THE PLAN IS SIMPLE.
We’re going back to my parents’ house and tearing the place apart until we find something that proves that Nox’s theory about Athena having a god-bond is correct.
The very idea of stepping foot back into that house makes me want to vomit, but I work hard at keeping all of that off of my face. I know that I have succeeded when no one questions me about it. Not even my Bonded.
If it were anything else but this, I might get a little offended that she hadn’t noticed that I was losing it, but there’s too much riding on all of this for petty squabbling in our Bonded Group about my ego. Too much of the danger that we have faced has been from my own bloodline, and the idea of any of us facing Athena is already something that turns my stomach.
I hadn’t spent a huge amount of time with the woman, but I know enough about her. My mother did not like her or the power that she wields, and she’d done her best to keep me away from her. The few times she had visited my father were enough to prove to me, especially now in hindsight, that none of the Bassingers are good people. They aren’t just flawed human beings, but selfish, self-serving Gifted who enjoy the power of having Top Tier Gifts and the type of wealth that people can only dream about.
I had been a spoiled little shit as a kid too, and I credit my Bonded with saving me from turning into one of those assholes. The moment I had clicked on that video on my mother’s computer and found Oli chained to a torture table by Silas fucking Davies, the trajectory of my life had changed completely. One look at her and I was a changed man. One look at her and I knew that I would do whatever it takes to protect her and give her the life that she deserves, one in which she would never feel that sort of pain ever again, and certainly not at the hands of my family.
The sins of the Bassingers are plentiful and I hope that my devotion to my Bonded is enough to cancel a bit of that bad juju out.
North and Gryphon make arrangements for us to leave in the early hours of the morning. Everyone disappears to get some rest and get their things packed together before we leave. On instinct, I follow my Bonded back to her room.
I already have a go-bag packed at all times, the same as Gryphon and the Dravens, and I’m pleasantly surprised when I find one sitting in Oli’s closet already. We’re not supposed to be staying overnight anywhere, but it never hurts to be prepared.
She heads straight into the bathroom to brush her teeth, and when I’m busy rinsing out my mouth, she finally speaks. “We can talk about it if you want to, but we also don’t have to do anything. You don’t owe me an explanation just because I’m your Bonded.”
My heart swells in my chest, and I take my time wiping my face so that I don’t make a fool of myself. Of course she noticed, and of course she tiptoed around me and my feelings. If anyone understands trauma, it’s Oleander Fallows.
“I don’t want any of them touching you. I hate the idea of you walking into that house. One of those things I can do something about and the other one, I have to get over,” I say in a monotone voice, but Oli just nods back to me.
“I didn’t want to do it either. I’m much more interested in finding another camp and burning it to the ground, to be honest, but I guess it doesn’t count as working to wipe out the Resistance if we’re only doing the things we want to do. I know that, but it doesn’t make it any easier to stomach.”
I let my hands tangle in her hair, tipping her head back and enjoying the way her mouth drops open instantly, ready for whatever it is I want to give her. There are dark shadows under her eyes from her night of keeping the god-bonds happy, and as much as I had joked around with her this afternoon, I’m not going to make any demands of my Bonded tonight.
I’d rather spend it with her tucked up in my arms and listening to the steady beat of her heart, knowing that everything I do, everything I sacrifice and am forced to face, even when I would rather not, is to keep that heart of hers beating. It has to be enough.
WHEN OUR FEET land on the street outside of the brownstone I had spent the first nineteen years of my life living in, a sense of dread fills my body. Five stories, sixteen bedrooms, enough bathrooms to drown a football team, three kitchens, an entire conference room that has heard far too many atrocities of the Resistance, and hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of cars and motorcycles parked in the underground garage. It’s a classic design, impeccably maintained, and the envy of the entire street. There’s a plaque on the front with my family’s name on it, shining and bright where one of our dozens of staff polishes it with brass cleaner. Everything about it screams privilege and the type of wealth that cannot run dry. The dread turns to ice in my belly.
I never wanted to come back here.
It was never in my plans to see this place again, and I’m still numb at the fact that I’ve been forced to come. The moment I had left to find Oli, to steal her away to another country to escape everything that my parents were doing, was one of the best moments of my life. I had broken free of my name and the expectations on me. I had made my stance clear, even though my mother did everything she could to hide that fact from my father and the other elite members of the Resistance.
Now, staring up at the door, I want to vomit.
It was only days ago that we had buried my parents’ Bonded Group, and I still haven’t had enough time to process all of the feelings I have about that. It’s too fucking confusing, and I feel a lot of shame for it all. Grief for my mother, the woman who birthed and raised me, isn’t as easy as it should be because I’m also well aware that the woman was a monster. Not to me, of course, and in a lot of ways, she saved my Bonded… She’s, without a doubt, the reason Oli is alive today, but these were not acts of virtue. They were things that she did for her own purposes. Self-serving, with motives I would rather not think about anymore.
I still haven’t told my sister they’re dead.
I don’t know if North has either, or one of the others, though I secretly hope that it wasn’t Nox who went down to the cells to tell Aurelia.
My feelings about her are just as confusing as my grief.
Are you alright? Oli sends through our mind connection to me as she tucks her hand into mine.
She stares up at the building with me, a vague look of disgust on her face that makes me want to kiss the hell out of her. “It’s even bigger than the Dravens’ mansion, and I didn’t think that was possible. How the hell do people get this type of money?”
Evil and nefarious deeds.
I chuckle under my breath, but it’s more of a broken sound than a joyful one. Gabe slaps a hand on my shoulder as he tries to lighten the mood. “It’s exactly what I expected it to look like. Promise me there’s a gold toilet in there somewhere. We should make a game to see who can find it first.”
Oli scoffs under her breath. “I’m not leaving your side in there. It has nothing to do with protection. There’s absolutely no way that I’m going to be able to find my way back out, and we all know it. My sense of direction in these sorts of houses is absolutely atrocious. I refuse to take the blame though, no one needs a house this freaking big!”
I raise our joined hands up to my lips so I can kiss the back of hers, grateful that her sass and snark is out in full force to distract me. She always has been far too good at noticing the pain and torment of others. It’s something she’s picked up from her own trauma. I hate that she has that ability, but I’m also grateful for it right now.
A dark cloud sweeps in under our feet and then slowly materializes until August is standing between Oli’s legs, its head rubbing against her thigh as the creature stares up at her with strangely liquid eyes. Without a sound, it’s clear that it’s begging silently for pets, and my Bonded doesn’t hesitate to shower it with love.
She giggles and scratches behind its ear, letting go of my hand briefly to let Brutus down to stand up at his brother’s side. It hits me when I look down at them that I no longer feel the rage and jealousy I once did. It also hits me, though, that I can finally admit that some of what I felt was jealousy.
Jealousy that maybe my Bonded preferred the Dravens, that maybe these special little creatures that they assigned to watch over her might endear her to them a little more than to me.
Those feelings are gone now.
I want both of them to survive this as much as I want myself to. We all need to survive this for her. The gods have made that clear. How close we’d come to losing Nox and opening ourselves up to another lifetime of destruction, death, and pain… Well, my hands shake at the thought of it. The Cleaver has been very clear with me the few times we’ve spoken, and I’ve been sure to listen.
We all need to survive.
“The mission is simple—kill everyone on sight,” Nox says as he pulls the gaiter up over his mouth.
North shoots him a pointed look and adds, “Let your bonds decide if we’re facing a god in there or not. If we are, kill first and ask questions later. If they’re Gifted, we should probably see what they have to say first.”
I nod, pulling my own gaiter up over my nose, more as a way to hide my face than as protection. Oli does the same as she tucks her hand firmly back into mine. The shadow puppies begin to play at her feet, bouncing around excitedly as they prepare to charge into the building and consume whoever we come across. I feel a lot better having them here with us, knowing she has even more protection than just what I can offer her.
Gabe’s hands flex at his side, and he leans in to murmur quietly to Oli, “How are you feeling? Should we leave some for you to take care of and boost your energy?”
I can’t believe I didn’t think of that myself.
I glance down, but Oli simply rolls her shoulders back, tilting her head to one side and then the other as she stretches out her neck. “I’m feeling okay. I think we’re better off trying to take survivors with us. My bond seems to think that there’s a god-bond around here somewhere. If not, we need to know where it’s gone. Surely someone in there knows something.”
I give her a curt nod, and then we wait until Gryphon and Kieran take the lead before following them up the steps. North and Nox taking up the rear, their palms coated in black and shadow creatures everywhere. The air around us is thick with them as the Bonded Group moves as one. Time to test if it’s true.
If, together, we really are unstoppable.
Gryphon’s voice comes through the mind connection clearly to us all, The staff are still in the house, and there are at least three Top Tier Gifted here as well.
He sends through the mind patterns of the Gifted in there. Strangely, I can tell who at least one of them is. It’s impossible to explain, but even the way the man is thinking is instantly recognizable to me.
I suddenly realize just how powerful and terrifying Gryphon’s gift truly is.
That’s one of my sister’s Bonded Group. One of the men that she was sold off to, I mean, not her actual Bonded. He won’t have a god-bond in him, but I suggest we kill him.
Oli glances up at me with a questioning look, and I sigh as I send through the mind connection to everyone, he probably has information that would be helpful, so we should take him in alive. But he’s also an abusive dickhead who was happy to beat the woman he recognized as his Bonded, so don’t feel like getting him there in one piece is necessary. A few chunks missing would be a better option.
From the corner of my eye, I can see Gabe’s lip curl in disgust, and for the first time, it doesn’t fill me with guilt or any sort of self-loathing.
I don’t feel like I’m a Bassinger anymore.
I’m Atlas, one of Oleander Fallows’ Bonded, a part of the Draven Bonded Group.
I’m no longer sitting on the sidelines, watching all of this go on. These people are merely a chapter in my life that I have long-since closed the door on, and none of them mean anything to me.
I’m better than any of them could ever hope to be.
Oli wasn’t exaggerating—my parents’ house really does make the Draven mansion look like a cozy bungalow. As we step into the foyer, I feel a ripple of disgust run through my body. It’s as though this isn’t just a mental thing, I’m physically repulsed by this place. We need to get this over with, fast.
The decor and furnishings loudly ensure that anyone who enters this place knows that my parents are rich assholes.
Were.
My brain still hasn’t adjusted to the past tense yet. Looking at my father’s portraits everywhere leaves me feeling empty, but my mother’s portraits give me that same weird mixture of guilt and grief, all of it swirling deep inside me.
We come to a halt, and Oli stands quietly until Gryphon and Nox both motion that we’re clear before she points out a small collection of my school photos that are framed and displayed on one of the countertops.
She’s grinning at the dumb-ass hair cut that I had in third grade, and I will never stop being grateful for the way that she can read a situation and defuse it, taking the uncomfortable and exposing trip back here and turning it into more of a sightseeing mission than something I need to feel shame over.
I roll my eyes at her when she stalks over to the photos, cracking the frames open and slipping a few of them into the front of her Tac vest to take home with us. I groan when I see which ones she’s picked out, but she just shrugs and murmurs to me quietly, “I don’t have any baby photos. Nox has very few as well. I think we need to keep the ones that we do have access to.”
I could question why a Draven wouldn’t have baby photos and why only one of the brothers is missing them, but the more time I spend in our Bonded Group, the more settled and accepting I’ve become.
We don’t ask questions about Nox. We don’t question the things that don’t quite add up, and though I started off ready to light that asshole up at the drop of a hat, things have changed, whether I want to accept it or not. I’ve never seen my Bonded so happy. There really isn’t any denying that even with the Bonded Group complete, having Nox rejecting a real relationship with her had left a gaping hole within her, one that I couldn’t do anything to fix. I’m not willing to risk her getting harmed in any way, but he does seem to have mellowed out.
Whatever happened in that soul-bond was a powerful thing.
Gryphon steps around the corner and nods his head at North before we all get the signal to make our way downstairs. I suppose the fun and frivolity couldn’t last for long, and I step forward with a sigh. I know I’m being a little too fucking dramatic about this, but no one seems to give a shit, they’re all just getting on with it while giving me the space to just… fucking hate this whole thing.
I slip my hand into Oli’s again and move her through the building. I don’t need Gryphon’s mapping of the bodies in the building to know where the staff are. I also know where the Dravens really want to go in this place. Not only that, but I know I have to get us there without sounding every alarm in the building. Not that any of them would go off, thanks to Sawyer hacking into the entire system remotely from the safety of the Sanctuary, but I still think it’s best to give us every element of surprise that we can.
I can tell how badly Oli has to bite her tongue as I slide the paneling in the hallway to one side to take the servant’s stairs. Gabe’s eyebrows hit his hairline as he steps through behind us. The Dravens don’t look very surprised, obviously used to this sort of wealth themselves, but Gryphon rolls his eyes so hard that they nearly roll straight out of his head.
Fucking Bassingers, he sends through the mind connection, shooting me a grin. Oli has to slap a hand over her mouth to stop herself from giggling.
It lifts the mood a little, shifting this from the shitty experience of having to face my demons into something that we’re doing together as a group, my new family coming to clean the house of my old one. The one I was born into but have chosen to no longer belong to.
Maybe I’ll take Oli’s last name.
Bonded Groups have always picked and chosen whether or not they’ve shared last names, changed them, kept them the same, or sometimes they pick something new altogether. Whatever works for each individual family, and I never put much thought into it until this moment.
Atlas Fallows sounds a hell of a lot better than Atlas Bassinger ever did.
We make our way down until we’re below ground level in the vaults underneath the brownstone. The air feels different down here. Colder, thicker, more oppressive—as though it is trying to sap every last bit of energy straight out of your body.
It’s also riddled with security that I’m sure had Sawyer cursing every last one of my ancestors as he had to disable it to get us here without any of the cavalry showing up. Even though my family have been killed by their own and marked as traitors, there’s a huge wealth of knowledge hidden under here, enough to incriminate the entire East Coast. I’m sure there are plans in place to move it all out of here. There’s no doubt in my mind that’s what the Gifted are here doing.
I hold my hand up to show that we are getting closer to the end of the hallway, and Nox flicks out his hand, sending his shadows bounding ahead of us as they shrink in size until they are nothing more than a smudge, something that you can convince yourself is merely a trick of the light.
North’s arms are crossed over his chest as he stands next to Nox and watches him work. The two of them may share the same Gift, but they use it very differently. Nox’s shadows obey his every whim, but North’s are a chaotic and consuming mess, a complete juxtaposition of who they are as men.
I hear a strangled yelp and then thudding as three bodies hit the ground.
Gryphon’s eyes flash to black as he calls on his Gift. For a moment, I think that the Soothsayer has joined us, but then he speaks, this time out loud. “They’re taken care of. We can go in and get whatever we need before we take them back to the interrogation cells.”
I take a deep breath, and then I do something I was never expecting to.
I turn to Nox. “If Sawyer can crack into the computers, I can get you into the database for the Resistance information. Anything and everything they have ever compiled will be in there. It’s basically a wet dream of information for you. If you want it, I will give it all to you.”
And that is how Nox and I find common ground in the basement of my parents’ brownstone, for the sake of my Bonded, because her safety is everything to me.
