THREE NIGHTS.
She’s only been gone this time for three nights, and yet the chaos she’s left behind is insane. Gryphon’s foul moods and obsessive behavior makes sense to me because the idiot was stupid enough to fully Bond with her, but the rest of them?
Pathetic.
We all knew she’d run the moment she had a chance. Gabe and Bassinger were the ones without a shared coherent thought between them that wouldn’t have possibly strung together the idea that maybe they should leave the GPS tracker in her.
Then there’s the small fact that I think North’s bond is going to take over and wipe out the entire country to get her back, and after decades of playing the gentile councilman, cultivating the sedate and moral man that he is, he’s about to ruin it all for her.
Fucking Bonds.
Of course there’s no sign of her or the other dozens of Gifted who were taken. The moment we’d gotten back here from the aborted mission, we found Gabe shifted into the biggest wolf form I’ve ever seen him in, snarling and snapping at Atlas like he was hoping to rip his throat out.
After we’d split them up, it had taken a good hour before Gabe calmed the fuck down enough to shift back, and then he’d told us all about Atlas’ extensive knowledge of Fallows’ time in the Resistance.
And what they named her.
I never liked him, and I’ve made my thoughts on his situation widely known because we’ve already lost one Draven to a Resistance sleeper cell this year. Keeping him around for the sake of a Bond who never wanted any of them in the first place is just plain stupidity.
North doesn’t listen.
He never listens anymore, another strike against her.
But even after Bassinger is locked away, we’ve spent three entire days sitting around, trying to find where they’re all being held, with no luck. All of the monitored campsites and residences are running business as usual, and there is no new intel. Zero. They know we’re listening, so the moment they have Fallows, the lines all go dead silent.
So we’re back to working through the old intel and searching for some clue or little sign that we might have missed about where they are. Gryphon is better at strategy than paperwork, and he spends his time keeping his Teams on standby for the moment we have something, so it’s up to North and I to sift through it all with a fine-tooth comb.
There’s only two things that pop out, and neither of them are enough to go on.
Alaska, in the highest and coldest area that would be an absolute logistical nightmare to attempt an extraction.
Or possibly in the middle of the Sahara desert, which would also require a lot of communication with the local authorities and Gifted community to go in and get them back, so either way, we need to be sure about it before we move in.
It doesn’t come down to that.
At dinner on day three of her being gone, while we’re all arguing viciously about what to do next because Gabe is furious that we’re not going to just traipse around in a desert or a frozen tundra until we trip over her, Gryph lurches away from the table with a bark, his chair crashing to the ground.
The blood drains from his face as he feels it. The ghost of Fallows’ pain as if it’s his own. My bond begins writhing in my chest, that terrible thing it does now around her, but whatever is happening in the Resistance camps, Gryph can sense it stronger, thanks to their connection.
Then he lets out a roar and goes down to his knees as his legs buckle underneath his weight. I haven’t heard a sound like that out of him since the last time he was shot while on duty, and North almost loses control of his own bond in response as he bolts over to him with a snarl. Gabe shoves away from the table, but his hands are shaking and his face is unnaturally pale.
Someone is hurting their Bond.
I know it because I can feel the echo as well, the sensation of pain that isn’t my own, and my palms immediately break out in a sweat. My bond wants to find her, to save her, to take the pain for her and tear apart whoever dared lay a hand on her.
She’s not mine. I shouldn’t feel this way about her.
I should feel this way about anyone. I know better than to fall for these tricks, and there’s no way I’m ever putting myself back in that situation.
Never.
“What is it? What’s happening to her?” North snaps as his phone starts ringing on the table. We all ignore it but the moment it stops, Gabe’s starts up, and he grunts at it.
“It’s Bassinger. He must feel it too.”
Gryphon takes a gasping sort of breath. “She’s being tortured. I got into her head, but she shoved me back out. Someone is carving her up.”
Kill them all. Filthy heathens, touching what’s ours.
I shake my head as though it’ll clear the sound of my bond away. My creatures don’t like sharing, not even with the others, and no matter how much I tell them that I won’t have her, they don’t want someone touching her either.
Gabe shoves up to his feet and snaps, “Where the fuck is she then? We’re going to the desert, send a team to the snow. We can’t just sit the fuck around anymore—”
He’s cut off by the audible pop of a Transporter arriving, and then Kieran Black is groaning on the ground at Gryph’s feet, looking as though he’s been beaten by the entire population of the Resistance. From the look on both North and Gryph’s faces, he’d better have been.
Because Fallows isn’t with him.
“Get me a Healer. Now,” he says through clenched teeth, and Gryph drops to his knees to grab at his vest, pulling him up into his face.
North is already on the phone and calling Felix Davenport down, his second phone in his hand as he starts calling in the TacTeams to be ready to move out.
“Where the fuck is my Bonded, Black?”
Kieran turns green, his teeth clenching in pain as Gryph manhandles him, and he chokes out, “Get me a Healer and I’ll go back for her.”
I check in with Azrael, the shadow that stays with her that she’s doing her best to domesticate, to figure out what the hell is happening there. Kyrie is still in one of the cages, unharmed, but trapped nonetheless. There’s no sign of danger or trouble yet. I tell Azrael to be on high alert and he whines a little at being away from Fallows if there’s danger, his soft spot for her a mile wide.
“You left her behind?!”
Gryph snarl makes it clear that he might actually kill Black for this, but anyone with eyes can see what the hell is happening here. Black is good enough about laying it out there for him though.
He snaps out in a pain-filled growl, “I have two breaks in my leg and a raging blood infection. I didn’t have enough power to bring her back with me. The second a Healer is done with me, I can take you to her. Just get me one now, because she’s on her own.”
Felix bursts through the door with both of the Bensons and rushes straight towards Black, not waiting for an order to heal him. He curses under his breath at the state of Keiran, but his gift is strong enough to do this. He’s the top of his class and a prodigy amongst his peers, not that you can tell from how humble he is. He’s one of a select handful of Healers that I’m willing to let touch me.
Gryph moves aside to let Black be tended to, stalking back over to the table and grabbing the weapons that he’d unstrapped from himself to eat. Gabe moves to stand with the Bensons, murmuring to catch them up on what’s happened, and North is practically vibrating with his phone to his ear as he snaps out orders to mobilize the Alpha and Bravo teams. I can feel his relief that both of them are already on standby, because we’ve been waiting for this moment.
“You can talk while he heals you. Tell me what the fuck was happening to her,” Gryphon snarls as he does one last check that his weapons are secure, and Black grits his teeth while the thigh bone is reset.
“Silas Davies is what happened to her. Silas Davies is what happened to her last time as well. He’s fucking obsessed with her. He was… butchering her, that’s when he heard you in her head. I had to think quick to stop her from getting herself murdered just to keep you all away from him.”
Silas fucking Davies.
Only the fabled super villain of the Resistance, the boogeyman whose exploits are whispered about in the darkest corners of the Gifted world.
North looks over at me and I know that it’s game over for him. That’s the last puzzle piece in the mystery that is his Bond. Now he knows everything he ever needed to know about her. He’s done for; hook, line, and sinker. He belongs to her now, whether he’s admitting it to himself yet or not.
The Healer lifts his hand away from Black’s chest and moves to roll up the leg of his pants to get a better look at his mangled ankle. It looks as though there’s no bone structure left in there, like someone took a mallet to it and ground it to dust. Felix grimaces as he braces his hands on either side to start the reconstructive healing there too.
I have to swallow the bile down at the echoes of trauma in the back of my mind at the sight of it. I need to distract myself, to remind myself that this is something very different to what happened to me. I have to work at it to make sure my voice comes out bored. “What happened to you?”
North and Gryph both see through my attempt, but everyone else sends dark glares my way, as though their disapproval means anything to me.
Black glances at me, sweat still pouring down his face even as he’s looking less sickly, and snaps, “The thigh break happened when we arrived. The blood infection is because they wouldn’t treat it. I snapped my own ankle about a half hour ago to get out of the restraints to get Oli to take out John Franklin, the Resistance’s strongest Shield, so I could get back here. She did, by the way, her bond finally kicked in, and I got her off the torture table before I came here. I checked her bleeding and made sure all of the tourniquets on her were secure. She’ll be fine there as long as Davies doesn’t get back before we get her out. Not to be an asshole, Davenport, but you need to get a move on.”
The Healer shoots him a rueful look and says, “You had sepsis, your kidneys were shutting down, and you were about twelve hours away from complete organ failure. Sorry it’s taking a minute to stop your impending death.”
Sage makes a little gasping sound in the back of her throat, lifting a hand to cover her mouth and muffle any other sounds of horror that she might have.
North curses and snaps, “Just tell us where Oleander is. You can stay here and receive treatment, there’s no need for you to be going back out there. We have enough Transporters to get to her and take control of the situation safely.”
Black grunts and lets out a low groan as the crunching sound of his bone resetting bounces around the room, panting to answer, “I can’t… I don’t know exactly where it is… I just followed the insurgents back there. I can map back, but I… don’t have coordinates or a location.”
I curse under my breath, because of course it couldn’t be that easy for us, and snap, “How much longer until Davies is back at the camp then? We’re running out of time while you’re being pieced back together.”
Black grunts again as there’s another crunching of his bones, and snarls at me, “I sent him to the Hail Mary to buy time. I’m not a fucking idiot.”
Fuck.
That’ll just about do it.
I watch as half the room takes a breath, because Black is right, he’s definitely not an idiot if he sent Davies there. The Hail Mary is the safe house in Massachusetts, and it’s a rabbit warren of traps, barbed wires, and security surveillance. I know the place intimately, thanks to my uncle William dropping North and I both off there when I was a teenager over a security issue. Even with all of my nightmare creatures, I couldn’t make my way out.
North meets my eye across the room as he pulls his suit jacket off, revealing just how many different weapons can be hidden under a Tom Ford, and then says, “If you’re coming with us, then you need to be in full Tac gear. You too, Gabe. We leave the second Felix is done and Kieran can move.”
The moment our feet hit the ground at the camps, it’s very clear that things have changed dramatically since Black left here. I pull the gaiter up over my face and let my nightmare creatures out, checking in with Azrael, but Kyrie is still in the cages. Except now the tent’s guards are all dead in a heap on the ground and the other women are shaking and sobbing at the trauma of what is happening around them.
Kyrie isn’t.
A typical Shore reaction to this. She’s sitting on her haunches, waiting for an opening to get the fuck out of there and take out whichever Resistance she comes across.
I lean towards Gryph and murmur, “Tell Kyrie we’re here and heading to her. The prisoners are all looking shaken up.”
He turns to look at me and scoffs, flinging out a hand. “We’ve just walked into a massacre and our Bond is lying injured in here somewhere… you’re not even going to attempt to find her first?”
I look over at the piles of bodies, dozens of them lying wherever they’ve fallen in death, and then back at him. “I’m not an idiot. This? This is our little poisonous Bond. She’s doing just fine. There are other Gifted here who can’t kill people at will.”
North pushes past us both, his own creatures coming out in full force, and he snaps, “Find our Bond first, then we’ll take in the prisoners and any survivors.”
Gabe stalks after him, looking a little shell-shocked, even though he’s the only one of us to see her death powers up close, but he’s also unwavering as he hunts for her. Gryph barks out commands to his team before he goes after the two of them, completing the triad of lovesick idiots going after a girl who does not need to be rescued.
Taken from here before Silas Davies gets back? Sure.
Rescued from the Resistance thugs he left her behind with? No. Anyone with eyes and two brain cells knocking around in their skulls can see she’s got it handled. The only part of me desperate to get back to her is currently standing guard in the women’s prisoner tents, so I’ll be heading there to check that nothing has actually happened to Azrael or Kyrie before I trip over myself after some Bond.
Rahab, Procel, and Mephis follow closely after me as we work our way through the tents, all of them taking on their savage Doberman forms. The other creatures are all scouting in various shapes and sizes, checking for the moment Davies arrives back here so they can devour the piece of shit. There’s no real need for concern about the Resistance left behind though.
Everyone is already dead.
She’s good, I’ll give her that, and to be able to kill this many without burning out? She’s more powerful than any of us had given her credit for. The small amount of reading I’ve been able to do, around the intel-sifting North and I were elbows deep in, was entirely focused on what little we know about Soul Renders, and nothing I read comes close to this scale of destruction.
The void eyes make a lot more sense now.
Mine.
I curse and pull the gaiter up further, obscuring my face so that none of the Alpha team freak out at how furious I look when it’s just my bond and the creatures I’m dealing with. Bonds are dangerous, I’m not leaving myself open like that, and even if every last one of my creatures fall into obsession with her like Azrael has, I still won’t have her.
Not even for a taste of that power.
Kyrie jumps onto her feet the moment she sees my outline, and I see her deflate a fraction when she realizes it’s me and not her brother. I’m not going to be offended. They were close growing up and losing their parents only made them lean on each other even more.
She slumps back against the bars and groans, “Thank God. Please tell me you’ve gotten Oli out already?”
Why is everyone so single-mindedly focused on getting her out when she’s strong enough to hold her own here?
“The others went to get her. I thought you’d be more worried about getting out of this little cage you’ve found yourself in?”
She scoffs at me and reaches up to pull her honey-colored hair away from her shoulder, revealing where Azrael is hiding in his smallest form. “She gave me this, even though I’m sure he would’ve been helpful to her. He saved me from being gang-raped in the showers by Resistance scum, so excuse me for worrying about the kid.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
I step up to the cage and motion for Rahab to get the door open. He’s the most brutal of my creatures and with one yank, he breaks the lock and gets Kyrie free. The moment she steps out, Azrael jumps down from her shoulder and lands at my feet in his full-grown Doberman form. The others all snap at him, their own way of greeting him, but he sniffs at my feet like he’s scenting everything that’s happened since we were last together.
Which is nothing but a ton of frustration and Resistance intelligence records.
Kyrie does a little shiver, like she’s shaking off a bad case of the creeps, and drawls, “No offense, but I’m glad to not have it anymore. Gimme a gun and a switchblade over a nightmare any day of the week.”
I scoff at her and then I unstrap a Glock from my shoulder holster to hand over. She was a TacTeam operative for five years, only quitting to take over her mother’s cafe when it was clear that Gloria was out to undercut it and drive them out, so she’ll be more than up to scratch to cover my back as we get the others out.
I glance up at the other women, all still huddling and eyeing me like I’m a monster. Kyrie glances over her shoulder and scowls, snapping, “This is Nox Draven, here to rescue us, so you had all better treat him with respect, or I’ll assume you’re Resistance sympathizers and put you down.”
I shoot her a look, but she just shrugs. “Gryph taught me how to deal with that monster bullshit early on. Nip it in the bud and move the fuck on. We don’t have the time or energy to baby them through this.”
She stalks over to frisk the corpse of one of the guards for keys and then gets to freeing the now-sheepish and quiet women. There’s still a tent here of men to get out, and then the clusterfuck of getting everyone transported to deal with. I have no idea how long it’s actually been since Davies went to the Hail Mary, but we must be running low on time.
We need to get a move on.
Azrael looks up at me with soft eyes, ones he should not be so open about showing in mixed company, and whines like a pup. She’s ruining him. The more time he spends with her, the more he craves the gentle and loving tones she gives him. All of the belly scratches and soft pets… he’ll be useless in a fight soon.
He whines again and I roll my eyes. “Fine, you can go find her. Don’t eat anyone on the way.”
