Tragic Bonds (The Bonds That Tie #5)(4)

My shadow creatures burst out of my chest, a mirror image of what my own father’s had done to my mother.

I am the same monster he is, but I will happily burn in hell for this.

And now I know my father died feeling the same way.





Chapter One





Oli



There's nothing that can be heard around me but the thudding of my feet against the ground and the harsh sounds of my breathing as the sobs rip out of my chest.

There are bodies littering the ground of the camp everywhere, all of them killed for the boost it gave me and mine. My bond keeps searching for more, anything that it can take to give more power to our Bonded as we run towards the danger that they're in.

They’re still in pain, still facing that unknown person who just murdered Nox.

He can’t be dead.

There are dozens of faces in the piles of bodies that I recognize from my time here, so many people who had been a part of the horror that I’d experienced, but I don’t get to feel the vindication of wiping them from the planet.

No.

All I feel is my heart pounding in my chest and the cold sweat breaking out over my skin that has nothing to do with how fast my legs are moving.

He can't be gone.

He can't be, not when I’d done everything I could to protect all of my Bonded. Not when I’d finally accepted them all into my heart and decided to use my horrifying Gifts to keep them all safe, to make peace with the vicious god inside my mind if it meant they’d all survive the Resistance. Not when I have the ability to give them unlimited power. Not when I've done everything I can to find a bridge between Nox and I, and fine, I definitely haven't done that yet, but I feel like I'd finally gotten a foundation put in place.

Something for us to build on.

I can feel Gryphon’s pain coming through the Bond still. The physical is still there, of course, but now all I can feel is the anguish in him, having just watched his best friend die, sacrificing himself to ensure his brother's safety. Whoever is there causing them this pain… I’m going to deal with them myself. I don't care what it takes. I don't care if I have to stand in front of Silas Davies myself. I’m going to tear the other person to shreds with my bare fucking hands, if that’s what it takes.

The closer to the tents I get, the more that I feel my bond reaching out. The net gets wider as it looks for more souls to consume to do what we need to do, stretching and stretching and stretching. It desperately wants to sacrifice the TacTeam personnel, to take their souls and as much power as they have to win the fight, but I cannot let us become that monster either.

As I get closer to the tents, I finally see the first of North’s shadow creatures, the perimeter that he had set around them to keep them safe from anyone approaching. The creatures all ignore me entirely, not even glancing my way as I move around them towards my Bonded. I start to feel the pain then myself, the pain no longer being through that connection to my Bonded but something that is in my own head, my muscles contracting and coming alive as though I'm being hit with thousands of volts of electricity, my brain wanting to shut down but my bond pushing me forward.

No matter how I cast out my ability, I can’t feel who is in that room. I push and I push, but I can't feel anything about the person. Nothing.

My eyes drop down onto the body of my Bonded, soulless and empty and dead.

I want to lie down next to him and die as well.

The pain stops. I feel it at the same time as I feel the Transporter pop back out of existence. Silas Davies, his Bonded, Lydia, and the person responsible for all of this leaving with him. There's a wave of nausea that runs through my head, a moment of discomfort at suddenly no longer feeling the intense pain that had been radiating through me.

From the corner of my eye, I see North go down to his knees, catching himself on the dirt with both of his hands as he looks over at his brother's body, tears streaming down his face. It takes four footsteps to reach them both, and then I find myself on my knees as well, staring down into Nox’s sightless eyes as he stares unknowingly back at his brother, the last sight he’d had before his soul was torn from him.

We need to move quickly, girl. We need to move quickly, or we're going to lose him.

I choke on my sobs. My hands come out to hover over his chest where I desperately want to throw myself down, but he never wanted me to touch him and it feels like a violation to do it now, even in his passing.

You're not listening to me. You need to listen. We need to move now.

My eyes screw shut tightly against my bond’s useless chatting in my head. Of course I'm not listening! My Bonded is dead!

Gryphon pulls himself over to Nox, kneeling at his other side and not hesitating as he pushes his hair back away from his face and neck, checking his pulse as though there is some form of hope that we're not both staring at a corpse right now. I don't feel the same way.

I can feel just how empty he is right now, the gaping void in his chest where his soul should be and the quiet in myself where his violent and vicious energy should be.

The vessel is broken, the bond is not.

I fall back onto my ass in the dirt, mud splashing up all over myself as the sobs cleave out of my body. He was more than a vessel! Don't you dare call him that, he was more than just—

My bond cuts me off, I’m not calling the man a vessel. I'm calling his body that. Our Bonded— both of them— are right here. Fix the vessel, girl.