Tragic Bonds (The Bonds That Tie #5)(21)

It was as perfect as this time between just the two of us, so different, but both times perfect in my eyes.

“Listen to what I’m telling you, Oleander, and do exactly as I say. I know you can do this; you can do anything you put your mind to.”





Chapter Six





Gryphon



Falling asleep after Oli and Nox had disappeared from her room is almost impossible. When I wake up the next morning, I feel as though my head is full of air and not much else.

I lie there for a minute, looking up at the unpainted ceiling of my half-finished room as I get my shit together enough to get into the day.

There are a lot of reasons I don’t want to get moving right now.

When I’m dangerously close to being late, I head back over to Oli’s room, to the only working shower in the house, to get ready for my morning session at the Tac Training Center.

There’s an itch under my skin at my Bonded’s absence, the same one that had been there when I’d woken up in the chair and found them both gone. As badly as I want the two of them to figure out their Bond, for Nox to come to terms with the fact that they are tied together no matter his feelings on the matter, there's still a large part of me that just wants to hold her and be reassured by the steady beating of her heart.

The moment that she had saved Nox’s life by shoving his soul back into his body and taking hers with it, starting the soul-bonding process and doing what was necessary to save his life, had been the most terrifying experience of my life.

One I never want to experience again.

I’d felt the moment that her body had begun shutting down. I’d felt her heart slow to a stop and her breathing get shallower as her body no longer had the essence of life in it required to go through the mechanics of staying alive. We had all felt it, being her Bonded, but something about my ability to read her and connect with her mind had amplified the entire situation into a living nightmare for me, one I’m sure will haunt me for the rest of my life.

I take twice as long as I usually do in the shower as I try to scrub the memory away. I had barely bothered showering over the last few days while our Bonded Group had been dealing with Nox’s death and subsequent resurrection, so I’m careful about making sure I do the job right this time. My head is under the hot stream of water so I don't hear her coming until the shower door opens and Oli's body slips in beside mine.

I'm not used to her being the one to initiate, usually I'm the one demanding her time and her space and her presence, but I'm sure my longing for her had called out to her bond like a siren, something that she couldn’t ignore. As tired and worn out as she looks, I can’t feel guilty about it.

She's alive, and she's here.

“You're not gonna get all weird on me now, are you?” she says with her usual brand of sass. All I can do is stare at her with a sense of awe and marvel for a full minute.

I scoff at her and grab her, pulling her into my body until I can feel every soft and perfect inch of her against the hardness of my chest. “I’m pretty sure you promised me that you would stop running off to your own death, so I'm allowed to be as weird as I want to be.”

She scoffs right back at me and does that little wriggling, squirming thing against me that drives me insane. “There was no running involved, I will have you know. It was all very passive, lots of thinking. If I can do it lying down, I don't think it counts.”

I kind of want to shake her, but I also don't want to piss her off and have her walk out of here. So instead, I clamp my hands around her thighs and pick her up, enjoying the small squeal that lets out of her lips as she wraps her legs around my waist.

“Stop trying to die early, Bonded. Can we just have a few weeks of you not trying to die and kill us all with you? Because I had a full five minutes of knowing what life felt like without your heart beating, and I am never going to live in that world.”

She sighs as though I have made some romantic declaration to her, not just laid down the honest-to-God truth, and then buries her head into the crook of my neck. As badly as I would like to press her back into the tiles and fuck her against the wall of this shower stall, something I have already done at least a dozen times but will never be enough for me, I'm already running late for my morning sessions, and I already know who is down there waiting for me.

It’s something I need to speak to my Bonded about, but I also want to protect her from it for as long as possible because this is going to be a nightmare situation.

“I’m late,” I murmur, regret drenching my voice, and she sighs again as she unwraps her legs from around my waist, ducking her head under the water as she pulls away.

She arches her back a little until I have to use every inch of my will to not fall to my knees and eat her out as I watch the water run down her incredible body. She grins at me as though she's reading my mind and pushes forward to press a kiss on my chest.

“Maybe tonight can be your night,” she says with a saucy little wink, and I give her a quick slap on her ass as I step out of the stall and grab a towel.

“I doubt anyone is going to let tonight be my night, but I'm more than willing to share.”

She giggles at me and quickly gets back to washing herself off. I get dressed in my Tac gear, arming myself and pulling my boots on before I take the time to pull my hair back away from my face, using a hair tie to secure it.