Forced Bonds (The Bonds That Tie, #4)(80)

North blinks at me as though he has never seen me before. I think my arrival might have broken him a little, and he's not coping with me being here, as well as hearing about Gryphon’s injury and our separation from him.

He still has questions, because of course he does. “Are you sure that it's coming from your bond? Are you sure that it's not just you seeing a little girl?”

“She's not a little girl. She is at least my age, and I have killed people my own age a million times before. Okay, that's an exaggeration.” I feel the need to point that out before anyone freaks out about my death toll.

Nox rolls his eyes at us both. “My bond agreed. Both of them wanted her alive and with us.

That gets North's attention.

He flicks a look his way but, without even acknowledging it, Nox continues, “All of the research says that we need to do better about listening to the things living inside us. I'm listening to mine. Fallows is listening to hers. You need to accept that that bond is a part of you, and listen to it as well, brother.”

Oof.

That is a fight I do not want to get into.

I glance at Gabe, and he looks the same way that I'm feeling. Atlas steps over to us all and nods politely at North to indicate that the transporting has stopped. I think they finally figured out that my bond has arrived and anybody else they send is going to be cannon fodder.

We all take a second to breathe, our next big mistake.

There's another explosion on the other side of the Wasteland.

Screams of pain and terror fill the air, and I feel searing burns down my legs. Gryphon was close to the explosion.

The look of horror on my face tells all of my Bonded here everything they need to know. I take off at a run, disregarding my own safety entirely as the pain ripples through my legs. The shadow creatures take the lead, bounding before me as I sprint over the carnage to where the explosion was.

I reach out in my mind to him, but there’s a wall there, a blankness that I can’t get around, and the panic bubbles in my chest.

I can feel Gryphon's pain, but I also can feel him in my chest still, so I know that he is conscious and alive. I'm pissed that he's blocked me out of our mind connection, but I also understand that he is probably in a lot of pain right now and can't focus enough to speak to me.

I hope that the explosion wasn't Unser, because I think that the TacTeam professional that I had met only a few days ago would be furious to find out that he had been used against his own men in such a way.

My eyes shift to black as we move together through the Wastelands, visibility already an issue, and there's a few times that Brutus or August have to catch me as I stumble a little, but I refuse to slow down.

I don't know what was here before the Resistance turned it into this battleground, but there’s a lot of debris on the ground, rubble and charred wood, enough that it's clear that people definitely lived here before all of this chaos and death arrived.

There’s a small hill that we have to climb to get to the area that the smoke is billowing from. There are crowds of people streaming down from the top, most of them wearing Tac gear and very clearly ours, but there are some Resistance running along beside them in fear of what is happening down there.

I scan all of their faces just in case I see someone that I recognize from Gryphon’s TacTeam, but I don't see anyone or anything else that is of any use to us. We slow down a little as the crowd gets closer to us.

It's harder when they're moving like this, and I have to raise a hand just to steady myself, but I pick them off one by one, until it's only TacTeam personnel making their way down the incline. I can feel the ripple of frustration from North that I’ve been the one to take them out. I know that this will be something that is brought up later, but I also think that it's better to be safe than sorry. Especially when, in this case, sorry is a knife in the back.

North breaks away from us to start directing the men, issuing a retreat now that we’ve arrived. Nox continues up the incline and I follow him, desperate to find Gryphon. I'm terrified of what I'm going to see on the other side of this small hill. If I were with any of my other Bonded, I would be reaching out to hold his hand right now for some comfort. Instead, I reach down and place one hand on Brutus' head, a small connection to the man I have tied myself to for all eternity. I'm sure he would rather die than accept that affection.

When we get over the top of the hill, I regret having my eyes shifted as I see the damage wrought beneath us with crystal clarity. There’s bodies strewn everywhere, except instead of the clean death of a soul being ripped out of them, or the blood-soaked demise of a shadow creature, these ones are unrecognizable, in pieces around us.

Please, please tell me where you are. We're here. We've come for you. Please, just tell me where you are.

I'm desperate to hear back from Gryphon, but there is still nothing down the line from him, my words bouncing off of the barrier in his mind. There’s only the small reassurance that he is still breathing, his heart is still beating somewhere

“Let your bond out,” Nox says, his voice grave as he looks over the damage.

If anyone's gonna find him, it'll be the bond. I let my eyes slip shut and then I surrender to the dark god inside of me.

It’s not happy.





Oleander’s bond



The Damaged Dark One and I spend over an hour searching for my Bonded One.