Free Zeno: #8 (Luna Lodge) by Madison Stevens

over to try and read the title but stopped when he stretched. His thick muscles strained against his white t-shirt.
    He’d changed at some point. And it looked like he might have taken a shower as well.
    A deep blush spread across her face as she thought about him being naked so close to her. Something tingled deep inside.
    “Do, uh…” she said, trying to keep hold of the thoughts in her head. “Do you think Antonio will come?”
    Fear lanced through her. Her former lover was actually the least of her concerns. She leaned forward. “Will those things come?” she whispered.
    “Glycons,” Zeno said and shook his head. “Likely not. It’s one thing to have them running around on his estate, another to have them running around in town, but we can’t be too careful.”
    Ava leaned back, glad for at least the small reassurance.
    She looked over to Zeno, who was scanning the street.
    “What are they?” she asked.
    He turned his head toward her and pinned her with his honey eyes. She saw the flash of light she’d witnessed before when they were escaping. Her heart thumped as a mixture of awe and excitement swept through her.
    “A mistake,” he ground out.
    “Did you know about them?” she asked. “I’ve never seen them mentioned in news reports. I mean, there’s people who don’t like normal hybrids. You’d think they’d be yelling about Glycons all the time.”
    Zeno shook his head and looked back out to the street. She could tell that he didn’t really like talking about his people.
    “They’ve been kept from the public fairly well,” he said quietly. “Hell, they were kept from us for a long time. We really don’t know how they are made, but we do know it’s the same people who engineered us. The Horatius Group. They are an old organization that’s somehow managed to last throughout the years making hybrids, as part of some sort of plan. World domination? Who the hell knows? They aren’t just some jerks in suits trying to make a buck. That’s for sure.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “The sick thing is the Glycons were once men. They were forced to give up their humanity to be the nearly dead pawns in this cluster fuck of a game by a bunch of sick Horatius Group assholes.”
    Ava shivered and pulled the blanket a little closer. The idea that a person could create such monsters made her ill. She winced a little as she slipped her feet under the blanket. The night air nipped at her wounded foot.
    She opened her mouth to ask more questions but was surprised when Zeno stood and walked into the hotel room without a word. Was the conversation over? She sighed and leaned her head back. Getting information from him was going to be like pulling teeth.
    The door slid back open, and she was surprised to see he was carrying a bag. He stooped to the ground in front of her. A blush crept over her as he looked her in the eye.
    “Your foot,” he said.
    Ava knitted her brows together in confusion. “My what?”
    He lifted up the gauze and nodded to the blanket. “I should change the dressing.”
    Ava nodded and slipped her injured foot out. It throbbed slightly from the pressure. Or maybe she was just nervous.
    His large, warm hands caressed her skin this, the rough padding from his fingers so different from her own.
    Zeno rummaged in the bag and pulled out something in a colorful wrapper. He shoved it in her hands, still not meeting her eyes.
    “Val said you’d want this,” he said.
    She looked down at the milk chocolate bar and grinned. It was amazing just what a bit of chocolate could do to set everything right. Or at least not make it suck as much.
     
    Zeno set to work on her foot, slowly unwrapping the battered foot. He marveled at how small her foot was in his hand. He could nearly cover up the length of her foot.
    He heard the wrapped as she got into the chocolate Val had thought to grab. He could instantly smell the rich cocoa.
    “Do you want some?” she asked.
    Zeno looked up to where