Forced Bonds (The Bonds That Tie, #4)(22)

The height difference between us means that I can stand over her and really stare her down, but there’s a fire behind her eyes as she glares back up in return that says I'm pretty close to waking her bond up anyway, which is the entire point of this endeavor. “I don't need anything from you. I need your bond.”

She huffs with the same ferocity as a toddler, and I'm surprised that she doesn't just stamp her foot in a full tantrum. “I can do anything that my bond can do, and I think it's more of a risk to have my bond out right now than it’s worth. We're not being attacked. We're not in danger. There are no warning signs of the Resistance lying in wait. There's no reason for it to be at the surface.”

She just keeps repeating that, as though she will somehow be able to talk sense into me. “This isn't about me wanting something from your bond, this is about the work that I need to do, and I would rather have your bond here for it than you.”

There's a small shocked silence and then she makes a sputtering noise of outrage, glancing over at Gryph as though she’s asking him to intervene. She’s been so adamant about ‘dealing’ with me on her own lately that it feels like a win.

She’s very obviously whining about me directly to him, but his face gives nothing away, which is a tell of its own, and he holds out an arm to beckon her over into his arms.

This is getting old; you need to grow the fuck up.

Rahab snaps at Gryph’s ankles and he shoots me a look, which I ignore. Either they accept my attempts at civility or they deal with me treating their Bonded the way she deserves.

That’s all I have to offer.

He simpers away to her, “He needs quiet to work with the shadows for a while. Of course he can’t just say this to you, that would be the reasonable thing to do. Instead, he’s baiting you. Let’s go eat something for lunch and leave him to work.”

I turn my back on them and walk away, done with having pointless and fucking stupid conversations. There’s an itch that works its way down my spine that isn’t exactly mine.

My bond wants hers.

The Bond, of course, that’ll never change, but it also just wants to see it. To know that it’s still in there, that it still belongs to it, and that they’re here on this earthly plane together.

I want to take a knife to my skin to hack away until I can get the being living inside of me out, to carve any link to that girl out of me so that she can never wield her manipulation and sadistic plans against me. I have lived with this other being inside of me in relative harmony my entire life, but the moment she had been dragged back to Draven, it started. The war waged beneath my own skin.

I loathe her for it.

More than I already did.

I walk over to a fallen tree and sit down on the rough trunk, rolling my shoulders back as I let my eyes slip shut. I reach out to each of my shadows and check in with them, seeing through their eyes and taking in the full perimeter of the small community we’re monitoring. Procel is inside the house with Mephis, both of them trawling through paperwork and anything else they might come across that could help us with this extraction.

They’re both safe and somewhere that they’re not going to be spotted, so I leave them and move on, one by one, until I’ve been through the entire town. I hear a lot of damning things, a lot of pro-Resistance chatter. This community thinks they’re safe here, and I’m thankful for all of the training I’ve done to sharpen my memory.

I’ll never forget the Gifted or the evil they’re talking about.

When I’ve gone through each of my creatures, I go through them again.

And then once more, just to be sure.

When I come back into myself, darkness has fallen around me. My muscles are all stiff and sore, my fingers are numb and a little blue in the cold night air, and my stomach is growling viciously.

I’ve been in the shadows for hours without noticing.

There’s a small, wrapped bundle sitting next to me on the tree, simple rations that I inhale without much thought and barely taste any of it. There’s not really enough there to fill me up, just ease away the edge of my ravenous hunger instead. Rahab is still sitting at my feet, his void eyes watching out over the trees protectively as he stands guard.

The girl must have brought me the food.

The shadows aren’t usually combative against North, Gryph, or Gabe, thanks to the years of trust I’ve built with them, but the recent issues I’ve been having with them all have meant that they’ve been more reactive, even to them.

Never with the girl though.

It’s just another thing I loathe about her.

When I stand up, my body cracking and stiff at the action, I make my way over to the small camp that Gryph has put together. It’s standard procedure to have the small camouflage tent set up on the ground and two more of my shadows keeping watch a few feet away. There’s silence inside, but they’re both awake. They’ll be communicating through the mind link they share, partially so they don’t disturb my work, but also so that we remain undetected out here.

I don’t want to sleep in the tent.

I’ll speak to Gryph and then take up watch for the night. There’s plenty of trees I can lean against and with my shadows out, I could sleep there without being any risk to us at all. Gryph’s Gift would also wake him if someone got close enough for him to hear their thoughts and… the girl's bond has always been good about keeping her alive. I’m sure it’ll wake her if needed.