Tragic Bonds (The Bonds That Tie, #5)

by J. Bree

The sound that tears out of my chest is inhuman, a wrenching and terrible thing, and the tears are still coming down my cheeks without me taking much notice of them. I try to focus on the soul inside myself and coax him into staying put until I can heal him. I don’t know if he can hear me, but I try anyway.

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. He doesn't answer me,

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 he’ll accept that and he’ll accept me.

Oleander’s bond manifesting and tearing the souls out of everyone within a ten-mile radius is. Her entire family included.

This is something that she never wanted to think about again. Now it belongs to the both of us.

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

“They’re here to rescue you from me.” Right. Now isn’t the time for dramatics because, well, shit is already dramatic enough. I swallow, my throat still drier than the Sahara, and nod slowly. “Do I… need to be rescued? I can just leave if you don’t want me here.”

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.”

I finally heave myself into a sitting position to find Nox sitting on the floor in front of the door as though he’s bracing it.

If anyone attacks the Sanctuary right now, we’re screwed. Nox’s eyes are still bright on mine and he nods at me, already completely aware of this fact, and his shoulder bracing the door suddenly becomes just a little bit more sweet. He’s guarding us both right now.

There’s a very uneasy sort of silence in my head back to that, and I glance back over at Nox to see something wondrous and magical. He smiles at me.

Every broken and scarred inch of him is known to me. And I love it all.

“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. I want more.

“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.”

“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 don't know how anyone is supposed to get used to being Transported. It's unnatural,” I croak, and Kieran rolls his eyes at me. “It's about as unnatural as ripping souls out, Fallows, so pot, meet kettle.”

“Hell hath no fury like your bond when someone touches something that belongs to it.” Damn straight, and I'm not going to apologize for it either.

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.

He just said he needed space, but I need him like I need air right now. I need to hold him close and ease away the guilt and pain that he’s feeling, to reassure him that everything is okay now. We’re all going to survive this, no matter what it takes.

He deserves to die down here. I want Azrael and August to eat him.

“The little girl who broke the Resistance camp in half and destroyed the great dynasty of the Bassingers. I wasn't expecting you to be so… small.”

Kinda rude considering August is the sweetest boy ever at my side, a living embodiment of North’s protective love for me. He doesn’t even attempt to eat anyone around me anymore.

“It’s about the god. The breeding experiments are about the void-eyed being, the one that lives inside your Bonded.” That gets everybody's attention.

“The god that lives inside her is not something that you can tame. Just because it's playing along now, doesn't mean it will forever. It always turns on its host and kills everyone around it.” My blood chills in my veins, but my bond doesn't come out to play

They cannot offer me anything, my bond speaks up, and I try not to startle at the sound of it. I have my Bonded. I want nothing else. Why do they think that you will kill me? Why is he so sure of this?

Because I always have. Every last time, I have been forced to take over the vessel to get what I need. The other vessels were different. The other vessels were power-hungry or too stupid to speak to. You are different. You're the vessel I was waiting for, and now we’re going to have it all.

find someone else, someone stronger.” He knows nothing, my bond says. Atlas’ hand squeezes my knee again, this time in reassurance. I couldn't leave you any more than I could let one of my Bonded die, and I would rather raze this earth to nothing but ashes than let that man control any part of me or us.

“Stop. Looking. At. Her.” I freeze in my seat. Nox has never really acted protective of me, not until he’d barricaded us both in his bedroom after the soul-bonding. To have it happen now, in front of our entire Bonded Group and some wheeling-dealing Resistance member, is jarring, to say the least. Even Gryphon looks shocked.

“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.”

North and Gryphon were still questioning Jericho, pulling apart all of the information he’d given us until they find something that might actually be useful, but Nox had stayed behind just to fuck with him.

I’m two steps away from the bed when Gabe catches me, his hands firm on my waist as he spins me up into his arms with the sort of casual ease that he has. It’s very smooth and, if I didn’t know better, I’d think he’d had just a little too much practice at swinging girls around. I like that he hasn’t.

I wrap my legs around his waist, hitching myself more securely to him and trying not to wriggle down to impale myself onto his cock like I so desperately want to. A girl needs to be wooed first.

I want them both naked and worshiping me. Is that a little too greedy? Maybe. Do I care? Nope. I’m sure they’ll enjoy it just as much as I will.

She huffs out a laugh and pulls away just enough to look up at me as the corners of her mouth quirk up and transform her face in the most gorgeous of grins. She’s heartbreakingly beautiful.

No matter what, they’re mine forever.

Bonding has changed exactly none of my mouthy nature.

“Good job, kid. I'm sure that felt good. I've only been waiting months for you to finally put someone on their ass. I already know Gryphon will be furious that he missed it.”

Sure enough, watching them gets me amped up, but the thing that really gets me going is watching Nox.

can't help but be impressed at my Death Dealer, my most damaged Bond, as he obliterates any man brave, or stupid, enough to go up against him. He is fucking brutal.

I find my mind drifting off to dirty, sexy thoughts at the sight of him. I definitely wouldn’t mind him throwing me around like that.

somebody might look at the few inches of skin his Bonded inadvertently showed off. No one would dare, and we both know it. Bonded men can be impossible about their women.

Once we have our bags piled up from the chef—who promises me emphatically that he is doing his best to get me some seafood like the national treasure he is—we

I wake up to the feeling of Nox sliding into the bed next to me, cautiously bundling me up into his arms until we’re twisted around each other. It’s as though he’s not quite sure of what he’s doing or if he’s doing it right. If I wasn’t already completely shattered, that would have finished the job. A low sob bubbles up out of my chest, but he just presses my face closer into his chest, the steady thump of his heartbeat under my ear a mesmerizing sound that once again gets me back to sleep.

He’d give everything to me as well. Even in my panicked state, I can’t deny it now with him lying here with me. He’d give everything until he had nothing left for himself, I’m sure of it.

I was so sure that I would stay firm in my beliefs and keep her out of my head. I was wrong. I’m also glad I was wrong.

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,