Unbroken Bonds (The Bonds That Tie #6)(28)

As more of a reassurance to Kieran than myself, I do let the shadow pup down from behind my ear, loving on him for a moment before we step into the room with the rest of my Bonded Group.

Atlas stays close to my side as always, but the god-bond is very careful about where he's looking, never once focusing on me. I feel sort of weird about it until he finally speaks.

“I mean the Eternal no harm. If it's going to be here in the room with us, please know that and refrain from killing me before you've heard what I have to say.”

So it's a respect thing, I'm sure, even if it does sort of make me feel as though I'm diseased. But with one glance, I see the look on the Crux and the Soothsayer’s faces right now and that sort of excuses it, because I'm not sure how either of them makes a blank face look quite so aggressive, but damn, are they good at it.

The Corvus says, “We’ve already heard what you have to say. You're here because your Bonded is dead. You chose the wrong side.”

The god-bond cocks its head, and even though I should probably stay out of this, I find myself compelled to ask, “So, what's your name? What do you do, other than attempt to ruin a Gifted girl's life by controlling her and framing her for a murder she had nothing to do with?”

Its eyes dart around me again before it shrugs. “My vessel's name was Gene; you can call me that.”

I feel an itch of irritation, but it answers me before I can snap something back. “We don't cycle here often enough to have the same sort of legacies that you do. None of us are strong enough to cycle like you. Well, you lot and Pain.”

Pain.

Not very creative and easy to figure out which god-bond that is.

“So why exactly did you pick Pain? What did it offer you to be on its side?”

It stares at Atlas for a moment before it answers. “It offered me nothing. Pain found me after my Bonded was already dead. Instead of just killing me as well, it decided to use me. That's what happens to the small god-bonds when the others come out to play.”

He sounds miserable and jaded, but I’m not going to be so easy to fool. This could all just be a game to him, a way to gain even a tiny bit of our trust to use against us.

I won’t let him hurt us.

Gabe looks at me and then says, disbelief dripping from his words, “So you were just used by the pain god to get them in here? That's it? You really think that you could come and tell us that, and we’d just help you?”

The Crux turns to look at me, its eyes bright and unreadable, but my heart skips a beat in my chest all the same. When he looks at me, I feel the same way I had back when we’d first met in that perfectly put-together bathroom. Like he’s obsessed with me. Like he’s waited all eternity for us to be together again, like we’re two celestial beings in orbit, just waiting to finally collide.

He speaks, his voice a powerful and commanding sound. “You’ve come here to die. Any god-bond is a danger to my Eternal, and I won’t wait for you to become a threat before I kill you.”

I get all sorts of fluttery feelings at him calling me his Eternal.

The god-bond turns to look at me finally before it answers with a new tone to his voice, one laced with respect and deference. “You've helped me once before. I was hoping you'd remember that and help me again. If I'm wrong and I die… Well, I guess I'll just remember that for the next life.”





CHAPTER EIGHT





Oli



As we step out of the Tac Training Center together, I look back over my shoulder at the building with a sense of longing. I still haven't had the chance to really speak to North since we returned from the Wastelands, and other than the threesome with the Soothsayer, I’ve barely seen Nox as well.

I haven’t even spoken to Gryphon except for the small debrief on the morning after, and it had been more of a moment to bask in each other, not exactly a check-in.

I miss my Bonded.

I know that we're so close to the end of the fighting and our time away from each other, but I can't help the ache in my chest that comes with being away from them. I also don't envy them for the conversations they're now being forced to have with Vivian about their god-bonds.

I was expecting them to be more upset at how we had been pushed to deal with things, but the moment that his void eyes had cleared, North had immediately begun a debrief with the older man. He accepts that this is the way that things are now, and there is no use in hiding this fact from him.

I doubt we're going to be burned at the stake in this lifetime.

I’m stupid enough to say this out loud to Gabe and Atlas and both of them scowl at me.

“Do you remember that? Do you actually have memories of it, or are you talking more in a hypothetical sense right now?” Gabe asks, and I shrug.

“I remember it, just sort of in a way that I also know it's not really my memories. It's something that my bond has brought with it that I am now the holder of. Does that make sense?”

“Does any of this make sense?” Atlas says with a groan, threading his fingers through mine as he directs me back through the Sanctuary towards our house.

We had left Sage’s house this morning on foot, and I can tell that Atlas is frustrated at how slow we’re moving, especially when a group of people spill out of the dining hall and change the direction they're walking the moment they spot us coming.