THE BEDROOM IS quiet as I slip in, trying not to bleed everywhere as I do. The late night training sessions that have taken over from my late night drinking sessions aren’t any easier on my body, and blood is still pouring out of my nose from the lucky shot Black had gotten in.
My knuckles are a bloodied, raw mess from the beating he’d gotten in return.
He’s going back to his rooms with access to the best Healer of our generation, so I don’t feel an ounce of guilt. Azrael lifts his head from my bed, and I feel his relief in my presence. North’s creature is there as well and when I scowl at him and gesture to the door, I can feel my brother’s frustration. I don’t need a fucking babysitter. If he wants me to let the girl sleep here, then he’ll have to just trust that she’ll make it out alive.
The creature leaves, his legs being snapped at by Rahab, who is my most savage creature. I have to step between them to make sure they don’t wake the girl up with their childish bickering.
I move slowly into the space, my eyes shifting so that I can see clearly. There’s nothing out of place. There never is when she comes here. She just slips into the bed and sleeps on my pillow, burying into the scents of me as though they’re the only thing keeping her heart beating.
It’s strangely respectful, and more than I’ve ever offered her in return.
If I didn’t know my brother better than he knows himself, I might guess that he’d told her. Even something small, just a tiny detail about the absolute mess that he calls a brother, but he wouldn’t.
He never even told William, his closest blood relative after our father was put to death. No, I was the one to spill out the truth to him in one of my episodes. I’d feel a little more self-loathing about that moment but I was nine, and there’s been enough therapy poured over my soul by now that I’m past that phase of my life.
Now I just try to forget it all, drink it out or fight until the pain replaces the memories.
Once I get out of the Tac gear I’d worn down to training, a shirt and utility pants, I find an old towel to wipe the blood away from myself. As I loosen my muscles and take some deep breaths, my creatures slowly pour out of me. Mephis stops at my feet and stays with me, even as the others all come out and spread out across the room. I shouldn’t be surprised that more of them are adopting the form of puppies and other sweet creatures.
They all want her to love them.
It’s sickening.
Literally, my gut turns at the sight of them all trying to fight their way onto the bed to be near her. They’re fierce enough with it that she sighs and rolls in her sleep, her hair spilling out of the tie she had it in and falling out over my pillows in an enticing way.
I look away and get to pulling a pair of sweats on, digging through the small collection I’d brought with us until I find one of the soft tees to throw on with it. They’re the only ones I like sleeping in and, sure enough, they’ve become the girl’s favorite to steal from me as well.
I rub a hand over Mephis’ head, ruffling his ears a little and enjoying the way he preens under my attention. Both Mephis and Rahab wait for me to decide where I’m going to sleep before they move, always staying close to my side. As much as they also want the girl, they would never leave me for her.
I should sleep on the couch a safe distance from her. It’s comfortable enough. I should, but the bed is too tempting, and it’s not like I haven’t already slept in it with her before.
Always when I’m sure she’s out cold and only on rare occasions.
It’s easier to do now that I’ve spoken to her bond. Now that I know exactly what it wants from me and told it what it can’t have, we’ve reached an agreement between the two of us and, sure enough, when I slide between the sheets, the girl’s eyes are open.
But the bond is who stares back at me.
I stare back at it, not really in the mood to talk, and it doesn’t move towards me. It knows better.
When Mephis crawls up to slip between us, the bond finally speaks. “Do you need the pain to sleep? I don’t like it.”
I reach up to press a finger against my nose and enjoy the throbbing pain of it. “I don’t need it. It’s cleared my head already. I’m fine now.”
Her gift floods me instantly and the pain disappears all at once. There’ll be questions tomorrow from Gryph and Black about where the injuries went, and with the girl having no recollection, it’ll be harder to dodge them, so I’ll need to find work away from them for a few days.
Avoiding them all has become a great skill for me, keenly honed.
As I roll onto my back and attempt to get comfortable now that I’m not babying sore points, the bond speaks again. “They’re coming. They won’t leave us alone.”
I nod up at the ceiling. “Of course. They’d be stupid to leave someone like you behind enemy lines.”
She is quiet for a moment and then says, “And you? When they find out about you, what do you think they’ll do to get their hands on a dark god like you?”
Dark god.
It is obsessed with that line of thinking, but I’ve spent a long time trying to avoid the other being who shares my skin. North might be worried about the creatures, but I’ve always known it’s the voice, the other soul, that’s the real thing to be feared.
I know our bonds are not like the others.
“Let me speak to him. I miss him.”
I side-eye the bond but it hasn’t moved, it hasn’t crossed any of my very carefully established boundaries.
It never does.
I’m the one who breaks things, not the bond trapped in the girl who looks as though she was dragged out of my deepest, darkest fantasies and splayed out over my pillows.
I don’t trust either of them. “If you two Bond while she sleeps, they’ll kill me, you know. They’ll never believe that I didn’t do it.”
The bond smirks slowly, looking somehow older than the nineteen-year-old’s face it’s wearing. “I’ll be on my best behavior. Let me have him for a little while. Just sleep and leave us to it.”
I shouldn’t, but my own bond wakes up from the darkest recesses of my mind to let me know that he wants to speak.
No fucking. North will kill us both.
My bond prickles at the ruling but answers, No Bonding. I want my Bond for a night.
It’s reckless, but I let go of my control and leave them to their reunion. I try to stick around enough to at least know what they’re doing, but my bond blocks me out so they can be left alone.
I wake, hours later and only just before dawn, with the girl splayed out over my chest and her nose pressed against my neck, my heart thumping the second I come to and feel her there.
The only reason I don’t throw her across the room to get her the fuck off of me is because I don’t want to have to explain to any of them why I’m in the bed.
I manage to get her back onto her pillows and the bed straightened up before I lurch into the bathroom and get the shower running to cover the sounds of my retching. Once that part is over with, I climb under the hot spray still in my clothes. I can’t stand the sight of myself right now, not the scars or the reaction to waking up with her on top of me that hasn’t been deterred by the vomiting.
Rahab sits at the bottom of the shower, the water moving through his body as though he were a ghost, and Mephis keeps watch at the door. His head sticks through the solid wood every now and then to see what’s happening in there.
Gryph comes to collect the girl while I’m scrubbing my hair. He scowls at the bathroom door and Mephis when she mentions needing the bathroom, but leads her out to use his before they train. I should feel bad. I should have some level of empathy for how my fucked-up brain ruins everything, but I can’t.
I’m too busy trying to scrub her off of me before I completely lose my fucking mind.
“What happened to you? Wasn’t Oleander supposed to be in with you last night? You look like shit.”
I don’t stop to speak to him on my way to the coffee pot, picking up the biggest cup in the collection and pouring out the black liquid until it hits the rim. The bonds obviously spent the entire night speaking to each other, and while my mind ‘slept’, my body did not.
North’s new office looks exactly like his old one layout-wise, but with none of his usual decadent luxury. I’m sure if we’re here for long enough, he’ll find a way to get some marble installed in here.
“Nox? Do I need to go find my Bonded and check if she’s okay?”
I send him a dark look. “Sleeping on a couch so that your Bonded can get what she needs isn’t very restful. If you’re so desperate to pant after her, then I’m not stopping you. Go be pathetic elsewhere.”
His eyes flash black at me for a split second, a tiny slip of his control, and I smirk at him. I will never not enjoy watching him crumble over a little girl made of poison.
How the mighty fall. It really is pathetic.
“Stop taking your bad mood out on me. If you want the day off to hole up with your books, then just say it. No one is forcing you to be here.”
Ah, but he’s wrong about that. I’d had to open up all three of the windows in my room to attempt to air it out and get her sweet smell out of there. My bond refused to let me change the sheets, it threw a bitch fit over it if I’m being honest, so I was forced to just get rid of the rest of it as much as possible.
I’m going to have to drink tonight. The only way I’ll get through sleeping in there is if I’m wasted, and for once, my bond agrees with me.
“The water supply has been compromised.”
My eyes snap up from my cup of coffee to meet North’s scowl. He nods at me and continues, “There are only two points of the line that aren’t covered by security, it had to happen there. The filtration system picked up the foreign bacterias there and automatically shut down. Sawyer was woken by the alarms and called me at seven. He’s already been through what footage we have, but it looks like there’s someone living here that is a plant.”
I curse under my breath. We’d always known it wasn’t just possible, but probable that we’d be bringing a sympathizer with us.
“Any guesses on who it was?”
North rounds the table and slides a tablet towards me with a list of names on it. “These are the people who weren’t in their beds at that time. Sawyer has been slowly tracing their movements, but it’s a big job for one man, even a skilled Technokinetic. We are very lucky to have him. We need to recruit another.”
Easier said than done. Technos are rare. Second only to Renders and Death Dealers, we’ve somehow managed to start this little community with a very special set of skills. A Shifter who can take any form and an insanely strong Neuro with the ability to sniff out lies also helps immensely.
Indestructible Boy can still disappear for all I care.
North takes a seat in his chair and opens up his laptop, frowning at the screen like he’s just been assaulted by the onslaught of bullshit there. I have no doubt that he’s being harassed by the remaining members of the Council and the other Top Tier families who want him to deal with their problems even though they refused to come here with the lower families.
Scum, the lot of them.
I memorize the list of names and say, “I’ll look into it. I can set up creatures in the blind spots until we have them covered with cams.”
North nods and clicks around on the keyboard without looking up at me. “We need to go on a supply run as well. Get bottled water to get us through until the clean out happens.”
I nod, sipping at my coffee again.
The door swings open and Gryph stalks through, jerky in his movements, like he’s frustrated. I would’ve thought a morning on the mats with the girl would’ve fixed that, but apparently not.
He takes one look at me and says, “Oli healed you.”
It’s not a question and I’m careful with my answer. “She was asleep when it happened, but yes, she healed me.”
Gryph nods, hearing the truth in what I’d chosen to say, and it’s only when he turns to the coffee pot that North shoots me a look. He doesn’t need to be a Neuro to hear what I’m not saying. He’s good about keeping Gryph out of it though, ever the loyal brother.
I don’t really give a shit though.
“Her bond spoke to me. I said it could heal me if it needed to. That’s it, brother. That’s what happened. Your Bonded won’t remember it, and I never attempted to touch either of them.”
He doesn’t look at Gryph, but when he doesn’t interrupt to call out a lie, North nods and gets back to whatever he’s doing on the computer.
“Who’s going on the supply run? If there’s a plant, then we can’t all go.”
North shrugs. “You and Gabe can stay. You can keep looking for the plant, and Gabe can keep going with the building. He’s better than any of the rest of us at it, and he’s a good backup for you.”
Gryph nods and takes the list from me, looking it over. “Half of these names are lower families who are training with me in the mornings. I can give Sawyer some ideas on where to look for them to rule them out.”
North nods and then pauses, letting out a slow breath. “Show them to Atlas. The list and then point out the people to him. See if anything rings a bell.”
Over my dead body. “No. Absolutely not. I’m not going to give what little information we do have to someone we know is a part of the Resistance.”
Gryph and North share a look, but I shake my head at both of them. I don’t care what they say, I don’t care if he’s part of the Bond Group, he’s a fucking Bassinger.
He was the first sign of the poison the girl is.
“I’ll take care of it myself, so leave him out of it. I’ll have the sympathizer by the end of the week.”
