Forced Bonds (The Bonds that Tie Book 4)

“I am going to murder Nox Draven.”

The words light a fire in my gut and I have to grip the edge of the table to stop myself from flying off the handle. Atlas had let me out of Sage’s cell to come and rewatch the footage on repeat until we’re absolutely sure we’ve seen everything there is and pulled it all apart. There’s not really anything new to take from it.

Oh, except for the void eyes that Sage absolutely, without a doubt shouldn’t be rocking.

My bond presses at my mind, trying to take over and get control of my body, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that’s a terrible idea. I’m fully aware that Sawyer isn’t going to even attempt to follow through with his words and this is all just an expression of how pissed off he is, that he’s slinging shit at the most likely target, but my bond is not one to mess around with.

”I am going to—“

I cut him off before we hit the danger zone for real. ”Yeah, let’s not continue to threaten my Bonds, because there’s only so much that I can do to stop my bond from coming out and dealing with you personally.”

Sawyer glances over at me and throws his hands up in the air in frustration. “You don’t even like Nox! He’s an asshole, we all know it. We’ve all watched everything that he has done to you since you got back, so you can’t fucking deny it. He’s clearly the one who has done this, Oli!”

Gabe scratches the back of his neck like he is incredibly uncomfortable with this conversation, but Atlas crosses his arms over his chest and nods along like he agrees completely with Sawyer’s delusional assessment of the footage.

I aim for rational, because clearly the entire goddamned room needs it. “Okay, well, first, I just found out that my bond and Nox’s bond have been meeting up in the late hours of the night together. It doesn’t matter which human is wearing that casing, my bond is not going to let you take him away from her. Also, how the hell do you think he is capable of this sort of manipulation? His gift is his shadow creatures and the dread.”

Gabe groans and swipes a hand over his face like he is desperate to get out of here and doesn’t want to be found guilty by association. I, on the other hand, need to convince Sawyer not to do anything stupid before we call North and Gryphon in.

After dinner last night and everything that is already in question with Nox… he doesn’t need any more questions about his loyalty right now.

“Nox has a third gift.”

I glance over my shoulder at Kieran, glaring at him for his betrayal, but he just shrugs back.

“We’re supposed to be looking into every option possible, right? He has a third gift. North too, but we know what all three of his are. As far as I’m aware, your bonding with North has just made them stronger and hasn’t given him anything extra.”

My cheeks stupidly flush at the thought of them all discussing my sex life again, but there’s more important shit to think about. “I haven’t bonded with Nox, so unless you know for sure that the third gift is his ability to use mind control to betray his entire family, his community, everything he has ever stood for and believed in, so much so that he has chosen to fight for us all, even when he’s so disconnected from us, I think that running out of here to murder him probably isn’t the best idea.”

Gabe nods and points at me. “She’s talking sense here, folks. The rest of you are the ones who have jumped off the fucking deep end. Even if there was the slightest of chances that this was Nox, which there’s definitely not, if you walk out of here, his shadow creatures will consume you.”

Sawyer shakes his head at Gabe and takes a step towards him in an angry sort of motion, like he’s about to get in his face to argue with him a whole lot more. It’s not a threat, exactly, but my bond feels as though it is, and I find Brutus coming down from behind my ear in response to my own reaction to it.

He isn’t the docile puppy that everybody is used to seeing though.

His head reaches my chest as he takes full form, and his ears prick all the way up as his jaws open and his teeth are revealed in a snarl. He looks like the terrifying hellhound that they’re all so sure my sweet boy is, but all I can see is a protective pup who would do anything for me.

I’ve never loved him more than I do at this moment.

“Oh my God, he’s sitting here listening to us all figure it out!” Sawyer snaps as he turns on his heel and stalks back around the table to his laptop.

“Sawyer, you need to listen to Oli.”

Everybody freezes and turns towards the cell to where Sage has finally gotten out of her bed, standing at the glass with her hands pressed against it and her eyes on her brother. She still looks as though she has spent the last week sobbing herself to insanity, but there’s a determined look on her face.

“She’s not just saying this because he’s her Bond. She’s always been the first person to call him out on his bullshit, and you know it. We’ve spoken about it before! You said that you couldn’t believe that she didn’t just fall into the Bond haze like everybody else does. If she says that there’s no way that he would have done it, then there’s no way he would have done it. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t think it’s him either.”

Felix calls out from his own cell, “It would have to be a Neuro. The sort of power to get into someone’s mind, wipe any recollection of what they’re doing, and force them to take someone’s life… that’s a Neuro Gift, and it is an incredibly powerful one, at that.”

I turn and look at Atlas, who is frowning now. “Do you know of any Neuros in the Resistance whose eyes turn black?”

He lets out a deep sigh and shakes his head. “The strongest Neuro that I know of in the Resistance is Silas Davies, and his eyes turn white, just like everyone else. I don’t know anyone else with the voids. I’d heard rumors that the Dravens had void eyes, everyone has, but I didn’t really believe it until I saw it myself. I thought it was a bogeyman story told to keep Resistance kids from going to Draven. Even after I saw the footage of you in the camps, I thought you were the only one and that it had something to do with being a Render.”

I let out a slow breath of my own and nod. “Is there anything else that anyone needs to say that probably shouldn’t be heard by North or Gryphon before I call them in? Because as far as I’m concerned, this is the proof we need to get Sage out of here.”

Kieran presses one of his fists against the glass and huffs in frustration. “They’re not going to let her out. This is proof that she didn’t do it herself, which we already knew. North and Gryphon have already agreed that there’s no way that she did it, but if someone’s already gotten into her brain before, there’s a chance they’ll do it again. As much as I need her out of here, I don’t want to run the risk of her killing someone else. Beyond the fact that an innocent life would be taken, Sage can’t have any more blood on her hands like this.”

My eyes flick back to her and I see her staring down at her feet, swallowing roughly as she tries to pull herself together.

All I see there is strength.

“She can handle a lot more than you think she can.”

She glances up at me and I nod back at her. “You’ve survived this, you can survive being out of here as well. So long as we keep someone with you at all times, someone who knows what is going on and can keep an eye on you, then you should be let out of here.”

Kieran shakes his head. “It’s not that easy, Fallows—”

I cut him off. “If it is a Neuro that is outside of the Sanctuary, and they managed to get to Sage, then they could get to any of us as well. If it’s a Neuro that’s inside the Sanctuary and has managed to get past Gryphon’s security checks and lie detector… again, they could do this to anybody. On the off chance it is someone that Sage made contact with before we came to the Sanctuary… Well, that’s one out of three options. I’m willing to take the risk as long as there are precautions.”

Gabe stares at me for a second and then nods. “It’s hard to argue with that kind of logic. She’s right though, if someone is strong enough to get through the Shields to get into Sage’s brain and commit that sort of act, then we have a lot bigger problems on our hands than worrying about keeping Sage in a cell or not.”

I nod, and then I reach out to North and Gryphon through my mind connection.

I need you guys to come down to the cells at the Tac center. We’ve found it.

Gryphon replies immediately that he’s on his way, and North takes a second to get back to me. I’m still on my way back from the summit. It’ll be at least another hour.

Dammit.

Gryphon speaks to him through the communal mind link so that I hear it as well. I’ll get the information through to you as soon as I’m there. And then we can wait until you’re here to proceed with anything.

There’s a flutter in my chest for a second as I prepare myself, but there’s no turning back now. You need to bring Nox as well, and you need to prepare him for answering questions about his Gifts. I’ve already tried to talk Sawyer out of doing anything stupid, but I might need the backup.

There’s silence for a moment and then North says, I’ll bring Nox with me when I get there. None of you can handle him if things turn ugly.

“What are the chances it’s an evolutionary thing? Like we’re somehow evolving from the white eyes to the void eyes?”

Gabe turns from his seat to stare at Felix as though he has lost his mind, but the doctor-in-training doesn’t back down. “We have a Soul Render and two Death Dealers with void eyes, and the Dravens have had cases of void eyes over the last few generations, though nothing consistent. Oli, do you know if your family had any history of void eyes?”

I shake my head and try not to look as guilty or as devastated as I usually do when my family is brought up. “I don’t think so. My parents were very shocked the first time they changed color… except my mom, but that had more to do with the fact that she had been dreaming of me and my powers for years before I was born.”

That catches their attention.

“I’ve never heard of someone being psychic before, not outside of the phonies in the non-Gifted community who try to claim they can see things, but that’s all a ruse for money,” North says as he stares at the laptop some more.

As soon as North and Nox had arrived, we let Kieran, Felix, and Sage out of their cells, and now everybody is sitting around the interrogation table together as we try to figure out what the hell could be going on here. Sawyer has managed to contain his accusations and threats so far, but he is eyeing Nox like he’s plotting out where he might stab my Bond.

I do my best not to watch him, but I find my eyes continually sliding back to him, and I know it is my bond’s interference.

We don’t turn our backs on threats.

Ahh perfect, just what I need from my bond right now. There’s no real point in attempting to reason with it, but for some stupid reason, I give it a go.

Sawyer is not a threat. He won’t be a threat. Is there anything that you would like to input into today’s discussion about void eyes?

My bond’s answer is less than helpful. It’s a threat.

I snap back, irritated, Perfect! That gives me all of the information that I need right now to figure out how to get through this.

They’re a threat, girl. They’re a threat of something coming, something old that we did not want to be dealing with, but soon will have no choice.

A shiver runs down my spine. We. The collective we? As in, you and me? Or me and my Bonded?

It doesn’t answer me. Instead, it curls up in my chest and goes back to watching Sawyer obsessively, taking Nox’s safety to a whole new level of crazy.

I glance over and find Gryphon staring at me as though he’s seeing me for the first time. “You’re talking to it.”

I shrug and roll my shoulders back, uncomfortable now that I have everybody’s attention. “Yeah. I told you she’s a cantankerous, unhelpful bitch.”

He doesn’t find that amusing, he just doubles down. “You’re asking it questions though.”

Why the hell does that even matter? “Yes, well, it is an independent thing that lives inside of me and has its own thoughts and opinions and knowledge.”

Gryphon leans forward in his seat, planting one hand on the table in front of him as though he’s trying to get something through to me that I’m too dense to see for myself. “Where does it get this knowledge from? If it’s only ever lived inside of you, how does it know more than you? How does it know anything that you don’t?”

I have no answers, but my eyes flick towards North.

His jaw is tight and he looks incredibly irritated that this conversation is even happening, but he speaks for me. “They’ve been here before. Our bonds are far older than we are, and they aren’t joking when they say that they belong to each other. This isn’t their first time on this earth, or their first time being bonded to each other.”

I don’t let the shock that I feel show on my face, because I don’t want to call him out like that, so I’m very careful about sending just to him, blocking Gryphon out, I didn’t think you spoke to your bond. I didn’t think you guys got along.

He doesn’t look back my way either as he replies, After I found out that Nox’s bond was spending time with yours, I had a conversation with it to assess whether or not it was coming out and speaking to your bond as well. There have been some nights that you’ve slept in my room where I’ve woken up tired, and I wanted confirmation and to know what exactly goes on between them.

Holy shit. And what did it say?

It said that it couldn’t stay away from your bond any more than I can stay away from you. There is something going on here, Oleander, something bigger than us, bigger than our community, and bigger than the Resistance itself. We need to figure out how to get all of us through it alive and unscathed.

I swallow and glance at Nox, the only other person in this room who might have some input on our bonds, to see how he is taking all of this in, but he is just staring at his hands, stretching his fingers out and then curling them into a fist, over and over again.

Gabe groans and rubs a hand over his eyes like this day has drained his will to live. “Do you think we would know if we came across someone else with these sorts of bonds inside them? Do you think that we could tell? Or is this all just us walking around in the dark until someone comes and attacks us again? Another bond like yours, but one who’s aligned to the Resistance… What a fucking nightmare.”

“Thank God it isn’t another Death Dealer,” says Nox, finally breaking his silence. Sawyer snaps back at him, “A Neuro is just as bad.”

Nox rolls his eyes back at him, sneering, “It’s highly doubtful that a Neuro is worse than somebody who can manipulate shadow creatures to kill indiscriminately, Benson. Just because you are furious that your sister was used as the weapon, doesn’t mean that we need to be stupid about this.”

I glance over at Sage and her eyes meet mine.

She’s sandwiched between Felix and Kieran, both of them glued to her side now that they have been reunited, and there’s a little color coming back to her cheeks as she is piecing herself back together. I think the confirmation that it definitely was someone in her head was the news that she’d really needed, but also finding out that it was someone with unimaginable amounts of power has helped as well. There’s no way to fight my bond, and I’ve never seen anyone fight off North or Nox’s bonds either, so how could she have possibly fought back against a Neuro like that?

Impossible.

It was never her fault.

Nox says, “We need to go through the history books. If this isn’t the first time that they have lived together, then there has to be some records somewhere of it.”

Gryphon shrugs. “The last time someone was able to Soul Rend on this earth, they could only kill a handful of people at a time, and their eyes flashed white. When I found out what Oli could do, it was the first thing I looked up. That was all I found.”

Nox glances at North and says, “The library at the Hail Mary. There’s books there that are under lock and key. If there’s anywhere that will be able to tell us about the bonds, it’ll be there.”

I glanced around the table again, but no one has anything left to say.

“Well, I guess we’re going to the Hail Mary.”