Tragic Bonds (The Bonds That Tie, #5)

by J. Bree

I’m too old to believe in ghosts, guys my age don’t have time for such things, and having the ability to manipulate shadows into savage beasts in any form does nothing to change that fact.

There are many ways to be a strong man, and I hope that William can teach me to control my anger, to stop myself from lashing out the way my father did, to stop me from hurting those I love the most.

To stop me from becoming a monster.

It’s furious at everything, that murderous rage of it spilling over into my mind as it sees something amongst the dust that William and I are missing.

It’s hard to lie to something that is a part of you.

I’m stronger than her. It means nothing to me; it’s only kindling to the fiery rage burning inside of me.

I am the same monster he is, but I will happily burn in hell for this.

Just a few minutes longer, and I'll get you back. We can figure this all out. Just stay with me. I know you didn't want to, but just stay with me, and we'll figure this out.

I try because I don't want him to wait until next time to figure out how we can love each other. I want to figure it out in this lifetime. I want to know everything. I want to see everything and accept whatever it is that I need to accept. I want to learn how someone like Nox Draven can be loved and accepted, and then I want to spend the rest of my life doing it.

I want to learn whatever I need to, and I want to figure it out together. He might be the most arrogant, infuriating, manipulative, vicious man I have ever met, but I also know without a doubt that he's mine.

Whatever battle it is that he’s fighting within himself, my place is at his side to fight it with him. Someday, we will get to a place where...

Nox had once said that he trusted him, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they’d had a good rapport or had even really spoken to each other. All of this is useless information that doesn't matter at the moment, but my brain just can't stop filtering through the facts and stats of things I know, focusing on things that it can process and conceptualize. My Bonded being dead is not one of those things.

It speaks again, using my voice, but there’s no doubt whose words they are. “I will not lose my Bonded. He has to fix the vessel.”

Now isn't the time to cry, girl. Now is the time for something big.

I’ve never really felt this sort of security before, this amount of rightness and contentment.

I only recognize one of the people in the vehicle, and even then it is a shock to see my Bond looking so young and so… fragile. That stubborn strength that shines out of her isn’t there yet, the little girl still untried and whole, none of the cracks and splintered pieces taped back together that she wears so nonchalantly.

There's a sort of innocence in her eyes as well that makes it obvious that I have fallen into a memory of hers that happened long before she was taken by the Resistance. Something important changes inside of me.

She couldn’t hide anything from me right now, no matter how hard she tried, and all I can feel is how right she is for me. Made for me, carved from the same stone and separated to walk the earth in search of each other. All of the feelings that I’d hated my brother and best friend for having, all of them fill me at once.

Something has happened to get them all into this car that has broken my Bond’s heart. The protective urge in my gut is foreign and deeply unsettling.

The sound of her scream echoes throughout my consciousness, and I no longer need my lovesick bond whispering inside of me to know that it is a gut-wrenching sound.

I already knew that her mother and fathers had died in a car accident, one that was orchestrated by the Resistance, so this isn’t something that is shocking to me. Oleander’s bond manifesting and tearing the souls out of everyone within a ten-mile radius is.

Her entire family ...

The more of the broken pieces of her that are given to my unwilling and undeserving soul, the more that I find myself turning towards her and falling under her siren’s call.

I don’t deserve a Bonded. I don’t deserve someone fated to be with me, to love me, to want what’s best for me and to build a life with me. I’ll never be able to fully give myself to someone that same way, and no one should have to be saddled with my levels of broken and dirty and savage.

Least of all this young girl with a spine of steel and a heart that doesn’t give up, not even when it’s been lashed and torn up by my own damage.

This is only one of hundreds of torture sessions this man puts Oleander through, one day of the life she was living for two years while we searched for her, no one as vehemently as my brother. And I’m forced to watch it all. I mark Silas Davies for death.

I don’t need my bond to kick in and make its own assessment of this situation known; I take in every inch of this man until this image is burned into my consciousness as deeply as it’s burned into Oleander’s. This is terrifying to her. This is a trauma that she’s had tucked away deeply in her mind for years that this connection she’s managed to form between us both has pulled out and ripped open into the light of day. This is something that she never wanted to think about again. Now it belongs to the both of us.

Oleander is tucked in close to me but isn’t touching me anywhere, her careful respect of my boundaries even now a jarring experience.

Usually, if anything happens to me, or something that could potentially affect me, he hovers like a mother hen. Even after I’d grown out of my childish idolization of him, he’d still remained the one constant in my life, no matter how hard I pushed him away and, boy, did I push him hard. It didn’t matter though, North Draven was nothing but a pillar of unerring love and support to me.

Even after Oleander showed up and became the fixation for my rage. Even when he fell so far into her that I’m sure every word I uttered against her cut him like a thousand sharp blades, and my constant loathing of their Bonding was an acid over those wounds.

I know everything about her now too. Every broken and beaten inch of her soul is clear in my mind now. There’s no questions or veiled secrets. There’s only the heart of the girl and the god living inside her that belongs to me as surely as the sun will rise in the morning and set in the evening.

Without thinking too much about it or questioning myself, I move back to cleave Oleander away from Bassinger and into my arms. The warmth of her against my chest has my bond stirring in my chest, only waking enough to give its approval before it goes back into its unnatural slumber.

I need my own bedroom and my own space. And I need her there too. I’m not going to question it any longer.

I brought him back from the dead, dammit. I’m allowed to feel like shit after that amount of work!

Nox stares at me for a second, his eyes so dark that I think for a second that maybe his bond has come out, and then he says slowly and oh-so-carefully, “If I didn’t want you here, I wouldn’t have brought you with me.”

Every broken and scarred inch of him is known to me.

“You saw every part of me, and I, you. I have no questions left, no unknowns. You can leave now if you want to, but don’t go for my sake because… I’d rather have you in here.”

It’s then that I see, more clearly than ever, that no matter how much Nox Draven has hated me in the past, no matter how much he might still resent me now even despite himself, that the person he hates the most is himself.

Recovery isn't about wiping the board clean. Recovery is learning how to function around all of the scars and open wounds inside of us.

I want everything with this man and his bond. I want to give them both everything, and I want Nox to take his pleasure, giving it back to me tenfold.

“Not even death can keep us apart. Every part of you belongs to me, and I will tear any man apart who dares to get in my way. Bond or not.”

He’s still the same vicious and cruel man, only now he’s mine, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him, nothing I haven’t already done for him.

“Stop trying to die early, Bonded. Can we just have a few weeks of you not trying to die and kill us all with you? Because I had a full five minutes of knowing what life felt like without your heart beating, and I am never going to live in that world.”

I need to breathe, get some space, and figure out my new normal. A new normal of having all of my Bonded at my side, loving me and protecting us all, no matter who it is that’s coming after us.

Like hell am I going to let someone disrespect my Bonded Group. After everything Gryphon does for us all, there’s no way I’m going to have someone questioning him or undermining his authority, especially someone who should know better.

Gryphon shakes his head at me slowly, the corners of his mouth downturned. “It's not about you meeting them. It's about them pissing you off. I don’t want anyone upsetting you, and your bond just adds an extra layer of ‘bad idea’ into the mix. It doesn’t matter how much we warn him to keep his mouth shut, my father can’t help himself.”

“The single life is not for you, Bonded. You are far too good at running into danger head first. I think you wouldn’t survive if you were left to your own devices. Better off with all of your Bonded covering your ass when you get some idea of running off.”

North barely looks at me before he turns on his heel and stalks off towards the cells. Instantly, I want to cry. But he always could read me like an open book, and even without looking at me, he says to me through our mind connection, just between the two of us, I can’t right now, Bonded. Not with everyone here, because if I look at you right now, after what you did for my brother… after what he did for me… I will make an absolute fool of myself. I’m supposed to be the strong one for us all.

Jericho turns to look at me again, and Nox’s temper snaps, his hand snapping out to grab his hair and slam him face first into the table. Atlas jerks in his seat, and Gabe makes a grunting noise of shock, and maybe just a little bit of sympathy, as Jericho’s nose crunches and blood pools underneath it. “Stop. Looking. At. Her.”

Nox leans down to murmur quietly to Jericho, directly into his ear, though it’s quiet enough that I can hear him well enough. “Keep your filthy Resistance eyes off of her. That’s the difference between you and I. Once we Bonded, there was nothing that was ever going to keep Oleander away from me… not the Resistance, not the god inside her, not even death itself. You came here to bargain, but you’ve given us nothing. Now you’re not getting your pathetic little Bassinger girl out of here, and you’ll both rot in our cells. You’ve lost.”