Tragic Bonds (The Bonds That Tie #5)(81)

“I got a message from an unknown number, and it took me a while to chase down where it came from. As soon as I did, it became pretty clear that it was your mother's final attempt at sending you a message. It was from one of your parents’ housekeeper’s phones, and it came through to the Councilman North Draven official line.”

I scowl at the screen, but my stomach clenches at this single line of text, five simple words that my mother had sent to me.

For all I know, the last words she had ever said. The words that send a chill through my blood.

The gods live among us.

”What does that even mean?” Sawyer says, and I'm reminded that while we've been open and honest about a lot of things, the gods are not one of them.

I glanced at Oli, but she's chewing on her lip, a nervous habit she’s trying to squash.

Gabe answers for us. “It’s something that Nox has been working on. We don't have any concrete answers yet.”

Sawyer nods and scratches his chin. “So it's not exactly news to you guys? I was kind of hoping this would help with the situation.”

I swallow roughly. It does and it doesn't. We already knew about the gods, this only confirms that the Resistance knows about them as well, so they’ve kind of had a head start on finding them.

Too bad we have the Draven brothers and Oli on our side where they belong.





We leave Sawyer’s tent together and head towards North and Gryphon. Neither of them had anything to say about the message, but North had asked the three of us to join them on the far end of the camp, the one that faces the Resistance camp we're here to take out.

I'm not sure if we were hoping for the element of surprise in our attack plans, but it's definitely gone now.

Oli’s quiet again, holding on to me like she’s still worried about how I am coping, but her teeth keep tugging at the edge of her lip. The fact that she's not able to suppress the nervous habit tells me a lot about what's going on in her head.

Gabe keeps shooting her looks, then his eyes dart back up at me before he realizes that he's supposed to be giving me some grace because of what's happened today, and then he looks away. It’s almost comical.

I want to scoff at him and make a joke out of it, but Oli’s silence is deafening between us, a suffocating thing that makes my skin crawl.

Gryphon's eyes shifted to black this morning.

She sends it through the mind connection to just the two of us so that no one can accidentally overhear it. She just sends those words and nothing else.

Now I think we’re all freaking out. My heart does a weird pounding in my chest, as though it skips a beat but makes up for it by working twice as hard. She sighs and adds, We were… intimate, and everything was completely normal. His eyes were already white because he was using his Gift, and after we, uhm, finished, his eyes turned black for a fraction of a second. I told him, but he said he didn’t feel different. We should’ve said something, especially after Gabe’s dragon.

Gabe’s dragon. Gryphon’s shifting eyes.

I feel the itch of irritation at myself, because my own powers have barely grown compared to anyone else's. Sure, I can shield other people now, but Gabe shifted into a mythical creature that has a mind of its own, and Gryphon hasn't found a limit yet on what he can do with the human mind or how many people he can manipulate at the same time.

It feels as though I am lagging behind everyone else.

I'd always loved my Gift growing up, being indestructible and strong enough to move a mountain if I needed to… it felt as though I was Superman himself. I spent a lot of time showing off with my friends. Joining the Draven Bonded Group and having Oleander Fallows as my Bonded has me doubting everything.

I'm pretty certain I'm the weakest link now, and that isn't a comfortable place to be.

Did you tell Nox? Isn’t this literally what he’s working on right now? Gabe sends back hesitantly.

Jesus.

She’d spent the whole morning with him too. No doubt he’ll pitch a fit about it, and then we’ll be trying to fight the Resistance with a huge rift in the Bonded Group all over again.

Oli cringes a little and shakes her head. Gryphon said nothing happened, and it felt… wrong to talk about it without him there. It’s hard to navigate Bonded shit when there’s six different people to take into account!

She chews on her lip a little more and then sighs. His face changed.

Changed? What does ‘changed’ mean? Gabe’s words come out as frantic as I feel.

For a second there, it went blank. It's hard to describe. It's the same thing that North and Nox's faces do when their bonds take over. It's like all of the humanness drains out of them, and they're a little bit more robotic, I guess. I'm not explaining this right, she says, but I nod.

I know what you mean. At the Wasteland, Nox looked like a completely different person. Your bond does that to you as well. I can tell just by looking at you, even without the eye change, because you move differently when it takes over.

Gabe nods his agreement with me.

We're getting closer to the boundary, the voices of the Tac personnel getting louder around us, so we need to wrap this up. I find myself fascinated by the very idea that Oli could change people, change her Bonded men into something else.

Something more.

No wonder Davies was so desperate to get his hands on her.