Tragic Bonds (The Bonds That Tie #5)(60)

We can’t ignore what I’ve found any longer.

We can’t just sit around on our thumbs waiting for things to happen to us instead of taking action, no matter how cautious everyone else wants to be. Better to go in with everything we have at our disposal, and with Oleander, that’s a lot of fire power.

I carefully get out of the bed and make my way to the shower, avoiding the shadow creatures still sleeping away happily. They’ve become more docile and sleepier since my death, but the power that Oleander’s bond had sent me at the Wasteland had perked them back up. I know that it’s temporary, that getting back to wielding my own Gift will right things, but it’s still jarring to see them act like that.

The fact that they allowed North and August in here last night without a fight is telling.

When I step back out of the shower, my hair wet and Procel sitting happily by the door waiting for me, I hear it. I wait for the burn of repulsion in my throat or even the curling pressure of jealousy in my gut, but there’s nothing there. No reaction except for maybe desire to join in.

A foreign concept, if there ever were one.

The bathroom door is still open where I’d left it like that, another anomaly, and with a single step forward, I can see them both there in my bed, Oleander’s head thrown back as she bites her lip to hold in her moaning. She’s grinding herself against North’s hand where it disappears into the front of the boxers she’s stolen from one of her Bonds. My brother’s face is hidden, tucked into the crook of her neck as he gets off on the pure experience of pleasuring his Bonded.

She looks magnificent.

Her cheeks are flushed and her lips are red where she’s biting them. Her body moves on its own as she writhes uncontrollably, liquid and wanton as she climbs higher and higher. Her eyes meet mine across the room, her eyelids flaring wide as another moan ekes out from between her lips. I hold her gaze until her eyes roll back in her head as she comes, her head falling back onto North’s shoulder and her thighs clenching against his hand as though she’s trapping it against her clit.

North’s fingers fuck her through the orgasm.

He doesn’t stop pleasuring her, doesn’t falter as he ruthlessly drives her back to the edge and keeps her mindless with ecstasy. One of his shadows moves to tug the fabric of the shorts down her legs, stripping her lower half until she’s on display. I’m trapped in my own body as I watch North’s fingers plunge into her cunt, the wet sounds of her pussy echoing through the room and drawing me over to her.

She’s keening in his arms, practically weeping as he keeps going until she’s begging him for mercy, the overstimulation leaving her a twitching mess amongst my sheets.

I’m expecting him to fuck her.

I wouldn’t even get angry at him for doing it. When he finally stops and lets his fingers slide out of her, he turns his face to murmur something in her ear, brushing her hair away from her face as he coaxes soft kisses out of his Bonded. This feels more intimate than watching him fuck her, something softer and more private, but neither of them seem concerned that I’m still watching them together.

When North gets up and leaves, I finally find myself able to move again.

I can’t stop myself from going to her, from taking her by the ankles and dragging her further down the bed to eat her out, enjoying the pained moan she gives me. The taste of her cum is addicting, and I don’t stop until I’ve given her the same amount of orgasms that North had, until her legs are shaking, her hands are fisted in my sheets, and she’s mumbling prayers for mercy.

She’s a boneless mess but still, the moment I climb back onto the bed, she’s rolling over to me, a little shy as she wriggles down to fist my cock. When I settle back, more than happy for her to be touching me, she licks a stripe from the base to the tip. She’s made brave by my head lolling back on my shoulders, humming happily under her breath when I groan as she swallows me whole.

Whoever taught her that did a great fucking job.

I want to lie back and let her go, to see what it is that she wants to do to me, but I can’t help myself. I get a fistful of her hair, enjoying the sight of the silvery strands running through my fingers, and I tug her down my length a little quicker, pushing and pushing until I can feel my own release racing towards me.

I’m being rough, I already know. I can’t help it. But by the way she’s moaning and wriggling against my legs, Oleander likes it. She’s getting off on it as much as I am. When I lift my hips to hit the back of her throat as I come, she swallows reflexively, taking every last drop as I grit my teeth around my shout of pleasure.

She was fucking made for me, a gift I do not deserve.





When we arrive at the meeting room in North’s office, the space I've been using to lay out all of my research texts and compile as much as I can about the gods, North looks the calmest and most relaxed I've seen him. He’s calmer than I thought would ever be possible, considering the threats we're all still facing.

Gryphon notices it straight away as well, raising his eyebrows at him as he pours himself a cup of coffee from the small pot he insists on having. His taste in coffee is horrendous. Both North and I refuse to drink anything that isn't an espresso or a cappuccino brewed in a very particular way. Gryphon prefers the drip kind that is basically sewer water. It’s something he likes to pretend comes from our upbringing and isn't just that we have functioning tastebuds where he appears to have nothing.