains.” He sniffled. “Can we move here?”
Ignoring his theatrics, I shuffled away from Gedeon. When you hadn’t fully made peace with the person who’d shattered your trust, their touch raised more questions than answers.
“Do we get separate bedrooms?” I asked Clyde, pushing the shiny key into the lock from the inside.
Gedeon stalked toward me, eating up the dozen feet between us in three strides. “You’re not sleeping somewhere else.” His forefinger curled under my chin to prevent me from looking away. “Not now, not ever.” His thumb pulled on my bottom lip. “Am I clear?”
My fists balled up at my sides, yet I batted my eyelashes at him. “My ears are already full of your orders. Can’t accept any new ones. No space left.”
Granted, he hadn’t forced himself on me, hadn’t requested anything at all, not the slightest hint about it. He’d merely declared we were sleeping in one bed since his return. And if I fled to rest in another room, he would carry me back to mine.
All the while, Zion would happily snore in the center of the mattress, spread out like a starfish on his stomach, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings. Key word being “seemingly.” The moment Gedeon would lay me down, Zion would roll on his side and suffocate me in his hold.
And the possessive ass Gedeon was, he would stretch out beside me, eliminating any and all exit options with his bulk. I couldn’t move a toe without alerting one of them.
But they would close me in a bubble of pure safety. With them, I didn’t have to listen for any creaks of rotten floorboards, like when someone would approach my apartment in Ilasall. With them, I could ignore the voices floating in through an open window, remain deaf to their intentions. With them, I could peacefully drift off. The realization they would protect me served as the sweetest lullaby.
