Forced Bonds (The Bonds that Tie Book 4)

North is very clear about what the mission for today is going to entail and what my role is going to be.

I’m once again going to stay with Atlas and Gabe while North, Nox, and Gryphon push forward to deal with as much of the camp as possible. My job initially is to take out all of the Shields and anyone there that my bond senses might be a big player, although North is very clear about what I am to do with Silas Davies if he is actually there.

Absolutely nothing.

“Shouldn’t I see if my bond is strong enough to take him out? Should I at least test it? I mean, I don’t think I’m going to be, but isn’t it worth it to try?”

North shakes his head emphatically as he does up the last of the buckles on his vest. He’d been the last person to arrive at his offices to get changed and ready, even after all of the other TacTeams and Vivian himself.

He’d been stopped by one of the other council members on his way over and had gotten into a heated argument. I already vehemently dislike the other council members, and the savage look on North’s face as he’d arrived just makes me feel that little bit more bloodthirsty.

“Nox and I will set our shadow creatures on him. From what we have heard from Atlas, it’s our best chance. If he gets too close to us, he can use his Neuro abilities, and that’s just not worth the risk. Trust me here, Bonded.”

I pull a face and glance over to where the rest of our Bonded Group is standing together. Nox looks strangely calm, the same way he has for the last few days, and it makes me nervous. Part of me wants to believe that it is because we’ve Bonded now and, though it’s coming along slowly, he’s finding some sort of healing peace from that.

But I can’t shake the bad feeling.

North glances over his shoulder to follow my line of sight and says, “Don’t worry about him, Bonded. He’s not going to bother you.”

I shake my head. “He’s not bothering me, North. I know you don’t believe me, but I’m worried about him.”

He grimaces back to me and presses a hand against the side of my neck, using his thumb to tip my chin back so that I’m looking right at him. “Unfortunately, knowing Nox and being someone he is close to, even unwillingly, means that you’re going to worry about him constantly. I’m sorry about that, and I know that if he were capable, he would be sorry about that too.”

I reach up on my tippy toes to press my lips against his, ignoring the fact that there are so many people around us and that he usually tries to keep our PDA to a minimum. “Don’t get caught up in an explosion this time. I’m still half tempted to insist that Atlas go with you guys. Gabe’s dragon and I will be more than fine on our own.”

North smirks at my teasing and tugs on the buckles of his vest, the slightly larger one that they have all changed over to after Gryphon’s gunshot wound. “You took care of the Trigger, remember? There’s nothing for me to be concerned about anymore.”

I still have a sinking feeling in my gut that that isn’t all true.

Gryphon approaches us, his heavy-soled boots loud on the tiled floor, and he slips an arm around my waist, another public show of affection that they’re not usually so open about.

“We need to move out and get this over with.”

North nods and his eyes flick back to mine. “We’re going in three sets. We’ll all go in first and then wait for the next two sets to come through before you cast out your Gift and get to work. Kieran is going to stay close by to you as well, and there are two other Transporters who will be tasked with bringing home Aro’s brother and anyone else we might need to evacuate.”

I swallow roughly. “If there are any other children, we’ll bring them back here, right? Adults can be taken to the processing area, but the kids can come here… right?”

North grimaces and nods, looking away from me. “We always try to keep the kids with us. There’s too many chances of things going wrong otherwise.”

My bond coils in my stomach as if she doesn’t like the sound of that, and I understand completely. The thought of anything going wrong with a child makes me both want to ask a lot of questions but also never have them answered.

“Oleander, just do your best not to let your bond completely take over, unless it’s an emergency. We need to go about this in a very careful way, and your bond can sometimes complicate things.”

I scoff. “You mean like when it told Gabe that he needed to think bigger and he pulled the dragon out of his ass?”

He chuckles under his breath, pressing one last kiss to my cheeks.

“That sounds about right,” Gryphon mumbles, and we all move back over to our Bonded Group and the Transporter waiting there with them.

I frown at the man, the one who had been so resistant to taking me to the lake house where Riley and Giovanna were holed up when Kieran had been locked up and out of commission.

Gryphon dismisses him to another group straight away. “Black is around here somewhere. He’s just saying goodbye to his own Bonded.”

I duck my head and nod. That makes sense.

I’d had the chance to call Sage and tell her about what had happened in the Wastelands, and I think that the reality of how dangerous these missions really are had hit us both pretty hard. I wouldn’t want to leave my Bonded without a proper goodbye either.

North looks at Gabe and Atlas and gives them both a firm nod. “Don’t go anywhere without her. Use whatever weapons or Gifts that you need to to get her out if things go wrong.”

Both of them stare back at him solemnly, Atlas replying with an equally firm, “Of course.”

Then North turns to look at Nox and gives him the same nod. “Unser, the boy, and taking out Silas Davies.”

Nox nods again, still strangely quiet, and then Kieran approaches us.

North looks around at each of us one more time. “We’re ready to head out.”

Deep breath.

Here we go.

We leave the Sanctuary as the sun is setting behind us, but when we arrive with that same little pop sound that echoes in my nightmares, it’s already completely dark wherever we are.

Night has fallen.

I’m thankful when Gryphon takes my sickness away for me, but even when he’s done, I take a few slow and even breaths to stop the panic from rising in my chest and triggering my bond.

Everything about this place is familiar.

It’s not like going home, that feeling of returning to something so intrinsic to you, but instead like tumbling into the same nightmare you’ve had for years. The one that never leaves you behind even though you’ve grown out of it, and the moment it starts again, you find yourself covered in a cold sweat.

Horrifying.

The air still smells the same. The warm sticky night still clings to my skin the same way, and it takes every inch of control I have taught myself over the years to keep myself calm. Thank God they hadn’t brought Kyrie back here all those months ago, because I would have been useless to Kieran in this place.

There’s that same small pop noise next to us as the second set of TacTeam arrives, and I know my time to calm myself is coming to an end. Another deep breath and then another one. Atlas’ hand slips into mine, and I have to give myself a second before I stare up at him.

He reaches out to my mind carefully, making sure that no one else can hear him. Are you okay? If you can’t do this, we can go home right now. No one needs to know why.

I shake my head rather than answering him back, knowing that right now I probably don’t have the control to only speak to him and not have the others overhear it. I don’t need them all questioning my ability to do this right now.

I can get my head together.

The third and final pop sounds as the last set of people arrive, and I wait until North meets my eyes and nods at me before I cast my Gift out carefully.

Everything I do here tonight has to be careful.

I see Gryphon’s eyes shift to white as he starts to assess the surroundings as well, and I let my own eyes slip shut so that I’m not distracted as I map the area out.

I find Unser very quickly, knowing exactly where to look for him. Finding the children is a little harder because they’ve moved where the prisoners are kept since I was held here but, sure enough, I find fifteen children amongst another larger group of adults, all of them in cages to the east of the camp.

There’s a dining hall that is filled with people eating their dinner and a small tent filled with Shields. I don’t immediately take them out though, wanting to get a full picture of what we’re dealing with before I start the killing.

There’s every chance that Davies will notice through security cameras or something similar, and I want to know if he’s here and where he is, first. It’s dangerous though, because I know that he will feel my bond reaching out. Sure enough, in the last tent that I explore, his torture tent that I am so intimately acquainted with, I find Silas Davies and his bonded, Lydia.

Fuck.

I open my eyes and meet North’s stare, opening my mind up to the rest of them to send them as much of the mapping as I can. I’m still not very good at this, but I feel Gryphon’s Gift flow into me as he helps illuminate it for everyone else to see.

Fuck, Atlas thinks down the mind link ,and everyone turns to look at him.

Lydia is here.

I share a look with him, knowing exactly what that means, but Gryphon and North both frown at us.

Who is Lydia? Gabe asks.

Atlas replies, Lydia is Silas’ Bonded, and she is not someone that we want to be dealing with tonight. If we had the option, I would say we should all go home, but getting Unser back is non-negotiable.

Gryphon scowls at us. Lydia has a low-level power.

Atlas shakes his head. No, she doesn’t. Lydia refuses to use her power in areas that would get her discovered by everyone, but she definitely has power, and it is not the sort that we want to be dealing with.

North glances at Gryphon and then snaps down the mind control, What is her power? We’re running out of time before we’re spotted here, Bassinger.

I answer for him. Compulsion. I don’t know what else it’s called, only that she’s a Neuro and her specialty is compulsion. If she gets close enough to you, she can make you do anything. I have watched her force men and women to kill themselves or their own family members merely at her suggestion. Anything that she wants from you, she’s going to get you to do. She’s not strong enough for my bond. Not unless Davies gives her a power boost by sharing his strength with her. I’ve seen him do it before, and there’s every chance he’ll do it again, especially if you actually get close enough to take him out.

North glances around at all of us and then he says to Atlas, How far away is her range? Is it the same as Davies’? This doesn’t change our plan all that much. Just that there will be two moving targets we need to stay away from but send the shadow creatures in to deal with.

Atlas shrugs. I don’t know exactly, but I would say at least the same distance as Davies.

North nods intensely back to me. Do it bonded. Take out the shields and anyone else that is a threat that you can. We’re moving in.

It starts off perfectly fine.

I take out the Shields and four other Gifted who are stronger than most others that are here. Everyone else is at a level that is completely fine for the TacTeams to deal with themselves. Once we feel the barriers of the Shields fall, North gives the signal for everyone to move in, and they disappear into the dark of the night towards the camp.

My skin crawls and I desperately want to go after them.

But I can’t. I stay behind with Gabe and Atlas, my own Gift still cast out and monitoring what’s going on, keeping a close eye on where Davies is. I keep my mind connection open to my Bonded, but I’m careful to keep myself out of their heads. I don’t want to be the distraction that gets any of them killed.

Atlas keeps his hand in mine, squeezing tightly as he watches what’s going on through my eyes. Gabe, on the other hand, is busy watching around us. His eyes have shifted to the amber color of the dragon, and I’m incredibly intrigued to know what he can see using them, but it’ll have to wait until later.

There’s gunshots and screaming around us, and I feel terrified of what is going on because of the children in the camp. The trauma of what I experienced here is too fresh in my head right now, the box I keep it in is smashed open and dragged to the surface. Every cut into my skin, every bone that was broken and knit back together without pain relief, every questioning session that went on for hours with thousands of cuts and burns is right at the front of my mind.

The screams from the shower blocks.

I don’t take a proper deep breath until the Transporters arrive at the prisoner holding tents and start getting them out. Kieran himself takes the kids, all fifteen in one go. Even Atlas lets out a deep sigh when he sees them disappear from the map in my mind.

Gryphon is using his own Neuro abilities to get North and Nox within a perimeter of Davies, and it’s only when they get within a few hundred feet of the tent that Davies finally calls in for backup. I’d guessed that he would either disappear immediately or come out to face them head on.

The pause is confusing.

A Transporter appears in the tent, and my bond comes to life inside of me.

Stop, I send out to them and thankfully, all three of them listen to me.

I can’t fully map out where all of the shadow creatures are, only knowing that they’re out and hunting, but they move too quickly for me to be sure that they are arriving at the tents. They’re not going to be able to be able to kill Davies. Not now.

The problem is that the Transporter isn’t just there to take Davies and Lydia to safety.

He’s brought in someone else, someone I don’t know.

I can’t feel anything about the person.

It’s as though there is someone standing with them who is as ambiguous as my own void eyes, nothingness, blankness. Even when my Gift comes across a Shield, I can tell what they are, but this person is nothing.

My entire body fills with dread.

Come back. Don’t go to the tent, you need to come back, I say and there’s a moment of quiet.North replies, This is our best chance. We’ll send the shadow creatures in first, and if they can’t do anything, then we will leave.

I feel as Kieran gets to Unser, evacuating him with the help of Vivian as they assess the massive amount of damage that has been done to him by Davies.

The moment he disappears, I plead with North again, We have everything that we need. We don’t have to kill Davies now, we can do it later. Come back!

There’s quiet down the mind connection and then pain.

All I can feel is pain, all that I can think of is pain, everyone and everything is pain.

It takes over every fiber of my being, and even though it’s not mine, all I can see and think and feel is his pain, pain, pain.

I can’t even pinpoint what injuries any of them have. There’s nothing in the air to say that there’s been an explosion or a fire or even gunshots. There’s only pain.

I’m taken to my knees, my bond flickering in my chest as it tries to take over, but my mind is flooded with everything that is going wrong right now, and Gabe lets out a shout as he goes to his knees next to me, desperate to find out what is wrong with me.

Atlas uses his Gift to transfer his strength to me, but this is not an injury that is happening to me, so it does nothing to help. This is not something that I need to be shielded from, this is three of my Bonded being tortured in ways that I do not understand, but my bond does.

My bond always knows.

It takes over my body, ripping through my mind and flooding me as my eyes shift, the souls of everyone around us that is our enemy are torn from their bodies all at once as my bond takes from them and funnels everything it can to my Bonded, giving them that strength from us to survive whatever it is that’s happening to them.

I’m relieved for a split second.

Except Nox refuses the power.

I want to scream inside of my head where I’m stuck, but he refuses the power, putting up a wall inside his own mind as he moves it onto his brother, giving everything he has to North to make sure that he survives whatever is happening right now to them.

I fight my bond for control of my limbs, scrambling to my feet and running, running towards them, running towards the pain and the horror of what is happening to them, diving over the bodies of the men I just killed, barely seeing through the darkness of the night. Brutus slips out from behind my ear to run with me, both of us desperate to get to him.

I run towards them as I feel the life slowly draining out of Nox as he gives everything to North. My bond still funnels energy through to Gryphon and North as fast as it can, desperately beating at the wall that Nox has put up between us. But it’s no use. He won’t accept it.

Whatever is happening, he wants his brother to make it out alive.

Take it! Take the power. I’m coming, but just take it! I scream at the wall in his mind, but it’s no use. I feel his soul slipping away.

His voice echoes in my head, the last thing I hear as chaos reigns around me and the only time he’s ever spoken to me through our connection.

I’ll see you in the next life, Bonded. Maybe I can love you right there.

I feel the thud of his lifeless body hit the ground, the echo in my bones as our connection severs and the puppy running at my heels disappears in a puff of warm wind, as though he really was nothing but smoke.

My Bonded is dead.