Tragic Bonds (The Bonds that Tie Book 5)

I wake up in the darkness of the tent, feeling disoriented but content, aware that all of my Bonded are here in the space with me. It’s a rare phenomenon, thanks to Nox’s aversion to sharing my bed back at our house with everyone else, so I let myself enjoy it as I lie there with my eyes shut for a moment.

He’s sleeping closest to the tent’s opening, Procel and Mephis sleeping on top of him with their faces turned towards it as though they’re on high alert for danger. Azrael had also insisted on sleeping at the bottom of my sleeping bag, covering my feet with his wispy body as he guards me obsessively.

My chest still aches at the thought of what I might’ve lost if I hadn’t completed the soul-bonding.

I’m wedged between North and Gryphon, with Atlas and Gabe flanking the two of them. From where my face is pressed into North’s chest, I can see Gabe. He’s snoring just a little, one arm flung over his face and the other splayed out as though he’s searching for me in his sleep. Every inch of my being is content right now, none of the worries of what’s to come filtering into my mind while I’m surrounded by my Bonded.

The hot press of lips against my shoulder startles me out of my relaxed state.

I gasp and jolt a little in North’s arms, and his eyebrows furrow in his sleep, a rough groan rumbling in his chest underneath my ear. I see the white glow of Gryphon’s eyes changing light up the fabric walls of the tent as he calls on his Gift to keep North from waking fully.

A very sneaky use for it.

I carefully unwind myself from North and shift around to face Gryphon, biting back a smile when I see the lascivious grin spread over his lips. I quirk an eyebrow at him, but he just leans forward to kiss me, hot and demanding as he pushes me onto my back and covers my body with his own.

I want to push back against him, to stop him from fucking me in the middle of our Bonded Group while they’re all sleeping, but I’ve missed him and it’s caused an ache in my chest. He’s quick to reassure me.

I can keep them asleep. Come here, Bonded. Get that wet pussy on my face. I want your cum running down my chin.

It feels wrong, so wrong to wriggle out of the sleeping bag and straddle his face, my legs tucked up only inches away from North’s sleeping face, but Gryphon’s tongue is talented enough to distract me from that pretty quickly. His hands are firm on my thighs, holding me down against the assault on my most sensitive flesh as he drives me over the edge and covers himself in my juices.

He’s drenched by the time he’s satisfied, my legs shaking so badly he has to lift me off of his face and maneuver me back underneath him. When he kisses me, I groan softly at the taste of my pussy on his tongue, the way he shares it with me is such an intimate thing.

Almost as intimate as the hot slide of his dick as he impales me with one thrust, driving straight into my pussy as it pulses around him. I’m over-stimulated and sensitive, my clit throbbing at all of the attention he’s given it. When he tilts my hips just right, I almost scream at his hard thrusts against my G spot.

I almost forget we’re not alone.

We could wake them up.

My pussy clenches around the thick length of him inside me, his hips still moving at a lazy grind. I’m not sure which one of us he’s trying to punish with it.

We could wake them all up and make them watch me fuck you. Would you like that, Bonded? Do you want them to watch this gushing pussy get filled up? Or do you want more, Bonded? Do you want all of your Bonded filling your greedy holes up?

Fuck.

That’s exactly what I want.

I want them all at once. I want to tumble into my bed and feel five sets of eyes on my body, five sets of hands touching me and leaving their mark on me, five cocks driving into my body and coming in me, on me, all over me until I pass out a sticky fucking mess. I want so many things that I can’t figure out how to ask for, how to beg them to own me until I’m fucking ruined.

I want it all.

A strangled moan bursts out from between my lips, and he leans forward to cover them with his own, smothering the sound between us. He might have our Bonded sleeping peacefully unaware, but there’s still a whole camp of Gifted outside of these tent walls that could hear exactly what he’s doing to me.

I really don’t want to think about that.

So instead, I think about his hips driving into me, the way his cock is stretching me to my limits, and the dark, filthy promise of his words in my mind until I come again, turning my head to bite his wrist to stop myself from screaming out my pleasure.

His hips stutter at the sharp pain of my teeth in his skin, and he drops down onto his elbow on the other side, tucking his own face into the crook of my neck as he comes as well. I brace myself for him to bite me back, but he just leaves a trail of open-mouthed kisses there, his tongue laving at my skin until I’m squirming on his cock again, ready for round two, just like that.

He lifts up again, glancing down at me with a dazed grin.

My heart stops in my chest.

I blink and it’s gone, but this time, I’m sure I’ve seen it.

His eyes flashed black.

He leans down to kiss me again, but I pull my lips away, only remembering at the last second to speak to him in my mind and not out loud.

Your eyes changed. Gryphon, your eyes turned black!

He scowls at me for a second, but when he lifts his hand up to his face, the glow of the white light is there, as though proving I’m wrong.

I know I’m not.

Gryphon, I swear on our Bond, your eyes turned black.

He’s quiet for a minute and then he says, his voice hesitant, I don’t feel different. I didn’t feel anything, Bonded. I’ll… speak to Nox and North about it later. One more round before I have to leave? Or do you want a nap instead?

It’s a stupid question.

Sleep is for the weak.

I don’t want to admit that I have trauma issues about showering at the camp.

It was easy to go in after Kyrie when we’d been captured, the threat of what would happen to her without my help was enough to get my ass moving without thinking about it. But now, here, even surrounded by my Bonded and friends… I don’t want to go in there.

I’m also feeling gross about going about my day after my wakeup sex with Gryphon.

If I’d been thinking clearly, I would’ve asked him to come with me. The shower blocks aren’t split up by gender. They’re private enough, but instead of thinking about the consequences of enjoying my Bonded, I’d gone back to sleep for a few hours.

Now I’m too freaked out to just go shower.

What the hell is wrong with me that I can just throw myself into any situation if my Bonded or our friends are in danger, but this seems like too much for me? I have a literal death god living under my skin, there’s nothing that I should be afraid of.

I also was never assaulted in the Resistance camps.

Not like that.

But I’d heard it every night. I’d been threatened with it countless times by the guards, all of them ready to do whatever disgusting, violent things to me the moment Davies decided I was no longer a VIP prisoner. This is all stuff I haven’t let myself think about for years, not since I forced my bond into hiding when I went on the run. I compartmentalized all of this so that I could get through my days without panicking over every little sound and get through my nights without screaming nightmares.

So, like a coward, I’m slow to get up.

I hate to act as though I’m too tired or lazy to get on with my day, but none of my Bonded say a word about my reluctance. North is gone before I wake up for the second time, and Gabe presses a kiss to my cheek as he heads out, murmuring something about a scouting job for Gryphon. Atlas leaves to help Gray with stocking the supplies that Kieran is transporting in for Felix.

At the moment, Nox is still elbow deep in his research, dressed and taking his notes in the worn leather notebook he has tucked into the crook of his arm at all times.

He ignores me for a full ten minutes as I lie there and try to convince myself to call Sage and go shower with her and Aro there as well. If we’re all talking and joking around, I’ll be distracted enough to get through it without a panic attack.

I can’t get a bucket and wash up here. There’s no way of explaining that without sounding like an absolute child, so I’ll just have to text Sage and bite the bullet here.

When I finally pull myself up to sit in my sleeping bag, I have to search around to find my underwear and pull them back on, my face heating when I realize Nox is just sitting on the other side of the tent, seeing this twisted version of a walk of shame.

My head is a mess right now.

I freeze when he pulls himself up, opening up his own pack and grabbing out a bundle of clothes. “Get some pants on, there’s people everywhere here.”

I frown a little, but I do as he says without a word, my mind still running with all of the anxiety I’d woken up with. I triple check the wall in my mind, but it’s secure, none of my emotions spilling out onto my Bonded and letting them in on my internal battle.

I pull on the same pants I was wearing yesterday. Mud streaks the legs of them already, so they’re a lost cause. Nox rummages through my pack, and then he stalks back over to the opening of the tent, glancing back over his shoulder when he notices that I’m still just standing around like an idiot.

“Stay close. No one is going to try to talk to you if you’re with me.”

That sounds like exactly what I need.

I have to dodge a couple of shadow creatures, but when I stumble a little over the uneven ground, Nox steps in closer to me, his fingers threading through mine as he leads me through the camp. I’m half expecting to end up in front of the command tent, sure that Nox is ferrying me off to North so that I stop bothering him with my presence while he works, but then he leads me into the showering block.

I want to throw up.

I freeze, but he just pulls me inside one of the stalls, his shadow creatures filling up the space with us as they take up watch, their jaws lolling open, rows of razor sharp teeth visible as they pant like proper Dobermans.

I think sometimes they even forget that they’re not really perfect puppies.

Nox keeps hold of my hand as he puts down his supplies on the small chair in the stall. It’s a tight squeeze for us both, but he gets us both naked and the water running without much fussing or errant elbows. I’m expecting the water to be cold, but by some miracle, it’s hot. There’s soap that smells like home, and every inch of the space is filled with the vicious monsters of the Dravens who I already know won’t hesitate to devour a Gifted whole for me.

Slowly, I relax enough to actually wash myself.

Nox washes himself first and then, hesitantly at first, as though he’s gauging where my boundaries are right now, he takes the soap from me and cleans me as well.

I don’t have time to freak out about where we are or think about the reasons that this is terrifying. All I can focus on is the soft, loving touches of the man who’d swore he’d rather die than touch me. The same man who’d done everything he could to hurt me so that he could stay in control of the situation we were stuck in.

The man who’d died and took a part of me with him.

I’m sorry.

He doesn’t react to my words, his hands firm as he uses his own towel to get me dry. He waits until he’s sure I’m steady on my feet and able to dress in the clean clothes he’d grabbed out for me before he dries himself off as well.

Don’t. I don’t want or need your apologies. This is what it is, and we’ll get past it.

I swallow roughly and nod my head, ducking it so I don’t have to see whatever sympathy, or apathy, is on his face right now.

How can I never get a good read on him?

Why do I always guess his actions and motives wrong?

We’re going back to the tent, and we’re working together for the morning. You can look over the notes North has been taking about what things his bond reacts to and see if your bond recognizes anything. If you’re feeling better later, you can go watch Gabe skip around the perimeter or help Bassinger prove himself to the personnel.

I shoot him a look for the Atlas dig, but I’m also deeply grateful that he’s planned my day out to keep me both productive and away from prying eyes. We’re supposed to be here to fix everything, to sway the fight in our favor, and here I am on day one losing my freaking shit.

I need to get it together, and I need to do it fast.

When he grabs our dirty laundry pile and shoves it into a bag, I finally get my head together enough to reach out for him. He slips the bag over his shoulder and steps into my arms, letting me lean against the firm wall of his chest and just… center myself.

My bond coils in my chest happily like a snake sunning itself on a rock.

I want to apologize to him again, to sweep all of this under the rug as though it’s nothing but a stupid overreaction, but he’s been inside my head in a way that not even Gryphon could manage. He’s lived every experience of my life the way I have his. There’s no way that I can deny the toll that those years in the Resistance camp took on me, the invisible fracture lines that will never truly heal that I do my best to cover up.

I never put my damage on display, certainly not where my Bonded can see it, and it should feel like a violation all on its own that he knew what was wrong with me this morning without asking. Instead, I feel relief.

Relief that I’m not carrying this by myself anymore.

We walk back to our tent together, hand in hand, and I enjoy the feel of the sun on my face even with the chill of the early morning. I take a minute to get everything in the tent tidied up a bit, only really picking up after myself and Gabe. He’s the only one of my Bonded who is messy. Then I settle myself into Nox’s workspace and go through the notes with him.

My bond refuses to cooperate, so I’m stuck trying to decipher my own feelings about ancient deaths. I’m attempting to figure out if I feel sad because I remember something or just because a void-eyed Gifted being beheaded merely for existing during the witch hunts is fucking terrible.

It’s not exactly easy work.

I’m starving by the time it hits midday, and I decide to take a break to grab food. Nox barely registers me leaving, simply snapping his fingers at the shadow creatures to be sure that one of them follows after me for protection. Mephis takes the job, eager for an ear scratch and loves, and we make our way out towards the small supplies tent that has everyone’s daily rations in it.

As we walk together, I start working out which packs to grab for each of my Bonded. I’ll ferry them around to each of them to be sure they all eat too. There’s a lot of choices, and each of them has very different preferences.

North and Gryphon both went without food all day yesterday, the two of them inhaling their sandwiches as they climbed into their sleeping bags last night. I’m determined that I won’t let that happen again. Gabe will be hard to find without interrupting his work, but with Mephis and Azrael with me, I’m not afraid of a little running around.

I don’t make it to the supplies tent.

I’m still on the other side of the camp when the shouting starts around me, personnel calling out to sound the alarm, and I immediately reach out to my Bonded.

Gryphon is the first to answer me. I’m barely letting my walls come down before he’s pushing orders to me.

Get back to our tent. Find Nox and Atlas. Stay with the two of them until we know what’s happening.

I don’t question him or his orders, turning on my heel and sprinting back to our tent with the pups at my heels as dozens of Tac operatives start moving around me.

Nox is waiting at the opening of the tent for me, his eyes black as the shadow creatures all start to fan out around us. Procel is sitting at his feet, and he greets me with little more than a sniff as I duck past him into the tent.

Atlas is waiting there for me as well. He beat me back here, and he’s bouncing on his heels as though he’s trying to convince himself not to head back out there to find out what’s happened. But he relaxes somewhat when he sees me.

“Could you see anything? Do you know what the alarm was for?”

I shake my head and step in closer to him, giving him a quick squeeze before I drop down next to my pack. I begin to strap the last of my weapons on myself, intent on being ready when the call comes through, and Nox is doing the same.

I always have the guns at my hips strapped on me from the moment I wake up in the morning until I’m going to sleep at night. However, today I held off being fully armed when we made it back from the showers. I thought we wouldn’t need it until we were planning on going out for the mission.

I guess I’ll have to change that habit.

I murmur to Atlas, conscious of keeping myself on alert for whatever could be happening outside of the tent right now. “I couldn’t see anything. I just heard the shouting, and Gryphon told me straight away to come back here. Did you hear anything?”

He shakes his head. “I’d just finished helping stock the medical tent, and I was on my way back here to arm myself before heading out to Gabe. Gryphon sent him to check the perimeter because they knew something was up. Nox was in here working when I got back.”

I glance back to Nox, but his eyes are still black as he uses his shadow creatures’ eyes to see what’s going on around us. I straighten, throwing my jacket on over top of the knives and extra ammunition I now have strapped to myself. I wiggle my feet in my boots, just to be sure they’re on tight enough. There’s nothing quite as terrible as trying to run with your shoes slipping off, and I’d haphazardly thrown them on to grab food without really thinking it through.

Nox’s head ducks back into the tent, his eyes still voids, but he speaks with his own voice and not the monotone, dark sound of his bond. “We’re going to move to the perimeter line. Gabe’s found something we need to see.”

I nod and grab Atlas’ hand as we follow him out, motioning for Azrael to follow us as we make headway through the camp. There’s TacTeam personnel everywhere, a lot of them moving back towards their own tents, but the shouting has stopped.

All of them eye us with unease as we move.

None of them have been concerned with us before. I hadn’t felt like I was an outsider here, so it’s jarring. I can tell Atlas notices it as well by the set of his jaw and the way his hand tenses in mine.

I try to rationalize that it’s because of Nox walking around with black eyes and shadow creatures streaming around us, but no one seems to be paying them much attention.

Instead, they’re watching Atlas and I.

Whatever’s happened has them rattled about me again. God only knows what the Resistance could have done to elicit that response.

Ignoring them all and the unease that settles in my gut, we make our way into the forest. The shield boundary line was far enough out that it takes us a good five minutes before we get close to the voices. As we approach, Nox’s bond speaks directly into my head where everyone can hear it.

Deep breath. They want dissent, and we will not give it to them.

Atlas’ hand jerks in mine at the sound of it, but his face doesn’t change. These two might not like each other, but they both agree about keeping our Bonded Group a united front around anyone outside of it.

As we get closer, we find Gabe standing shirtless in only a pair of TacTeam standard issue trousers from him Shifting. I sometimes forget he has to be naked when he does or else he’ll shred his clothing. I have to stop thinking about it before my bond gets jealous at any potential eyes that might have seen him.

He meets my eyes before darting a look at Atlas. He tries to act casual as he tugs his shirt back on, swinging the gun holster back over his shoulder casually, and warning bells go off in my head about how he’s acting.

It’s not me he’s worried about.

Three more steps and then we see it.

In the air, a few feet in front of us, is the shimmering line of the shield. It’s invisible to the naked eye, but also clearly there before us. A few feet outside of that line, three bodies are hanging from the branch of one of the trees.

The bodies of Atlas’ parents.

His father, the Central Bond of his parent’s Bonded Group, is a bloodied mess. His face is a mottled purple color and vomit is covering the dress shirt and slacks he’s wearing. Poison is one of the only weaknesses that his Gift has. Someone close enough to him to know that has used that knowledge to kill the unkillable.

His mom was also clearly killed before they strung her up.

There’s a piece of cardboard stapled to her stomach, blood running from the puncture wounds, but the word scrawled across it is still clearly visible.

Traitor.

Among a dozen other wounds, her hands are a bloodied mess, as though she fought off her killers unsuccessfully. That somehow makes me feel sick, the thought that she was probably tortured before they killed her.

Aurelia’s mother has been beaten to the point that her features are unrecognizable. If she wasn’t hanging with the other two Gifted, I wouldn’t know who she was.

Atlas’ hand shakes in mine and he swallows roughly, but there’s no other reaction out of him, no words or tears as he stares at the tortured and lifeless corpses of his family.

Instead, he looks over at North and waits for him to say something first.

I look over to find Gryphon and North both staring at Atlas. When they see he’s locked up, completely paralyzed by this, they both take over.

“We have to secure the area before we can cut them down,” North says, looking over at Nox. But his brother is still staring at the bodies critically.

Atlas shrugs, his voice a little hoarse as he says, “They’re the enemy. You’re not going to risk our team to give an honorable burial to people who would never offer us the same thing.”

The handful of Tac personnel around us glance at each other as though they’re shocked by this, but I’m not. Regardless of how Atlas feels about his parents, he made the choice to be with me and be a part of this Bonded Group.

Nothing will change that. He’s chosen me above all else.

North shrugs. “Good thing it’s not about them and their motives. We’re not the Resistance, and there’s no great risk to us to do this for you.”

His words are firm and leave no room for doubt. This isn’t about the people who died, the enemy to us all, even their son. This is about Atlas not being haunted by the thought of their bodies being left up there, any more than he already will be, anyway.

This is about the respect within our Bonded Group that was so hard fought for.