Unbroken Bonds (The Bonds That Tie, #6)

by J. Bree

THE GODS HAVE WOKEN The Eternal lives within Oleander Fallows. The Crux lives within North Draven. The Corvus lives within Nox Draven. The Soothsayer lives within Gryphon Shore. The Draconis lives within Gabriel Ardern. The Cleaver lives within Atlas Bassinger.

I feel something extra in the girl there, the small Flame with a strong Gift, and though it frustrates me, I leave it alone for now.

My eyes flick down to the little Flame at his side, dirt and ash covering her body from all of the destruction she’d wrought on our behalf. She’s important to my Bonded’s vessel. She’s important to us all. Important enough to save and not just from the god-bond before us all.

She’s been awake a lot longer than us. While learning to blend in with the humans around her, it’s clear that she’s killed the vessel and is in full control. She slipped through our fingers with ease, because there was no battle going on beneath her flesh, no secondary being to flag with our sweeps of the area.

“Soothsayer. It's been an age, or maybe even three, since I last saw you. I was kind of hoping I wouldn't run into you in this lifetime. I'd rather deal with the shadow boys than you.” A very inappropriate giggle tries to burst out of my lips at the very idea of someone calling North and Nox ‘shadow boys’. I know that if I look at either one of them right now, I will lose the fight and dissolve into a fit of laughter.

“Patience and unerring devotion is all it took. The rest of you have spent too long fighting amongst yourselves and not enough time looking for what you really need. The Eternal is mine. I return for my Bonded.”

“That is the difference between this time and last. This time, we’re going to survive this. All of us. I’m not going to kill the vessel. I’m going to use it to keep you forever.”

“What is it that you keep coming back for? Or do you have no control over this ‘rebirth cycle’ you're on?” He leans forward in his chair, the hand on my thigh tightening a little more as it answers me slowly. “We return for the Eternal. We return because it calls out to us. The thought of a lonely existence for my Bonded is unthinkable. While the Eternal returns, so shall we.”

“We’re not all going to get out of here alive. If you need to take our souls to live, do it. We will return to you again in another cycle,” the Corvus says, but I shake my head. “There is no use being here unless we're together. There is no me without you.” He drops down onto his haunches, the shadows that wrap around his legs are obedient to their master as he shakes his head at me. “I can't watch you die again, Eternal. Don't make me watch it all over again.”

I want to tear it apart with my bare hands, to show it the same callous treatment that it has shown me and mine. But no matter how many times I've killed it, it continues to wake. It wakes and hunts us down.

“I waited for you. We all waited for this lifetime, for these vessels… and for you. You are as vital to me as the bond within you. Without question, I see that clearly now.”

He’s here to keep me safe. The same way Gryphon had when we’d Bonded, back when Nox had no desire to be in the same room as me, let alone have sex with me. He’s here to make sure that this god-bond really is going to pleasure me and treat me with the same respect that any of them would.

I want to be his favorite vessel. I want him to love me like he loves my bond. I want him to be desperate for us both, to hunger for my attention as much as the god’s within me. I want everything.

He watches it all, his eyes dark as he takes it all in. I’m laid out here on display for his viewing pleasure except… I want more. I want them both. Fuck, I want them and their bonds and mine. I want it all.

Though he’s never said it, I think watching the other Bonded fuck me is a big turn on for Nox, and he doesn’t need much else to get him on edge.

As much as I love his bond and the way it had worshiped me last night, I love this man more. Is it weird to pick favorites? “As long as I'm your favorite, no,” Gryphon mumbles again under his breath, pulling me back into a kiss as his hands frame my face gently.

We’re all fine, don’t worry. I’m interested to see what they choose to do here. There's been a lot of talk of how powerful and incredible they are but not a whole lot of substance yet. I want to know what they will do for you. That's a little bit sweet from him, and I duck my head.

“North and Nox are always brothers. Every cycle, they come together. They've always been as loyal to each other as they have been to me. I think this has been the first cycle that Nox has… struggled with that.”

“The dragon takes the longest to cycle. The Cleaver usually comes alone, and the Soothsayer… the Soothsayer has come with others a few times. We've gotten close before, close enough that it gave us hope we would make it someday.

highly suggest lowering your tone around me, especially with… wait, no, they’re all a bit psycho about me.

“You’ve come here to die. Any god-bond is a danger to my Eternal, and I won’t wait for you to become a threat before I kill you.” I get all sorts of fluttery feelings at him calling me his Eternal.

When I get out to the hallway, intent on finding my Bonded and spending the evening with them all, I bump into Nox as he makes his way down to his bedroom. He has a frown on his face and a distracted look in his eyes, so I'm prepared to walk on past him with nothing more than a smile. He surprises me though, when he catches me in his arms and pulls me in close, pressing me into his chest until I’m fighting to breathe. It’s still a wondrous thing to me that he touches me like this.

With my heart in my throat, I nod and lean forward slowly to kiss him, giving him the opportunity to pull away if he wants to. Even now that we've Bonded, I'm aware that he may need space. I'm not going to be the type to push him even if he's the type to push me over and over and over again. My bond hums happily in my chest when he not only meets my kiss but takes it over, pulling me in further to his embrace before he sets my feet on the ground and turns back to his room to gather what he needs.

“I picked up dinner on the way back. North convinced the chef to make fish tacos tonight.” The look of pure, unadulterated love that I beam at my Bonded has everyone cackling around me. Just to shit-stir them all a little bit more, I say, “Marry me, Bonded.”

Nox and I haven't just found neutral ground, we’ve found a space for just the two of us that I might even call love. I mean, I know that I love him. And I know that, as much as he's capable of that feeling, he has it for me, and that's enough. It’s more than I ever hoped for, more than I ever thought I would get to share with him.

“Her Gift is Manipulation,” Atlas says, grinding the palms of his hands into his eyes as though he can wipe all of this away if he presses hard enough. “She's a Neuro, but it's different from what Gryphon can do. It's closer to what Emmeline could do,” North says very carefully, and my blood runs cold at the mention of that woman's name.

My eyes drift over to Nox and get stuck on him as he starts tearing boxes open, leafing through the pages there and making piles as he begins to categorize them. He's methodical about it, taking photos on his phone before he touches anything. It's as though he is a fussy, old librarian making sure that none of us are going to fuck with the cataloging system.

“Black, you need to start Transporting these back to North's offices. Lock them in the safe there as you go. No, not that one. Use your eyes, they’re clearly in piles! You need to take them in order, starting with that one. That one, Black! Prove to me that you have a functioning brain here.”

The soul bonding had solidified my obsession with her and though I know my own past actions with her had been poisoned by my past, now all I can see is the perfection of her, all of the ways that this woman owns me and the ways that I own her as well.

It's never a good day to be the fucking General. I hate the man, even more so now than ever before, which is something I didn't think was possible. He is taking me away from Oleander right now, when she needs me the most, and that is inexcusable.

I scramble up onto my knees, reaching for him. I get a giddy thrill straight to my heart that his hands are just as desperate on my body as mine are on his. His hands span my ribs with ease, kissing me as though he wants to crawl inside me, his teeth sharp on my neck as he devours me whole.

“I’m not calling a meeting and telling any of those people that I will react in any other way if they wish death upon Oleander. I draw the line at that. I’ve had to make nice with these people for decades knowing that they are selfish cancers on the backs of this community, riding on North's coattails while he bore the brunt of the real work. I will do it no longer.”

Nox died for our Bonded Group. He died for North and for us all to have the chance at a good, long life. He had no idea that my bond could bring him back like that. I will never take that sacrifice for granted.

“I don't wish them dead just because they don't like me. That really would make me a monster.”

“That's all right, the rest of us will be the monster for you. Fuck, I thought Nox was going to tear the General apart with his bare hands. Who would have thought that he would love you so hard once you got under his skin, Bonded.”

“I don't deserve him or his love, but I'll do my best to take care of it.” He shakes his head back at me. “Nobody deserves it more than you, Bonded. We are the ones who aren't worthy.”

Nox who’s created a small fortress of boxes and information in the far corner of North's office, shadow creatures slumbering in open archive boxes and on cushions around him. If it were possible to take photos of the nightmare creatures, I would take one and send it to Oli, knowing that she’d treasure it more than she’d ever admit. Since I can't, I concentrate and send her the mental picture instead. A smile breaks over my face when I feel her joy at the image, the way that it overtakes her and rushes into me, making my chest tighten up. She loves those damn creatures and the vicious man they come from more than I ever thought possible.

He’s too good of a man to be a councilman, they don’t deserve him. They never have.

“Who would’ve thought that the girl who hated the treadmill would be correcting other people’s stances?” She scoffs at me and groans a little under her breath. “I still hate the treadmill, and you were an asshole to me. The real reason I'm here today is because Vivian was a true gentleman.”

“Open wide, Oleander,” Nox murmurs against my lips, placing a hand on the back of my neck as he moves back. I don’t know if he means my mouth for his cock or my legs for North’s, so I do both, flushing with pride when they both make rumbling noises of praise at me. I want that praise. I want to be their good girl. I want them to love every fucking second of this the way I do too.

Who knew that the dark voids could become such bottomless pits of pleasure? That’s a wondrous discovery that is burned into my soul, something I will remember in this lifetime and the next. I need a hundred more lifetimes with these Bonds of mine.

“I’m not asking you to. I’m just saying Gryphon can't help feeling a certain way about his father being dead. Don't be a dick about it.” “I’m never a dick.” That’s the biggest lie I’ve ever heard in my life.

You should be worried about me, I send back, because when I get there, I am going to tear the souls out of every single living creature in that place that has ever wished harm upon our community or my Bonded. I'm going to commit acts of crime on such a scale that it will rock everyone to the core. You should probably prepare your men for that, and this isn't even my bond speaking.

Burn it all to the ground, Oleander. Burn it, and let's be done with it.

North looks worried about me, but Nox has nothing but pride shining there, pride in me and what I can do. Pride in the hard work that sometimes feels like too much, but I did it anyway. Pride that he found me; that I'm his and he is mine.

She shrugs and then leans up on her tippy-toes to kiss me, a simple press of our lips together. But the moment she touches me, my control snaps. My arms band around her waist as I deepen the kiss, ignoring the groans behind me. “We’re out in the open! You’re the one who calls the rest of us out for that,” Atlas snaps, and I find myself acting completely out of character when I do nothing more than lift a finger up to him, flipping him off. I enjoy the giggle that Oli lets out at my expense.

“Why do you and the Corvus always look the same? Why are you always born into the same family, untouchable to the rest of us? The Draven bloodline has protected you all for generations. Even when the others tried to stop you from coming, you still found a way.”

I plan to deal with everything to give the Eternal a better life. The life that it deserves, where it knows nothing but joy and pleasure, a life that they both deserve. The Eternal and the perfect vessel it lives within. Both of them mine.

Except that none of these people know what a Bonded Group really feels like. They get butterflies at the idea that someone belongs to them, and they think that's it, that's enough. They haven't felt what it's like to look at someone and have their entire world shifted on its axis so that that person is the center of it. They don't know what it feels like to look out and see your heart living and breathing outside of your own body. They don't understand what I felt when I saw you.”

Atlas gets serious pride from working hard at something and doing it right, and doing construction with someone that I now see is absolutely his best friend is no different.