Tragic Bonds (The Bonds That Tie #5)(11)

The more of these memories that I’m thrown into, the less that I can call her the other word, the one that turns my stomach and has panic run through my veins like the worst type of drug. The more of the broken pieces of her that are given to my unwilling and undeserving soul, the more that I find myself turning towards her and falling under her siren’s call.

It isn’t as terrifying as it once felt.

There’s still a part of me that doesn’t want this, that will never want this, but I feel the shift within myself. I don’t deserve a Bonded. I don’t deserve someone fated to be with me, to love me, to want what’s best for me and to build a life with me. I’ll never be able to fully give myself to someone that same way, and no one should have to be saddled with my levels of broken and dirty and savage.

Least of all this young girl with a spine of steel and a heart that doesn’t give up, not even when it’s been lashed and torn up by my own damage.

We exist in this hot tent together for what feels like an eternity, the sweat still dripping down her face and memories of hers filtering into my consciousness as I take in every boring second of this moment that is one of her worst, though I don’t see why.

Then the screaming starts.

I know what it is. One look at Oleander says that she knows what it is too, and she screws her eyes shut as though that might block the sound out some for her, a single, lonely tear rolling down her cheek.

The tent flap opens just wide enough for Silas Davies to slip through the gap, his body moving in that casual way of his that speaks so clearly about him. He’s self-assured and confident, totally at ease walking around the camps, even as the horrors are echoing through the night.

All of this I know from the years of working in the TacTeams and going through the intel North had recovered, but now I also know it from Oleander and her memories. Everything I knew in theory is backed up by her experiences.

“Give me your bond. Let me talk to it, and I’ll make it all stop for you, little Render.”

She doesn’t.

Even with the blinding terror coursing through her body, the knowledge of what he’s going to do to her an intimately detailed list in her young mind, she doesn’t give him what he wants. Instead, she lies there and tries to muffle her own screams as he carves her body up with his sick arsenal of blades and medieval devices that should never have seen the light of day again.

This is only one of hundreds of torture sessions this man puts Oleander through, one day of the life she was living for two years while we searched for her, no one as vehemently as my brother.

And I’m forced to watch it all.

I mark Silas Davies for death.

I don’t need my bond to kick in and make its own assessment of this situation known; I take in every inch of this man until this image is burned into my consciousness as deeply as it’s burned into Oleander’s. This is terrifying to her. This is a trauma that she’s had tucked away deeply in her mind for years that this connection she’s managed to form between us both has pulled out and ripped open into the light of day.

This is something that she never wanted to think about again.

Now it belongs to the both of us.





I wake up on my side in an unfamiliar bed.

Panic rises in my chest when I try to move but find myself restricted, my breathing going from deep to choppy inhales and shaky exhales. I have to squeeze my eyes shut and force myself to calm down before I can make a proper assessment of where I am and what the fuck is going on.

I was dead.

There’s no question in my mind about what had happened to me, because it was so perfectly clear to me what was happening. I felt my body shut down, all of my faculties disappear, and even my shadows slipped away from me. Even now, I can’t… feel them the way I should be able to. My bond is still in my chest, but it’s sleeping, dormant in a way I’ve never felt before. It’s a relief, but I still feel unmoored by the absence of my creatures.

When I open my eyes again, I blink until my vision adjusts and clears enough that I find Oleander sleeping peacefully next to me.

She’s dressed in the same medley of clothes she always is, everything stolen from her Bonded, and her hair is fanned over her pillow in silvery waves that beg for me to wrap around my fist. The image of what exactly that would look like flashes in my head, the feel of the silky strands so clear to me that my fingers flex instinctively from where they’re bound.

I glance down at my body and find that I’m wrapped up in a blanket, swaddled up like a child, and it’s clear they were trying to warm me up. I’m fully clothed and even wearing socks, heat packs tucked into the layers of fabric around me.

They’ve clearly done a lot to get me alive again.

Oleander is tucked in close to me but isn’t touching me anywhere, her careful respect of my boundaries even now a jarring experience. Was it her decision or my brother’s to maintain that distance? I get the feeling it was both of them, some unspoken agreement of understanding that I both need and loathe.

It’s slow work, but I manage to work my way out of the cocoon I’m wrapped in. There’s no one behind me in the bed, but Bassinger is wrapped around Oleander with Gabe snoring away on the other side of him. Gryphon is asleep on a chair in the corner, his head thrown back and his legs folded out in front of him. He’s still dressed with his weapons strapped all over his body, as though he’s waiting for someone to burst in here and attack us.