AS WE STEP out of the Tac Training Center together, I look back over my shoulder at the building with a sense of longing. I still haven’t had the chance to really speak to North since we returned from the Wastelands, and other than the threesome with the Soothsayer, I’ve barely seen Nox as well.
I haven’t even spoken to Gryphon except for the small debrief on the morning after, and it had been more of a moment to bask in each other, not exactly a check-in.
I miss my Bonded.
I know that we’re so close to the end of the fighting and our time away from each other, but I can’t help the ache in my chest that comes with being away from them. I also don’t envy them for the conversations they’re now being forced to have with Vivian about their god-bonds.
I was expecting them to be more upset at how we had been pushed to deal with things, but the moment that his void eyes had cleared, North had immediately begun a debrief with the older man. He accepts that this is the way that things are now, and there is no use in hiding this fact from him.
I doubt we’re going to be burned at the stake in this lifetime.
I’m stupid enough to say this out loud to Gabe and Atlas and both of them scowl at me.
“Do you remember that? Do you actually have memories of it, or are you talking more in a hypothetical sense right now?” Gabe asks, and I shrug.
“I remember it, just sort of in a way that I also know it’s not really my memories. It’s something that my bond has brought with it that I am now the holder of. Does that make sense?”
“Does any of this make sense?” Atlas says with a groan, threading his fingers through mine as he directs me back through the Sanctuary towards our house.
We had left Sage’s house this morning on foot, and I can tell that Atlas is frustrated at how slow we’re moving, especially when a group of people spill out of the dining hall and change the direction they’re walking the moment they spot us coming.
I’m not expecting much out of my own bond, so when it picks up in my chest to get my attention, I almost stumble over my own feet.
We need to go hunting, it says. I let my eyes slip shut for a moment, trusting Atlas to keep me on my feet while I speak with it.
Where and what sort of hunting? You give me a time and a place, and I’ll make it happen.
My bond purrs happily in my chest at my easy acceptance of what it wants to do. I think it was expecting me to put up a fight, but we’re beyond that now. The memory of what had happened in the past, of the atrocities that we had been doomed to endure time and time again, has been more than enough to convince me to switch to the offensive.
The Sanctuary is here to keep everyone safe and has done an amazing job of that so far, but the only true way to keep us and our god-bonds safe is to get rid of the threats altogether.
Our Bonded are finding out where they’re hiding. We must go to them as soon as we know and take care of the situation.
I nod my head, which makes me feel kind of dumb, but Atlas and Gabe both meet my eyes when I open them back up.
“Hunting. All of us together, or are we going to let the gods take over for this?” Atlas asks, and Gabe groans as he rubs a hand over his face.
“I would like to keep the dragon under wraps for as long as I can. There’s no way I want to deal with the indigestion and naps so soon after the last bout.”
I wince a little, shooting him a sheepish look. “I think we should go there ourselves and be prepared for the god-bonds to take over if they need to. There’s every chance that whoever we’re facing might be too much for us to handle.”
Atlas nods and scratches at the back of his head, glaring around at the Sanctuary as though he’s expecting someone to come bursting out of the bushes towards us. He shouldn’t worry so much about it. People are still running in the opposite direction at the mere sight of us, especially when we’re grouped together like this.
“The problem here is that they’ve all been awake longer than us, right? Everyone except you and the Dravens, at least. That’s why they’re stronger than us. Shouldn’t we be laying low until we have a better rapport with them all?”
I shake my head at him. “No, because they’ve Bonded. Our Bond is complete. I think that cancels that power growth out.”
I shut my eyes again and check that with my bond.
It agrees wholeheartedly.
No one is stronger than us now. We can wipe them off the face of the earth and live out our lives at the pinnacle of power like the gods that we are.
Okay, that sounds a little bit more villainous than I would like to be dealing with this morning… When I open my eyes back up, both of my Bonded are grinning at me.
Gabe says, chuckling under his breath, “Do you think we’ll ever get used to the way they speak? What are we going to do once we’ve gotten rid of all the threats and we just have these angry, murderous god-bonds living inside us? What are we going to use to distract them?”
We turn down the small path towards our house, which is further away from the rest of the Sanctuary and its inhabitants, and Atlas slides his palm down my back until he gets a handful of my ass. “I think we can distract them in other ways.”
I scoff back at him. “So a giant orgy, twenty-four-seven, to stop them from ending the world? That doesn’t sound exhausting at all.”
Gabe’s chuckles turn into full-blown belly laughs. “I’m willing to give it a go if you are, Bonded. I think that sort of makes us superheroes in this situation.”
“Right. So selfless,” I throw back at him, shaking my head at both of them.
GABE AND ATLAS spend the afternoon finishing off Atlas’ bathroom, and I spend some time organizing the mess that is my closet. It’s nowhere near the top of my priority list, not with the million other things relating to god-bonds, Bonded Groups, and my own Bonded being busy and away from me for hours of the day, but it’s a good distraction to keep me from going crazy over everything.
My own bond is pretty pissed off about it until I start packing a go-bag, one with enough Tac uniforms, underwear, and weapons to get me through a full week of traveling and hunting. It gets on board with that plan pretty damn quickly.
I only had two good pairs of boots, and one of them had been destroyed in the fighting at the Wasteland. I add that to my mental list of things to sort out before we head off, then I go through the clothes that I have permanently borrowed from my Bonded. I have to work out what I need to give back to them and what I need to move back into rotation.
I’m not being kind or generous at all in handing things back. Most of the sweaters have lost the scents of my Bonded because I’ve worn them so much myself. This isn’t exactly a fashion choice I’m making.
If they don’t smell like them, I don’t want them.
I let Brutus down from behind my ear to play amongst the piles of clothing as he keeps me company. It’s nice to have a moment to myself to get my head back together. By the time I hear the front door open and the murmuring of men returning home, I once again feel settled in my own skin.
We have a mission, a plan, something to work towards, and I’m going to harness the killing energy within me to keep my entire community and my Bonded Group safe.
That has to be enough for me.
It’s certainly enough for the god within me.
When I get out to the hallway, intent on finding my Bonded and spending the evening with them all, I bump into Nox as he makes his way down to his bedroom. He has a frown on his face and a distracted look in his eyes, so I’m prepared to walk on past him with nothing more than a smile. He surprises me though, when he catches me in his arms and pulls me in close, pressing me into his chest until I’m fighting to breathe.
It’s still a wondrous thing to me that he touches me like this.
“We got more information out of that god-bond. I’m just getting my research papers, and we will discuss it over dinner.”
With my heart in my throat, I nod and lean forward slowly to kiss him, giving him the opportunity to pull away if he wants to. Even now that we’ve Bonded, I’m aware that he may need space. I’m not going to be the type to push him even if he’s the type to push me over and over and over again.
My bond hums happily in my chest when he not only meets my kiss but takes it over, pulling me in further to his embrace before he sets my feet on the ground and turns back to his room to gather what he needs.
I feel a little breathless, like my legs don’t really want to work properly anymore, and I stumble back out to the kitchen, ignoring the shit-eating grin that Gabe shoots my way.
“Not a word,” I snark at him, and he lifts a hand to cross a finger over his heart like the cheeky asshole that he is.
He’s still covered in tile glue and dust, leaving behind a trail of debris as he moves around the kitchen. The savage look that North shoots him has me biting down a smile.
“We have time for you to go and clean up. We’re not going to rush into anything here,” North snaps. Gabe merely nods his head, as calm and good-natured as ever.
I might just be the best Bonded in the world, because I duck into the councilman’s arms to distract him from his moody warpath. I sigh the moment that the warm, clean scent of him envelops me. I really do need to steal some more of his clothing if he’s going to be working long hours away from me again.
He frames my face in both of his palms and presses our foreheads together as he murmurs quietly under his breath, “You look tired, my Bonded. Maybe we should leave this until tomorrow.”
I wrap my arms around his waist and press my lips against his, enjoying the feeling of being completely wrapped up in him. “I’m fine. I just miss you, but I don’t need anything.”
He nods and runs his thumbs over my cheeks as though he is reacquainting himself with the softness of my skin. “Once we have a plan put together, we will take some time off, Bonded. I’ll let the council deal with themselves. Then we can get to making this house our own instead of just a drop-off zone.”
I’m not sure any of us can handle North diving into full nesting mode, not after hearing Gabe’s story of having to rip up perfectly good tiles because they didn’t quite meet North’s expectation. Not that Gabe had done anything wrong, but North had snapped something about colors looking different on monitors and the wrong shade of stone being used. All of that is endlessly confusing for me but something that everyone else seems to accept without a word, so I leave it alone.
I step away from North and head over to the dining table, giving Gryphon a quick peck on the lips as I take a seat next to him. I enjoy the way he tucks me into his side immediately, as though there is nowhere else at the table I could possibly belong but next to him.
“I picked up dinner on the way back. North convinced the chef to make fish tacos tonight.”
The look of pure, unadulterated love that I beam at my Bonded has everyone cackling around me. Just to shit-stir them all a little bit more, I say, “Marry me, Bonded.”
As expected, the bickering starts up immediately, all of them talking shit to North about having access to the chef and his meal plan as a form of seduction for me. It doesn’t die down until Nox appears back in the kitchen with his arms full of books and papers.
“I’ve got it. This is everything I have collected about the gods. We can cross-reference everything that the god-bond said with this.”
North stares at the papers for a moment before opening up a cupboard and pulling out a large bottle of whiskey and three cups.
It might just be a long night.
It seems as though North wants to deal with this situation just about as much as the rest of us do, which is not at all. I recognize all of the papers that Nox puts down in front of everyone from our soul-connection, all of the information already in my head if I should need it, so when he doesn’t hand any of it to me, I am not bothered at all.
Atlas is very bothered on my behalf.
“Shouldn’t we be giving this to everyone so that we can all have a look at it, including Oli and her bond?”
Nox gestures down to the empty piece of table in front of himself. ”Oli and I know everything that’s in it. There’s no point in us staring at the pages when we can get a fresh set of eyes on it instead.”
I reach under the table and squeeze Atlas’ leg as a small thank-you for jumping in but also a reassurance that I don’t actually need it. Nox and I haven’t just found neutral ground, we’ve found a space for just the two of us that I might even call love. I mean, I know that I love him. And I know that, as much as he’s capable of that feeling, he has it for me, and that’s enough. It’s more than I ever hoped for, more than I ever thought I would get to share with him.
“A Pain god, a Neuro god, and an Elemental god. Fucking hell, that’s like the worst types of Gifted from the Resistance all over again,” Gabe says with a groan, and Atlas shoots a wry grin his way.
“This is the final boss level. We’ve worked our way up to dealing with the biggest and baddest assholes.”
I shake my head at their antics, swearing that I won’t let either of them go and play video games with Sawyer ever again if this is what we have to deal with, but North is ignoring most of the chatter at the table as he stares at the list of names.
“How did you come up with this?” North asks before lifting a glass of whiskey to his lips and downing the whole lot in one go.
I didn’t think the list was that serious, at least, not the type of serious that we have to drown in the bottom of a whiskey bottle.
“There are markers for the gods, clues that a person is a vessel, and I had already started compiling a list before we spoke to the gods.”
North nods and glances at Atlas. “You haven’t seen the list yet, have you?”
Atlas scowls back and squints in his direction before it hits me.
Athena Bassinger is on the list.
Atlas groans and shoves his face in his hands. “Is there ever going to be a time when my family isn’t fucking us over?”
I desperately, desperately want to fuss over him, to hold him and reassure him that it’s okay, that none of us blame him or think differently of him for all of these connections that he has. However, I don’t think he would take it very well with the rest of the Bonded Group watching.
The fact of the matter is that he’s already copped a fair amount of grief for his relation to that woman. It was always the first thing anyone brought up, though I’ve never questioned it before.
Nox doesn’t need to be able to read my mind to know where my thoughts have gone. “Athena Bassinger is the face of the East Coast Gifted. She pretends that they’re not all just Resistance supporters. Whenever something happens that requires liaising, she’s the one they send.”
“Her Gift is Manipulation,” Atlas says, grinding the palms of his hands into his eyes as though he can wipe all of this away if he presses hard enough.
“She’s a Neuro, but it’s different from what Gryphon can do. It’s closer to what Emmeline could do,” North says very carefully, and my blood runs cold at the mention of that woman’s name.
I very pointedly do not look at Nox, because North and Gryphon might be completely aware of the situation but Gabe and Atlas are not. I’ve already sworn to myself that I will not be the person who breaks Nox’s trust in this way. I do, however, open up the mind connection to him.
I don’t send him any feelings or reassurances. I just open it up so he knows that I’m with him no matter what comes from this conversation. It doesn’t surprise me when he shuts down, but it’s not the way that he used to. He doesn’t start slinging vitriol and viciousness at everyone, but instead, he immediately becomes a blank slate.
Atlas glances around, noticing the shift in the mood, and he speaks with care. “I don’t know who that is, but Athena is not someone that I want to be dealing with without backup. If those markers are things that you think implies she has a god-bond as well, I would definitely not be dealing with her without the entire Bonded Group present.”
The part that he fails to tack onto the end there is that we’ll also need to be whole enough to deal with her, which Nox does not look like right now, even to the untrained eye. I can feel some tension beginning to build in him. I can feel the way that he’s pulling himself together and preparing to face an echo of the monster from his past.
My bond does not like the way that he is acting.
My bond wants to hunt Athena down and eat her alive for causing this pain.
My bond might just not take no for an answer.
