The moment the door closes behind North, I bolt out of the bed, still wrapped up tight in the duvet, and scurry into the bathroom, locking the door behind me like a complete and utter coward.
Then I take a minute to panic.
Why the hell did my bond send Brutus away? I need my little smoke friend right now to keep me company while I spiral out of my freaking mind. I’m not proud but I definitely think about filling the bathtub and drowning myself in there.
I climb into the shower instead.
It still smells of Gryphon in here, all of his soaps and shampoo bubbles still sitting in the water on the bottom of the tiled shower floor, and even though my bond gets super fucking pissy about it, I wash away the scent of him on my skin.
And from between my legs.
I’m livid at my bond. I can’t believe it pulled that shit on me. I can’t believe that after everything I’ve done to keep them all at arm’s length, my bond has ruined everything in a jealous little tantrum!
I don’t even want to think about the fact that I just fucked my Bond right after he’d had another woman rolling around in his freaking bed.
I was also unaware that having sex would make me want to die the second the afterglow is over with. Fuck, I barely even got an afterglow thanks to the others showing up. At least it was a great introduction to sex, I’d come so freaking hard that there’s a lot more of my own wetness between my legs than just blood and his cum. Okay, so it hurt a little and it would’ve been better without my bond taking the wheel, but if I shut my eyes and force myself to forget about the rest of the shit going on, I can still feel his mouth on my clit, driving me freaking insane.
Are you touching yourself in my shower right now, Bonded?
The noise that comes out of me definitely isn’t human and I drop the bottle of shampoo in my hands. That makes the loudest banging noise in an enclosed space ever, my ears ringing and pain shooting through my head.
Then, because tonight can’t possibly stop fucking me over, the bathroom door slams open as Gryphon breaks it down.
He. Breaks. It. Down.
“What do you think you’re doing?!” I shriek, and he scowls at me like I’m the one who just shattered a panel off of the door with my freaking shoulder for no good goddamn reason.
He stares at me, his eyes flicking to where my arms are crossed over my chest as though he wasn’t licking and sucking his way across my tits like an hour ago, and then he steps forward to jerk the shower door open.
“There was a crash, I thought you’d fallen and hurt yourself. Move over.”
I gape at him, not wanting to step back, but he just barges in and forces my body back with his own so I have no choice. I don’t want to watch him clean my blood from his body and when he opens his mouth, I snap, “Don’t. Don’t use your gift on me right now. I’m ten different types of pissed off and I’m in here to attempt to drown myself.”
He huffs at me and reaches around me to grab his soap, lathering up his hands, but then instead of cleaning himself off, he starts soaping up my legs. His hands stay in very safe spots, but now that I know how it feels to have him inside of me, this is a very heated moment.
“What set it off? Black said you all got home safe and were happy enough in his debrief, who set your bond off? I’ll kill them for doing this to you.”
I snort at him and shove at his chest but he’s easily three times my size and practically a brick wall, so all that happens is that he catches my hands and keeps them pinned to his bare chest.
“Let me go! My bond might be okay with just forcing us to be Bonded, claiming your bond and then going back to settle in my chest, but I’m not so quick to get over you having some other girl in your fucking bed! All of that bullshit before I went out over my outfit and then you’re here with some other girl? No. I changed my mind, I’m going to sleep somewhere else,” I snap, but the more words that tumble out of me in a furious rant, the more confused and pissed off he looks in return.
He ducks down to catch my eyes with his own, forcing me to hold his gaze. “What the hell are you talking about? I haven’t touched another woman, not from the moment we dragged you back here and dropped you at the council offices. Oli, look at me, I swear on our Bond, I have not touched anyone but you since we met.”
I get flutters in all sorts of places they don’t belong at his words. I force myself to hold onto my anger because I didn’t just imagine what I smelled. “Then why the fuck was there perfume all over your bed? It didn’t just magically appear on your sheets, now did it? I came back here in my playsuit, just like you told me to, and I find your bed stinking of another woman. I didn’t even get the chance to be pissed off or upset about it, my bond came out instantly and then… Everything happened so fast.”
He blinks at me.
Then, cursing under his breath, he shoves the shower door open and grabs a towel. I’m expecting him to just storm out of the room because he has what he wants now, the Bond is complete between us and his power is going to increase, if it hasn’t already, but he turns to shut the shower off and then wraps me up in the fluffy, luxurious fabric.
His face is thunderous, the type of pissed I’m used to seeing on North but have never seen him have before, but his hands are gentle as he gets me dry and covered. Then he carefully directs me back into his room with a firm hand and zero regard for the fact that he’s still naked and dripping with water.
There’s blood everywhere.
Not, like, life threatening amounts, but smears of it all over the sheets and his towel on the floor from where he’d cleaned himself up a little. It feels awkward as fuck to not talk about it but I think maybe he’s assuming it was just my period.
With any luck, I’ll never have to talk about it with him.
He leaves me by the shattered bathroom door and stalks forward to the bed, leaning down and frowning as he obviously gets a whiff of the perfume underneath the scents of our sex. I blush furiously, it’s really fucking embarrassing to think about, but when he straightens up and grabs his phone, I want to die all over again.
“What are you doing?!” I hiss, and he speaks to whoever he’s called while looking me dead in the eye, no hiding or attempts at masking what is happening.
“I need you to get every woman in this house into your office, everyone who has been here for the last two hours. Someone has been in my room and messed with my bed. It set Oli’s bond off, my bond responded, and someone did it to hurt her… She’s fine now, she’s just furious, and so am I… I’ll be there in five minutes… Oli will stay here, she’s not going to be walking around the manor dealing with this bullshit tonight.”
When he switches his phone off and throws it back onto the bedside table, I cross my arms and snap, “You really expect me to just believe that you didn’t do anything? I don’t have a built-in lie detector but I wasn’t born yesterday!”
He doesn’t react to me at all, just gets to work stripping the sheets off his bed and bundling them up with a vague look of disgust at handling them. I shift on my feet, my body hurting in all sorts of new places, and I edge forward to try to find the pajamas I’d brought down here with me. They’re in a pile by the door, I’d obviously dropped them when my bond took the reins.
The moment I pick them up, my bond gets pissy about them being from my Bonds because now it only wants my Bonded, to drown in his scent and wallow in his space until the Bond we share is properly established. I scowl down at them and when Gryphon has the bed made back up, he comes back over to me.
“Take whatever you want from my closet, you’re in… fuck, nesting mode. I know you don’t want it, but that’s what you need right now. Just grab whatever is comfortable to sleep in for you and I’ll fix this.”
I drop the other clothes like they’re on fire, showing a complete disregard for my Bonded’s space, but it doesn’t bother him. He just grabs them and follows me into the closet, hovering over me until I’m dressed in a pair of his boxer briefs and a cozy, black sweater.
Once I’ve stepped back, clearly not grabbing anything else, he starts pulling out clothes for himself as well and I turn away. I don’t want him covered up and leaving me, I want him in a bed that only smells like us and wrapped around me.
My chest tightens when he steps back out in jeans and a t-shirt, my stomach dropping, and I can’t stop myself from whimpering.
His arms wrap around me and smother me into his chest. “What’s wrong? I know you don’t believe me, but I’ll find out who it was and deal with it. Whatever proof you want, I’ll get it for you.”
I shake my head, rubbing my face against his chest, and even though I’m starting to believe him, I can’t find my voice. It’s trapped somewhere else in my body with my savage bond and my growing, murderous gift.
There’s a knock at the door.
Gryphon’s hand slides into my hair, cupping the back of my head as he calls out to invite my Bond in. I’ve already guessed that it’ll be North, it’s obvious who Gryphon had called to help him find the woman, but I can’t move away from his arms to hide because I might crack open and spill all of my organs out everywhere if he stops touching me right now.
Tonight is definitely cursed.
“I checked the security cameras and Gracie Davenport was in here ten minutes before Oleander came in. She had her bag with her. I went to speak to her but Felix had already sent her home for going after Sage again. Apparently she’d taken offense to something Gabe said to her when he showed her to her room and went wandering.”
Fucking. Gracie.
Gryphon’s hands are still warm and gentle as he rubs my back but his tone as he replies to North is anything but. “I will deal with her in the morning. You need to kick her out of Draven too, she’s not allowed near Oli, or any of us, ever again. If she, or her family, doesn’t take it well, I’ll get rid of her.”
I stiffen in his arms but he doesn’t stop with the calming strokes. North doesn’t answer him and I get curious about what the two of them must be communicating with their faces, so I take a deep breath and turn around in Gryphon’s arms to face North.
He’s staring at the pile of sheets Gryphon had shoved in the wash basket in the corner. The duvet that I’d wrapped myself in is still in the bathroom, but Gryphon had found a spare one and gotten the bed made up.
“What did she do?” North says, and Gryphon steps away from me to go into the bathroom and grab the rest of the stinking evidence of Gracie’s stupidity.
I swallow back bile and say, “Perfume. She put perfume all over his bed and my bond took over before I had the chance to even speak to him. It was out of our hands because my bond is a jealous, cantankerous bitch and just took over.”
Gryphon grabs the pile of dirty washing and steps out of the room to get rid of them, leaving me alone with North for a second, and I immediately want to chase after him. It’s stupid, I know it is, but my bond keens in my chest like he’s abandoning me.
Instead of letting myself become some pathetic Bonded weeping nightmare, I concentrate on the link between us, the small threads that are barely established but that I know will grow in time. I feel tiny beads of sweat break out on my forehead as I push two words at him, cursing at myself for how easy he’d made it look to just send through a whole damn sentence to me before.
Burn them.
There’s a small moment of quiet in my head and then his answer comes through, I’ll burn the whole manor down if you want me to. We can go back into your room for tonight, and I’ll move rooms in the morning.
Fuck.
My heart does a little backflip in my chest and even though it gives me the shakes, I send back to him, I’m not leaving this room, hurry up and come back to me.
I don’t want to climb into the bed without him but North is just standing there a few paces away, scowling around the room at everything like he’s planning out a punishment for all of this. God, he probably is, and I’m grateful that it’s Gryphon I found myself in this mess with because at least North believes him and trusts his word a hundred percent. I wait a second in the silence, rubbing my hands over my arms because even with the sweater on, I’m a little chilly with the air conditioning cranked so high in here, but North doesn’t react at all.
North steps up closer to me, his steps hesitant but his words are sure as he says, “If you need… anything after what’s happened tonight, I’ll arrange it for you. Name it and it’s yours.”
I frown at him but he won’t look at me, blowing out a breath before continuing, “I didn’t know you were a virgin. I’m guessing you didn’t use a condom if your bond was in control. I’ll get you some emergency contraceptive if you want it… unless you’re against it and are fine with the consequences?”
Jesus, fuck. “Please. I was getting the shot while I was away for my periods but it’s been too long since my last one. Oh my God, could this get any freaking worse?”
I’m definitely panicking but he doesn’t look at me or notice it, he just stands there in silence again until Gryphon gets back.
He doesn’t look at North at all, just heads straight over to me and bundles me up into his arms, walking me over to his bed and doing one last sniff test to make sure the perfume is all gone and it hasn’t seeped onto the mattress or something.
“We’re fine, North. There’s nothing else that can be done tonight,” Gryphon says, a clear dismissal. I think it’s kind of bold of him because no matter how hard I’ve tried before, North has never allowed me to tell him to leave.
He goes without a word.
It’s kind of terrifying.
“Oli, is the bed okay or do we need to move? I can’t smell anything.”
I blink back into myself and give it a cautious sniff, still sore enough that I’m not really up to round two. There’s nothing there but the clean and fresh scent of the laundry soap that the maids use, so I climb in without another word. Gryphon climbs in after me, scooting in behind me, even though he usually sleeps on the other side, and when he hits the light and plunges the room into darkness, I let my head fall back onto the pillow with a thud.
I desperately need the night to be over.
I settle into his arms and let him move me until we’re both comfortable. After a minute, his hand creeps onto my stomach, warming up until I feel his gift flow through me, the ache between my legs disappearing, and I blush like crazy.
I clear my throat and whisper to him, “You don’t have to do that.”
He tucks his face behind my ear where Brutus usually sleeps and murmurs, “I will tear that girl apart with my bare hands for doing this to you, but I’m a selfish asshole. I’m glad it was me and not one of the others.”
I turn my face into the pillow and try not to weep like a pathetic girl in relief that maybe he isn’t lying, maybe he does want me and I’m tied to someone who actually knows what I’m capable of.
“Don’t cry, Bonded. We’re together in this, no matter what.”
I huff out a bleak laugh at him. “You’re Bonded to a monster. A real one, a murderer. You heard Carlin, you know about it. What if it gets stronger? I can feel it growing in my stomach already, you know? I can feel it, we’re all going to fucking die.”
He grunts and shifts me, moving my uncooperative body around to face him as though I’m a weightless rag doll, and I try not to find it as hot as I do. It’s too dark to actually look into his eyes but I blink at him anyway, as though it’ll make the darkness shift.
His hands reach out to cup my cheek. “If you call yourself a monster again, I will put you over my knee and spank that attitude right out of you. You’re perfect. Having a Top Tier gift, no matter how rare, doesn’t make you a monster. I’ve known a lot of monsters, you’re not one.”
I’m definitely not perfect but he says it with so much conviction that I desperately want to believe him. His hand begins to move to stroke over the soft skin of my belly and I’m happy that all of my training has shrunk the little belly I have there. I still have one, probably because it’s housing my uterus because, hi there, I’m a girl, but it’s not something I’m self-conscious of anymore.
“Go to sleep, Oli. We can deal with everything in the morning.”
