Tragic Bonds (The Bonds That Tie, #5)

by J. Bree

“Feeling your soul leave your body was the most painful thing I have ever felt, and I didn't think that was possible after I just watched Nox die.”

He’s done so much for us all, he deserves better than this. Better than anything I could ever give him, but I try anyway.

We're all getting out of this alive, North, no matter what it costs me. I’d give my life for my Bonded without hesitation.”

“I cannot live without you, Oleander. I won’t. I thought Nox dying was the worst thing that could’ve happened and then your heart stopped beating, and I knew that I couldn’t go on without you at my side. I love you too much to do that. It was only my bond keeping me from going after you.”

“You should really vet your recruits a little better,” I say with a bite in my tone. “She has shitty technique and thinks that her Gift is enough to get her out of any situation, but anybody with a brain knows that you can't rely on that in hand-to-hand. I just wiped the floor with her. If your teams are just going to be a dead weight, then I'm not going to allow you to come on missions with us.”

Fake it until you make it. Sometimes it’s all you can do while the world is in chaos.

She has a file on your parents’ death. She was trying to use you against me, and I don't think she realized what she had really found. Your parents didn't die in a car accident, Oli, did they? The coroner's report said their hearts just stopped in their chests, as though their souls had simply left their body.

I can’t think about anything else, just the desperate need to flee the rejection that’s about to tear my world apart.

I need to be unfeeling before I have to face them. If I go out there right now as raw and as open as I am, I'll be destroyed.

There's a quiet, dark place inside myself that knows no matter what, I'm going to be destroyed, but I can lie to myself for a little longer.

My mind is a spinning, swirling vortex of shame and anxiety, making it impossible to go to sleep, but I lose track of time in my own meltdown.

I think it’s that panic that finally gets North talking. “I know what it's like to kill someone without meaning to. It's a heavy weight to carry, Oleander.”

Even in the darkness of the room, I can see the heartbreak in his eyes. I want to reach out to him to fix it the same way that he has soothed every fear and pain and trouble in my life from the moment he decided to let me in.

I want to ruin the skin there, mark her up, make sure that when she walks out of this room, everyone knows exactly who it is that she belongs to. I want to keep her here all day, to own her time and her body and every last one of her thoughts the way that she’s come to own mine. I want all of those things to myself, and my brother lying in the bed with us is the only thing that stops me.

She was fucking made for me, a gift I do not deserve.

Half of the council stares at my entire Bonded Group like we’re their worst nightmares come to life, and that is enough to get the smile back on my face.

“Couldn't your Bonded walk in and empty them for us?” one of the men says, though his voice is very careful. He's obviously trying to convey a respectful sort of questioning, but Nox leans forward in his chair anyway. “Maybe we should just send your Bonded in. It’d be the most that she's done since getting the seat from her useless mother,” he mutters under his breath, though loud enough that the entire table hears it, and I have to bite my lip at the scandalized looks on their faces.

“You walked into the biggest camp of the Resistance, shut it down, and only brought out eleven prisoners?”

“You might not bring home survivors. That's your story, not mine.”

“I know how many children are in every camp we walk into. I know how many Resistance are in every camp we walk into, and you know what? Your son does too. North knows the casualties of every camp that every one of his TacTeams walks into. Nox knows. Gabe knows. Atlas knows. A Bassinger, that you are so intent on loathing, knows the cost of this war more than you do.”

I’m too pent up to stop, too angry at the council and these useless Gifted at the weight they put on my Bonded’s shoulders. How dare they all question and judge every little thing that we’re doing while there are men like this being given all the leeway in the world? Disgusting.

“And what did you win from this camp that you took out? Sure, you wiped the Resistance there from the map, and sure, that's what we need, but what else? What intel? What trophy? Which of the higher members of the Resistance did you bring in as a prisoner or take out? What was the win that you got from all of that death and destruction?”

“I don't think Oleander’s bond made Gabe’s bond into a god. I don't think that's possible. I think it woke it up.”

I’ve got to admit, having a family to fight for and come back to keeps me going when we’re out here facing all this shit.”

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

“The gods live among us.”