Tragic Bonds (The Bonds That Tie #5)(56)

The room goes from quiet to deafeningly silent, the tension of everyone around us amping up. I feel the heat of my Bonded’s bodies at my back as they stand behind me, ready to pounce on the General as his eyebrows draw down at such a public spectacle.

“You can't tell me who goes on missions, little girl,” he snaps at me, and that same cocky grin appears back on my face, the one that helped me fake my way through TT and every other obstacle I’ve come across.

“I think you'll find that I can, and I will. It’s a hard lesson to learn for a man like you, I'm sure, but you're not in charge here.”

The General glances at Vivian, whose face is very carefully blank, before he turns on his heel and stalks down the hallway.

Vivian waits until the door swings shut behind him before he crosses his arms at me. “What did you do to that girl?”

I shrug innocently. “She took the first swing. She started the fight. All I did was end it.”

His eyes narrow at me before he nods, his eyes slowly glancing around at the room until everybody gets back to what they were doing, normalcy easing back into place around us.

He waits until we’re not the center of attention before he says, “Good job, kid. I'm sure that felt good. I've only been waiting months for you to finally put someone on their ass. I already know Gryphon will be furious that he missed it.”





Chapter Seventeen





Oli



We spend the next five hours sparring with the rest of the Tac personnel, both our own and those recruits that the General had brought with him. Not all of them are as useless as Zoey had been. When she had eventually come to, Vivian had called down somebody from the medical center to take a look at her, but she was fine, except for the bruised ego.

I go up against three other women, one of them easily twice the size of me, but manage to win against them all, which leaves me feeling pretty damn smug and thankful that all of my time working out and getting my ass handed to me by Gryphon has paid off.

The best part of the day is that I get to watch my Bonded.

None of them fight each other, at my request, which means I get to actually enjoy the sight of each of them working their way through most of the male population of the TacTeams. Exactly one woman tries to enter the sparring ring with Gabe. She is immediately yanked out by Vivian, who gives her such a stern talking to that I'm fairly certain she wishes the ground would open up and swallow her whole. I think that this is incredibly considerate of him, until Sage points out to me that Azrael is growling at my feet and my eyes have shifted black in response.

Oops.

In my defense, Gabe is wearing a standard issue TacTeam tank top, but the arm holes have been cut open wider, and there’s an obscene amount of his skin on show right now. He's hotter than any man has any right to be. The idea of him rolling around on these mats with anyone who isn't me is upsetting. The idea that it could be a woman, one who might enjoy it just a little too much? Absolutely intolerable.

I don’t need my bond to chime in to tell me that it’s out of the question.

Sure enough, watching them gets me amped up, but the thing that really gets me going is watching Nox.

Even Atlas, who is sitting at my side with a bottle of water while he takes a breather after his own conquests, can't help but be impressed at my Death Dealer, my most damaged Bond, as he obliterates any man brave, or stupid, enough to go up against him.

He is fucking brutal.

There's no arguing that. Vivian, who trained Gryphon and both the Draven brothers and is fully aware of their abilities, insists that Nox spars against three men at once. I'd like to say that he does this because of the nightmare creatures joining in, but they don't. There isn't the slightest sign of any of his creatures except for Azrael who sits at my feet with August, both of them watching over the room with sightless void eyes.

I didn’t intend on having them out, but after Zoey's attempt at an ambush, they'd refused to be put away, both of them acting like a small barrier between my family and anyone who might approach us.

No one here would be bold enough to try.

Nox moves like a dream, though I'm sure his opponents think he's a nightmare come to life. He’s effective as he takes them down one-by-one, or sometimes three at a time. I find my mind drifting off to dirty, sexy thoughts at the sight of him.

I definitely wouldn’t mind him throwing me around like that.

He doesn't stop either, not for a break or a drink of water. Every time his opponents tap out, he stands and nods at Vivian again. Over and over and over again, until dozens of men are clutching at the sore points of their body, gasping for air as they crawl out of the sparring ring. He shows them all what it means to be the pinnacle of Gifted perfection, the true danger living amongst them all.

“He's kind of terrifying,” Aro says, her chin propped against her fist as she watches Nox with a small frown.

She's staring at him intently the whole time, but there's something calculating about it, like she's trying to work out how to recreate his moves and be as effective in her fighting as he is.

My bond doesn't react to it at all, and I know that she has no real interest in him beyond what she can learn from him. The way that he fights, there’s a lot that we could all learn from watching him.

“He’s kind of perfect,” I say in a dreamy voice, and Sage loses her shit laughing at me.