We spend the next five hours sparring with the rest of the Tac personnel, both our own and those recruits that the General had brought with him. Not all of them are as useless as Zoey had been. When she had eventually come to, Vivian had called down somebody from the medical center to take a look at her, but she was fine, except for the bruised ego.
I go up against three other women, one of them easily twice the size of me, but manage to win against them all, which leaves me feeling pretty damn smug and thankful that all of my time working out and getting my ass handed to me by Gryphon has paid off.
The best part of the day is that I get to watch my Bonded.
None of them fight each other, at my request, which means I get to actually enjoy the sight of each of them working their way through most of the male population of the TacTeams. Exactly one woman tries to enter the sparring ring with Gabe. She is immediately yanked out by Vivian, who gives her such a stern talking to that I’m fairly certain she wishes the ground would open up and swallow her whole. I think that this is incredibly considerate of him, until Sage points out to me that Azrael is growling at my feet and my eyes have shifted black in response.
Oops.
In my defense, Gabe is wearing a standard issue TacTeam tank top, but the arm holes have been cut open wider, and there’s an obscene amount of his skin on show right now. He’s hotter than any man has any right to be. The idea of him rolling around on these mats with anyone who isn’t me is upsetting. The idea that it could be a woman, one who might enjoy it just a little too much? Absolutely intolerable.
I don’t need my bond to chime in to tell me that it’s out of the question.
Sure enough, watching them gets me amped up, but the thing that really gets me going is watching Nox.
Even Atlas, who is sitting at my side with a bottle of water while he takes a breather after his own conquests, can’t help but be impressed at my Death Dealer, my most damaged Bond, as he obliterates any man brave, or stupid, enough to go up against him.
He is fucking brutal.
There’s no arguing that. Vivian, who trained Gryphon and both the Draven brothers and is fully aware of their abilities, insists that Nox spars against three men at once. I’d like to say that he does this because of the nightmare creatures joining in, but they don’t. There isn’t the slightest sign of any of his creatures except for Azrael who sits at my feet with August, both of them watching over the room with sightless void eyes.
I didn’t intend on having them out, but after Zoey’s attempt at an ambush, they’d refused to be put away, both of them acting like a small barrier between my family and anyone who might approach us.
No one here would be bold enough to try.
Nox moves like a dream, though I’m sure his opponents think he’s a nightmare come to life. He’s effective as he takes them down one-by-one, or sometimes three at a time. I find my mind drifting off to dirty, sexy thoughts at the sight of him.
I definitely wouldn’t mind him throwing me around like that.
He doesn’t stop either, not for a break or a drink of water. Every time his opponents tap out, he stands and nods at Vivian again. Over and over and over again, until dozens of men are clutching at the sore points of their body, gasping for air as they crawl out of the sparring ring. He shows them all what it means to be the pinnacle of Gifted perfection, the true danger living amongst them all.
“He’s kind of terrifying,” Aro says, her chin propped against her fist as she watches Nox with a small frown.
She’s staring at him intently the whole time, but there’s something calculating about it, like she’s trying to work out how to recreate his moves and be as effective in her fighting as he is.
My bond doesn’t react to it at all, and I know that she has no real interest in him beyond what she can learn from him. The way that he fights, there’s a lot that we could all learn from watching him.
“He’s kind of perfect,” I say in a dreamy voice, and Sage loses her shit laughing at me.
“How quickly your tune changes!” she says between gasps, and I shrug at her.
“I’m pretty sure you offered to set Kieran on fire for me, glass houses here.”
“One time.” She holds up a hand. “One time, and that’s because I found out he tackled you to the ground, like a brute. Unnecessary force used. I’d set anyone on fire for that.”
Kieran gives me a look for reminding his Bonded that he’d been the one to bring me in, and I flip him the bird because he deserves to cop a bit of shit for that asshole move.
My eyes drift back to Nox as he sweeps his opponents’ legs out from underneath them, their bodies hitting the ground hard. I can’t help but be drawn back to him as though he’s a beacon calling for my attention. “I’m not going to apologize for finding any of my Bonded hot, especially not while they are pummeling people into the ground for us.”
“Don’t rock the boat, Sage. We’re enjoying the peace and quiet too much to ruin it just for the sake of splitting hairs,” Gabe says as he approaches us, wiping his sweat on a towel and looking deliciously mischievous as his arms flex in my direction.
“We weren’t that bad,” I grumble under my breath, even though it’s a total lie.
At least Gryphon isn’t here to hear it.
“You are both a nightmare, perfectly paired to ruin everyone’s peace of mind,” Kieran says, and he slings an arm around Sage’s waist as he tugs her closer, attempting to get her back on his side. “I’m pretty sure the two of you gave North stress ulcers, and half of the TacTeams still have nightmares about the training sessions Gryphon put them through as his own stress relief.”
I wince a little and glance around. “Is that why everybody hates me? I feel like I should apologize or something to them all for that, because there’s nothing worse than Gryphon on a mission to destroy you in training. I know—I’ve been through it enough.”
Kieran shakes his head. “Better for them to face him and sharpen their abilities against someone who doesn’t want them dead than sending them out against the Resistance green.”
I nod, a good reminder of the real reason we’re here.
After a while, Sage and I decide we should probably get to working out as well, as good as it is to watch my guys wipe the floor with everyone around them. We move off to one of the smallest sparring mats to work on our own training together. Kieran comes with us and critiques both of our forms for us in the stern and gruff way that he has, firmly guiding us both through our paces without a hint of favoritism towards his own Bonded.
Sage is quick to groan about that fact when he instructs me on how to best throw her over my shoulder as she rushes me.
“You need to get better about how you land, and Oli needs to get adept at facing off with people her own size instead of just using her enemies’ body weight against them, thanks to all of her training with her Bonded. You can’t just rely on everybody to be bigger than you when we’re facing off with the Resistance.”
Sage groans from the mats where she’s splayed out on her back. “You could try sounding a little less happy about it is all I’m saying. With any luck, I will just set everyone on fire before they get near me, and I’ll never have to do this.”
I scoff and reach down to help her up. “Let’s be real. We’re hoping that between my bond and the shadow creatures, no one ever gets within a hundred feet of us. But if going to the Wastelands and the camps has taught me anything, you can never really be over-prepared to face off with these idiotic lunatics.”
She nods and uses the bottom of her tank top to wipe the sweat off of her forehead. I giggle at the way that Kieran whips around me to cover her up, glaring around the room as though somebody might look at the few inches of skin his Bonded inadvertently showed off.
No one would dare, and we both know it.
Bonded men can be impossible about their women.
When Kieran has to leave to transport North and Gryphon back home to us, I’m both exhausted from our training and relieved that we’re all going to be back in the same spot again. Sage and I decide to grab dinner from the dining hall to split with our Bonded at North’s office, happy to continue spending the day together after so much uncertainty and unease.
Once we have our bags piled up from the chef—who promises me emphatically that he is doing his best to get me some seafood like the national treasure he is—we head back to meet up with the rest of our families. Gabe meets us halfway, insisting on carrying the bags for us both, laughing and joking with Sage about everything he had done to his opponents in the training room.
They’ve known each other their entire lives, having grown up in the same Top Tier family circles, and I find myself enjoying the easy banter that they have together, both of them calm and relaxed after their intense workouts.
When we get back to the office, we find everyone waiting there for us. Though Gryphon comes straight up to me to greet me with a kiss, North hangs back a little bit. When I finally reach him to hand him a serving of the food we had brought with us, he presses a kiss to my cheek without much of a greeting, directing me over to sit with him, but I can feel the tension in his body.
It freaks me out.
I feel like I’ve been on this awful roller coaster with him, like every time we’ve found each other in the tumultuous waves we’re drowning in, something else will happen to pull us apart again.
I hate it.
We get through dinner easy enough, even if I do have to choke down every bite as I keep glancing at my Bonded, and most of the group disperses immediately after. Nox heads back to his little fortress of texts and translations to continue his studies. Kieran and Felix insist on taking Sage home straight away, the two of them looking weary after the long day. Gray and Sawyer joke and laugh with Aro and her little brother, coaxing them both back to their house with the promises of a movie night and popcorn. The show of calm and ease they have with each other in front of the little boy is easy enough to see through, but Aro seems to appreciate it nonetheless.
Fake it until you make it. Sometimes it’s all you can do while the world is in chaos.
North waits until they’re all gone before he speaks to me about what has been eating him all night, speaking directly through our mind link, where he’s careful that no one else can hear it.
I spoke with a human senator today. She had a lot of information about the latest attacks on Gifted families.
I’m sorry you had to do that, I say, ready to comfort him from whatever atrocities he’s been forced to see.
I’m not prepared for the horror of what he’s discovered.
There are a lot of historical deaths as well. She brought up your parents, the car accident, and she mentioned that a lot of the deaths of the Gifted and non-Gifted alike are hidden in other accidents so that no one would realize the true cause of death.
My heart stops in my chest.
She has a file on your parents’ death. She was trying to use you against me, and I don’t think she realized what she had really found. Your parents didn’t die in a car accident, Oli, did they? The coroner’s report said their hearts just stopped in their chests, as though their souls had simply left their body.
I panic.
There’s no other way to describe the way that one minute I’m standing in North’s office, my Bonded all moving around me as they head off to where they’re needed for the early evening, and then the next, I’m running, fleeing from the worst part of me that’s been cracked open and put on display. It’s like my nightmares have come true.
North’s words still bounce around in my head as I reach the house, my fingers almost numb as I scramble to get the door open. I can hear the footsteps behind me, pounding as though one of my Bonded is running after me, but my head feels as though it’s filled with air, light and floaty, like I might pass out at any second.
I need to get somewhere safe.
I can’t think about anything else, just the desperate need to flee the rejection that’s about to tear my world apart. I need to be somewhere where I can process everything that’s happened without having to face the reality of all of them knowing this about me now.
Do they all know?
North wouldn’t lie to Gryphon. They wouldn’t keep this from Gabe or Atlas, not after how much they’ve talked about being a cohesive Bonded Group.
They wouldn’t let them unknowingly stay with a murderer.
My feet move without me really thinking about it, and I only realize that I have locked myself in Nox’s room when the pounding on the wood starts up behind me. I hear the voices of people yelling through the closed door, but the ringing in my ear is too loud to decipher it.
My back slowly slides down the door until my ass hits the ground so hard that my teeth rattle, my arms shaking as I draw my knees up and hug them. The shouting abruptly stops before there’s a soft, wispy nuzzle at my cheek. I slowly raise my head to find Azrael staring at me, his bottomless void eyes seeing everything and nothing, all the time. In the expanse of the voids, I can feel Nox in there as well, and my eyes fall shut as I try to calm my breathing down.
I can’t even bear to look at him right now, the one person who already knew and hasn’t judged me for it. I don’t deserve the solace of his calm presence.
Murderer.
I can feel pushing at the walls in my mind, but I keep them strong, pushing everyone out so I can keep being a coward here for just a minute longer. I take this moment to tell myself that I can get through this. There’s every chance that they’re going to want to leave me now, and I need to have my walls back in place, the cold, calm exterior I had walked into Draven with. I need to be unfeeling before I have to face them. If I go out there right now as raw and as open as I am, I’ll be destroyed.
There’s a quiet, dark place inside myself that knows no matter what, I’m going to be destroyed, but I can lie to myself for a little longer.
Eventually, I make my way over to the bed, sliding between the sheets and pulling the blanket up over my head. My mind is a spinning, swirling vortex of shame and anxiety, making it impossible to go to sleep, but I lose track of time in my own meltdown.
It’s not until I hear the door lock click and door open that I come back into myself.
I hear Atlas’ angry voice as he snaps, “You can’t just keep us out here—”
I cringe and curl in on myself that he is that angry at me, but then I hear Nox reply, “It’s my room. If she chose to be in here, then there’s nothing you can do about it. Cross that line and I’ll unleash the shadow creatures on you, and we’ll see just how indestructible you really are.”
Then the door shuts again, the lock clicking back into place and the room falling back into silence.
Nox moves so quietly that I can barely hear what he’s doing. It’s as though his body is made out of shadows, not just his powers, but every now and then, there’s a rustle of fabric, the quiet thunk of his phone being placed on the bedside table, and the shuffling of papers as he puts away his research.
Still, he says nothing.
And still, even though he already knew what I’d done, the shame keeps my mouth sealed shut when the door opens to the bathroom and the shower cuts on.
I let go of the breath I was holding in, melting into the bed with the sheer relief that he isn’t going to force me to talk about this or to force me to get out of this bed and face the fact that my Bonded are sickened by me.
The sound of the shower slowly lulls just enough calm into me until I’m finally able to doze off to sleep. I wake up to the feeling of Nox sliding into the bed next to me, cautiously bundling me up into his arms until we’re twisted around each other. It’s as though he’s not quite sure of what he’s doing or if he’s doing it right. If I wasn’t already completely shattered, that would have finished the job.
A low sob bubbles up out of my chest, but he just presses my face closer into his chest, the steady thump of his heartbeat under my ear a mesmerizing sound that once again gets me back to sleep.
Hours later—how many, I’m not sure. The complete darkness of Nox’s room is disorienting. I feel the bed move again, and I crack an eye open to find North climbing in.
The shadow creatures around us are no longer sleeping, all of them watching him carefully as though they’re waiting for him to strike, but he doesn’t reach for me or attempt to speak in any way. He just lies down in the bed next to us silently, until eventually the shadow creatures all lay their heads back down to sleep.
The silence stretches on for so long that I start to panic again.
I think it’s that panic that finally gets North talking. “I know what it’s like to kill someone without meaning to. It’s a heavy weight to carry, Oleander.”
If I didn’t already know the amount of trust that Nox has in his brother, this moment would confirm it because he sleeps through the sound of his voice. I’m not sure he’ll sleep through mine, so instead, I speak to North directly through our mind connection.
She deserved to die. My parents didn’t. There’s a very big difference between the two, North. I know that this changes things—
He interrupts me and even the voice in his mind is harsh, This changes nothing. Not with me or any of the rest of your Bonded, who are all out in the hallway, freaking the hell out about your reaction to this. I misjudged how you’d react. This is all my fault. All I’ve done since you brought Nox back is mess things up.
Tears fill my eyes, but when the first one threatens to fall, he reaches over to catch it. Even in the darkness of the room, I can see the heartbreak in his eyes. I want to reach out to him to fix it the same way that he has soothed every fear and pain and trouble in my life from the moment he decided to let me in.
Some long before that.
But I don’t want to pull away from Nox. The sound of his heartbeat is the only thing holding me together right now, and I’m terrified to let that go, even for a minute, but North knows.
He always knows.
He nods at me without me saying a word, giving and giving and giving to his brother without question or judgment, giving everything he can to him, as though he is attempting to fill a void. He’d give everything to me as well. Even in my panicked state, I can’t deny it now with him lying here with me. He’d give everything until he had nothing left for himself, I’m sure of it.
