Tragic Bonds (The Bonds That Tie, #5)

by J. Bree

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.

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

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

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.”

“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.

“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 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.

For hours, we fight. We fight for ourselves, for each other, for our community. We fight to fix the evils these people have wrought, for the family we still have and the family we’ve lost. We fight to finish this once and for all, because we can’t live like this forever. We deserve better than this.

“I don’t want you to die. I want you screaming,” Nox says, his voice wavering as his bond fights to the surface. “She gave the power away, but that’s okay. I have it. I’ll take care of this with fucking pleasure. Who would’ve thought these demons of mine would come in handy?”