LIFE ENTERS A WEIRD, new normal for us all.
Gabe and Atlas spend their days helping build houses and working on the new extensions for the school that are under way. North and Nox occupy themselves organizing an election for the new council. They go through the logistics of setting something like that up and how they can best use their resources to ensure that the Top Tier families don’t attempt to corrupt the voting process. I think it would be incredibly bold of them to attempt it. When I say this out loud, everybody stares at me like I’m either dumb or naive.
“Men in power will always choose to stay in power, Bonded. You should remember that,” North drawls as he sips his whiskey at the dinner table, pages of information still spread out in front of him even as he eats.
I smile coyly back at him. “I don’t need to. I have a Bonded Group for that. I get to dance around and think the best of everyone at all times. Isn’t that great?”
Gryphon scoffs at me and takes one of the rolls from my plate, ignoring the daggers that North shoots at him, but I bat my eyelashes until he serves me a spoonful of potatoes in exchange. I wasn’t expecting to love them as much as I do, but the chef has always been insanely talented at figuring out exactly what carbs I need on any given day.
“You don’t think the best of anyone at any time, not even your Bonded, so don’t try that bullshit here, Oli.” I flick a pea in his direction, but he’s not exactly wrong.
Gryphon spends his days down at the Tac Training Center, working with the new recruits to get them as trained as we possibly can before our next conflict crops up. There’s no doubt in any of our minds that it’s only a matter of days, not weeks, before we’re hit again. The Resistance have always tried to throw everything they can at us without taking a break, and the news of the deaths has already quieted down. I feel as though we’re in the calm before the storm.
I spend my days bouncing between the three groups, trying to help but mostly being a distraction to them all. More often than not, I find myself pressed up against a hard surface somewhere. My Bonded are just as insatiable for me as my bond is for them. I might also enjoy their presence a little more than I’m willing to admit, which is a whole lot.
I spend more time with Gryphon than I do the rest, though it isn’t favoritism. I’m keenly aware that he’s just lost his father. His mother, from whom he is estranged, is still sitting in the cells underneath the Tac Training Center. She’s not exactly a prisoner, but she’s not trusted enough to walk the streets of the Sanctuary.
I tried to reassure them all that I’m fine with her being out and about. I don’t think she’s going to attempt to hurt me, and I doubt she could even if she tried, but her words are still very clear in my Bonded’s minds. Gryphon was the first person to shut down that idea.
It’s only after I go to visit him at the Tac Training Center and he squirrels me away into the small office that he finally reveals what has been eating away at him all this time.
He sits me on his desk in front of him and takes a moment to lay his head across my lap, enjoying my fingers as I scratch his scalp after I pull the hair tie out, threading my fingers through it as I work. I’m intent on just being here for him and offering him whatever comfort I can. Physical, mental, emotional; I’m here for it all.
“My parents weren’t really Bonds,” he mutters against my thigh, and my fingers falter for a moment before I get back to scratching.
“They did the blood tests?”
He shakes his head. “My father refused. I got Sawyer to pull them and rerun them. He’s only doing them on my request because the database is so big. It’ll take him years to rerun everything, but there was something that I just couldn’t let go of that the god said… North too. So I asked him to rerun them. My mom also requested that we don’t do it. She told me she knew exactly how she felt about my father, and she didn’t need a blood test to tell her they were Bonds. I guess she was wrong.”
I scowl a little as my eyes wander over the large map of the entire country he has hanging over his desk. Small flags mark the Resistance camps. It looks a lot like the one that Atlas’ mom had sent to us before she died, only there are a lot of older camps and Wastelands on it that have already been shut down.
I’d questioned him about it the first time he brought me up here. He’d sent me a sheepish grin, which was so foreign on his face that I almost wish I’d taken a photo of it.
“It’s proof that we’re actually getting something done around here. Proof that we’re making a difference. That even though more Resistance camps and Wastelands keep popping up, we are still getting rid of some. It might not seem like a lot, but to the people trapped inside of them, it’s huge. I have to remind myself that every life saved might be a single number on our data sheet, but to that one person? It’s their entire life. Remembering the small things in this big mess is what gets me through the night when everything becomes just a bit too much.”
I don’t like him speaking like that.
It sends a small tingle of fear into my belly, but I understand what he means. Sometimes I lie awake at night, the sound of their breathing all around me, and yet, even in the safety of their arms, I can’t go back to sleep.
I know exactly what he’s talking about.
“Do you really think she doesn’t know? Or that she’s just convinced herself that she does? I can’t imagine not knowing.”
Gryphon shakes his head again, rolling his forehead against the soft flesh of my thigh as he groans at the firm tension of my fingers as I scratch.
“You know what this feels like because you have felt a true Bond between us. How else are they getting everyone into the wrong Bonded Groups? Unless they really have been manipulating people’s minds… 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.”
My throat closes, and I bend at the waist until I’m hugging him, awkwardly laying myself over his back that’s draped over my legs. We’re a messy pile of limbs, but it’s perfect and exactly what I need at this moment. It’s what he needs too.
“Well, that means that you weren’t a product of a Bonded Group. North and Nox weren’t either, or Atlas. I guess that leaves me and Gabe.”
It’s never occurred to me that I could rerun my parents blood, but I suppose there’s a way that I could. Do I need that information? Do I want to have it? Will it change the way I think of them? Has it changed the way that Gryphon thinks of his?
I’m not sure, and I don’t want to ask anything of my Bonded right now, not at the moment anyway.
Instead, I revel in the way that he’s enjoying my touch, in the pleasure of us being here quietly together. Honestly, for now, it’s enough.
THE PROSPECT of my parents not being Bonded weighs heavily on me. It’s not until a few days later, when I am holding pieces of drywall in place for Gabe to fix them, that I finally find a way to speak to him about it—a way for the words to come out of me and not sound broken and desolate or just plain wrong.
“Do you ever wonder if your parents were Bonded or if they were also part of the Resistance scheme?”
We’re alone in the house.
Atlas just left on one of the ATVs to go and pick up more grout and boxes of nails for us, leaving with a kiss for me and a slap on the shoulder for Gabe as he got to work. He’s flourishing now that he has picked up the basics of building under Gabe’s tutelage. The first time that Gabe had declared some of his work as perfect, I saw Atlas beam with pride.
It occurs to me that he’s never had to really work for anything before.
Being a Bassinger on the East Coast had made his entire life very easy, and I’m reminded of when he’d first started training with Gryphon and I. Gryphon had declared his form and technique lacking, thanks to overpaid trainers who wanted nothing more than his parents’ money and prestige. They didn’t really give a shit about whether or not Atlas truly knew how to defend himself.
I remember exactly what it looked like the first time that Gryphon had also declared his form perfect. 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.
Gabe tacks the drywall into place and then shoots me a wry grin. “I’ve done my best to make sure that you never have to meet my mother, and I don’t really want that to change. I don’t need Sawyer to rerun the bloods to know that my mom was definitely Bonded to my dad at least. You don’t break the way that she did without there being a Bond in place. She’s not really here anymore.”
I have accidentally stepped on my Bonded’s trauma, one that he has always been so careful about keeping hidden from everyone. When I wince, he chuckles under his breath at me, bending down to give me a quick peck on the lips as he moves to the next piece of drywall to tack down.
“Don’t worry about it, Bonded. It’s not something I feel ashamed of anymore. It’s more like frustration that she’s just chosen to tap out. Gryphon has assured me that this isn’t a choice for her, that her mind is absolutely broken, but it still feels like a choice to me, no matter how hard I try to see it any other way. Meeting you helped a little, because I know how badly I would take anything happening to you, but she’s still my mom, you know? It still feels like a rejection.”
Even feeling that way, he’s taken care of his mom with all the understanding in the world. No matter how he felt internally, he’s cared for her, and that speaks volumes about the character of my Bonded.
I nod and bend to help him lift up the next sheet, doing exactly as he asks, carefully and with consideration. I know that this is the one area of his life where Gabe is a perfectionist, the one area that he holds himself and everyone else to a very high standard. I don’t want to be the person to mess his work up for him.
“Do you think we’ll feel differently when we have kids?” I ask quietly, shifting my weight on my feet as he straightens up with wide eyes.
I realize what I’ve said, and my cheeks turn red as I fumble to explain myself. “I mean, if that happens, I guess. I just—I’m trying to figure this out and how it relates to me and my parents, because I’m thinking about running their blood as well, and, shit, I’ve really put my foot in it—”
Gabe cuts me off. “This is the first time you’ve ever brought up kids in our entire relationship, Bonded. I’m allowed to be surprised for a second. I’d started assuming that you didn’t ever want them because anytime anybody talks about anything to do with the future, you space out and try to figure out how you’re going to fill your days up. That kinda makes it sound like you’re not planning on another generation around here.”
My blush deepens and I shrug. “That’s a valid response to things, Gabe. What are we going to do with our days if Gryphon isn’t having to train people all day? If Nox and North aren’t doing tactical planning and research and we’re not having to house people running away from conflict… What are we going to do?”
Gabe carefully sets down his tools and then takes the drywall off of me, putting it down at our feet as well. Then he frames my face with his hands, gently leaning down to me. I’m sure we look like an absolute mess covered in dust and debris from the building site, but neither of us care as my breath catches in my throat and he stares me dead in the eye.
“I think what we’ll do is spend a few years doing absolutely nothing except spending time with each other without any obligations. Then we might travel, see the world, and do all of the things that we’re supposed to do. Then I think that nothing sounds better to me than a million kids.”
A laugh sputters out of me. “I don’t think I can have a million kids, thank you very much, Gabriel Ardern!”
He kisses me, sweet and pure, as though he’s pouring that beautiful happy sunshine of his into me, and it warms me to the core. “I think you’ll love every second of it, Bonded. I think we’ll have one and you’ll see how much the entire Bonded Group loves that child, how much we all will love and nurture and cherish a child born here with us, and you’ll want even more. I also think that North is going to lock you in a tower the moment you say that you want kids to demand that you pass on the Draven name first. I can already imagine him and Nox battling it out over this since technically either of them can father a Draven child.”
I think I forget how to breathe at the very idea of any of that, but then as I think about each one of them having a child, I feel the exact same way.
That’s an entire side to our Bonded Group I’ve never thought of before, something that I never assumed we would have peace for long enough to really consider. I’m absolutely not going to bring a child into the world as it currently is. With god-bonds chasing us and the Resistance having a target on our backs, it’s not fair and it’s not right, but the whole point of us getting rid of them is to live in peace. To live and love and do everything that Gabe has just described, everything we could ever want with each other.
“A Draven baby,” I murmur, and Gabe grins at me, pure sunshine and happiness.
“I don’t care who goes first, Bonded. I know that I’ll be able to convince you to have just one more with me.”
I shake my head at him again, picking up the drywall and getting it back into place, happy for the distraction to calm my racing heart.
We work quietly for a moment before I find myself having a whole new mental crisis. “What if I do only want one? What if the thought of more than one is terrifying to me and that’s it?”
Gabe shrugs. “Then just have one. Like I said, it’s going to end up a Draven, we all know it. To be honest, Bonded, if that’s what you want too, then that’s okay with me. I’m more than happy playing football with our kid no matter what last name it has or what color hair. Though to be honest, I think white would be pretty cute.”
I blush again and mumble under my breath, “My hair was originally black, you know, as black as the Dravens’, so there’s a pretty good chance it’s going to be black, no matter what.”
Gabe shrugs again, picking up his hammer. “It doesn’t bother me either way, and I already know it doesn’t bother anyone else either… except for maybe North. Have fun having this conversation with him someday.”
I hope that day is very far away.
IF ATLAS NOTICES the change in the mood between Gabe and I when he returns from collecting supplies, he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he just joins in with the good-natured bantering and the flirting that happens whenever the three of us are on site together.
I’ve fallen into a sort-of menage relationship with them both. One where I’m equally excited to see both of them together as I am to see them by themselves. There’s never an expectation of being with either of them alone anymore because they find it easy enough to share me between them, and the only thing stopping us from taking advantage of the empty building is the fact that it is a school for young children, and I refuse to be inappropriate in such a way.
Atlas rallies hard to convince me otherwise.
“I can’t stand up in front of an entire community at a meeting, acting like I’m so pious and good, if I’ve been railed by the two of you in one of their kids’ classrooms. It’s just wrong!”
Gabe roars with laughter, but Atlas only waves a hand out in front of himself as though none of this is a big deal. “It’s not their classroom yet. It’s not as though we’re going to be sweeping crayons onto the floor. If you’re that fussy about it, I’m sure that between the two of us, we can hold you up. You wouldn’t even have to get your knees dirty, Bonded.”
Gabe smiles lasciviously at me, getting a palmful of my ass as he squeezes and pulls me in close to his chest, smelling like clean sweat and dust. There’s a small smudge on his nose and it is way too endearing to me. “I’m happy to get my knees dirty for you, Bonded, if that’s what you’d like.”
My entire body runs hot at his words, my nipples hardening underneath my shirt as I groan at them, and both of my hands fist in his shirt as I try to tell my body to push him away. “Don’t make this any harder for me than it already is. I really can’t look anyone in the face if this happens here. Let’s just head home and do it in a nice comfortable bed or a shower…hallway…kitchen counter—”
“Fuck it, the front doorstep,” Atlas cuts in, pressing up against my back, and he kisses down my neck.
I melt into a puddle between the two of them. I really can’t take much more of this.
“Please,” I say, my voice ending in a moan, and Gabe finally has the strength to step away from me, grabbing my hand and tugging me along behind him, leaving Atlas standing alone in the room with the hard outline of his cock clear in his taut jeans.
“Home and bed, right now,” Gabe says with a laugh, pulling me through the building until he can deposit me back onto the ATV, tucking the seat belt around me as he climbs into the trunk, leaving the driver’s seat for Atlas.
They take turns on who gets to drive and who has to sit in the back. We’d learned long ago that having me sit in the front, half on each of their laps, is not a good idea. Especially when we arrive at building sites to find Gabe’s uncle and cousins standing around waiting for us.
The amount of awkward situations we’ve nearly gotten ourselves into is embarrassing, to say the least.
Atlas drives like a maniac on purpose, I’m sure, just to make me laugh. As we pass people on the streets, he throws them all his usual haughty look, even as Gabe calls out and waves to everyone he knows, as always, the golden child of the Bonded Group.
I try to look friendly enough without waving at anyone. I have limits of how far I’m willing to go to be nice to these people, and I’m happy when we finally pull up to the house. I’m not good at playing nice like that, not at all.
Atlas parks the ATV in the garage, and he’s careful about making sure that it’s locked up, putting the keys in the lockbox and shutting the door behind us. He’s doing all of the responsible shit that he should be doing thanks to the lecture that we’d gotten from North and Gryphon about such things.
Gabe never worries about it too much, doing all the tasks as required but without the look of intense concentration that Atlas has. He’s not worried about impressing or proving himself to anyone, I suppose. He’s happy just being Gabe, the youngest Bond of the group who was mostly raised by the other members in his teenage years. He relied on them as ‘older brother’ figures as much as other members in the Bonded Group. He has nothing to prove, and the confidence he has is a testament to that.
I think Atlas is close to realizing that he also has nothing to prove to anyone anymore. Every hoop that was presented to him, he jumped through beautifully, no matter how high or whether or not they were on fire. I am incredibly proud of everything that he’s achieved.
“Why are you getting teary, Sweetness?” he murmurs quietly as we move into the house. “That’s not the mood I was hoping you’d be in when we got here.”
I shake my head at him, threading a hand into the small patch of curls that have started growing at the base of his neck now that he’s not so concerned about keeping his hair short. I tug him towards me as I capture his lips with my own.
He goes along with this more than happily, taking the kiss over the moment that our lips meet. I enjoy the heady taste of his lust against my tongue. There’s no urgency in either of us as his hands move down my sides until they reach my hips, yanking me forward to feel exactly how hard he has been since we first started this back at the school.
It’s the perfect ending to a long day of hard work… Part of my mind is wandering toward the shower, thinking about getting ourselves clean before I run my tongue over every inch of them both. There’s also a frenetic energy that needs to be sated first, energy that needs to be fulfilled.
“Find me a bed, Bonded,” I break away from his lips to murmur.
A slow, easy grin stretches over his lips as he cups my ass with one hand, lifting me up until my legs wind their way around his waist.
Gabe chuckles under his breath as he puts a hand over his shoulder and grabs a fistful of his shirt, pulling it off in one easy motion as he drops it on the floor carelessly. I know at least one man who’s going to end up very angry at him for such messiness, but Atlas’ lips are very distracting as he kisses his way down my neck, completely disregarding the layer of dust that covers us all.
I find myself ignoring it as well, my hands tangling in his hair and yanking at the small length of it as I pull his lips back to mine. It’s slow and easy, and it’s everything I want right now. Fun, carefree, and without any sort of obligation. There’s no bonds battling it out inside of us or making demands, there’s no giant void of energy that we’re trying to fill. There’s nothing but me and two of my Bonded wanting to be with each other, and that in itself is perfect. Gabe leads the way towards my bedroom, swinging open the door and making his way over to the bed, taking his shoes off as he goes.
Atlas refuses to put me down, not even onto the bed for a moment, while he gets us both naked. Instead, we become a confused pile of limbs, interconnected as we try to shimmy out of our own clothes while still kissing. I get pretty close to getting my pants off when there is a tickle at the side of my throat that doesn’t feel like hands. I assume for a moment that Gabe has decided that watching is no longer enough and that he wants to join when Atlas curses and turns us both.
There, at our feet, is Azrael. He’s slowly growing bigger and bigger and bigger as he takes over the room.
My brows furrow as I watch all of this. It’s completely out of character for my little shadow puppy, but then his puppy form distorts until it’s almost as if he’s trying to shape himself into a man.
My heart begins to thump in my chest.
I have no idea what is going on, and then suddenly, through the shadow puppy walks Nox, shifting from one space in the Sanctuary to another.
Atlas grumbles under his breath and opens his mouth, ready to tear Nox a new one, but the look on his face tells me something else has happened, something terrible, and the first thing that he’s done is come to me the fastest way he possibly can, faster even than the Transporters could get him here.
“What is it?” I whisper. “What’s happened?”
Atlas’ grip on me relaxes a little, and I slide down the front of him, completely unbothered by my nakedness, and Nox’s eyes never leave my face.
“One of the Transporter Zones for the new Sanctuary residents was hit. They’ve taken Kieran.”
