Tragic Bonds (The Bonds That Tie #5)(90)

I swing my tail out again. This time, the very end of it clips the man with the shield, but he’s quick to twist his body, protecting himself from the spear as he falls to the ground with a grunt.

The untouched woman runs to one of the tents that is still on fire, yanking out one of the construction poles and hefting it onto her shoulder and hand as if it’s a spear of her own. She's faster than I'm expecting, and when she launches the pole into the air towards me, I am barely able to move out of its path before it skewers me.

I'm a much bigger target down here, and though I want to stay on the ground and continue to fight in close quarters, I am most useful to them in the air, that way my Bonded won't have to continue healing the damage done to me.

I need to take flight again, burn hundreds of them at a time.

I don't want to run away from these two though, I’m not one to leave a job half done.

They're not expecting me to be as agile as I am, and with a swipe of one of my clawed talons, I'm able to pin the man down, the satisfying crunch of his spine as it breaks beneath me sending a shiver across my wingspan. I press down even further, just to be sure he’s gone, and the way that his body bursts is both fatal and satisfying.

The woman turns to run to another tent to grab another pole, desperation making her movements jerky, but I use my wings to glide as I jump up, my neck stretching out as I catch her in my jaws and bite down. Her screams are ear-splitting as my mouth fills with her blood.

I don't enjoy the taste of human flesh, but I don't stop chewing until I'm sure she's dead. Then I spit her back out onto the ground, nothing more than a bloodied mass of flesh and broken bones, and I stretch my wings out to take back to the air without a second thought.





Chapter Twenty-Eight





Oli



The moment the fighting starts around us, Kieran disappears to sound the alarm to the TacTeams in place for backup. They were close to moving out anyway, but as the waves of Resistance begin to arrive, we need all of the help we can get.

North and Nox move to flank our small group, their shadow creatures thick in the air, and Gryphon’s eyes shift to white as he throws his Gift into the mix, hacking into the brains of the Gifted around us to shut down their Gifts as he renders them nothing more than mindless, quick meals for the Dravens’ creatures.

Gabe’s dragon is quick to move off, and Atlas stays at my side, watching my every move obsessively as I lose myself in the Soul Rending. I become nothing more than a machine, filtering the souls of our enemies into power for my Bonded. I take from them and give it to my most beloved until they’re all terrifyingly powerful, indestructible gods.

The Resistance were prepared for that though.

Their strategy is easy to read. Each wave of Gifted they throw at us is stronger than the last as they attempt to chip away at us little by little, weakening us so that when Davies finally arrives, there’s no way we could possibly beat him.

The human part of me is worried that it’s working.

The god is too busy devouring the glut of lifeforce and power that we’re destroying around us to be worried about something so trivial as strategy and warfare. No, it’s writhing with joy in there, unrestrained and consuming everything around us to its heart’s content, because there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to protect my Bonded.

Nothing.

Instead of taking over completely, my bond just shifts into my mind so that we’re working together, my eyes shifting to black and helping me to see through the carnage.

The Resistance just keep on coming.

I let North and Nox work their way through the ones who arrive in the waves, and I focus on emptying out the rest of the camp. Tent by tent, I work through them all, but I’m also thankful when Gabe is able to wipe out rows and rows of the tents himself from the air.

I’m relieved to see that the TacTeams had already emptied out the prisoners’ tents, the Transporters heading straight there to get our people out before they became casualties of the fighting. Now I only have to differentiate between the TacTeams and the Resistance when I sweep the area with my Gift.

Gabe is good at picking out the rows of tents that have Resistance hiding in them, those too terrified by the Draven Bonded Group to come out and fight for themselves. Whether they know that Lydia is dead or not is irrelevant. A lot of them have no experience fighting, and their loyalty to the cause doesn't stretch as far as coming out to face the shadow creatures or a fire-breathing dragon.

Little do they know, I don't need to be able to see them to kill them.

Any worries that I had about my bond still needing rest melt away as the souls slowly filter through my body and into my Bonded as pure power. Gryphon's eyes shine brighter and brighter, still the same white color of his Gift, but he doesn't hesitate to use what he has access to, shutting down the minds of those around us even as he is directing his TacTeams.

Bodies are littered around us everywhere, but it’s mostly the enemy as they are shredded to pieces by the shadow creatures. The ground around us is churned up, a sea of blood and flesh and charred remains, thanks to Kieran transporting Sage and Gray in to fight on our perimeter as well.

It still might not be enough.

Nox and North both have their void eyes on as they live up to their titles as Death Dealers. Their bonds have not had to take over, content to sit back and watch as their vessels do what they have been trained to do. For a moment, I think that Atlas is set on just guarding me and watching what is going on around us.