Page 20 of Blood Bonds

We all knew she’d run the moment she had a chance. Gabe and Bassinger were the ones without a shared coherent thought between them that wouldn’t have possibly strung together the idea that maybe they should leave the GPS tracker in her.

Then there’s the small fact that I think North’s bond is going to take over and wipe out the entire country to get her back, and after decades of playing the gentile councilman, cultivating the sedate and moral man that he is, he’s about to ruin it all for her.

Fucking Bonds.

Of course there’s no sign of her or the other dozens of Gifted who were taken. The moment we’d gotten back here from the aborted mission, we found Gabe shifted into the biggest wolf form I’ve ever seen him in, snarling and snapping at Atlas like he was hoping to rip his throat out.

After we’d split them up, it had taken a good hour before Gabe calmed the fuck down enough to shift back, and then he’d told us all about Atlas’ extensive knowledge of Fallows’ time in the Resistance.

And what they named her.

I never liked him, and I’ve made my thoughts on his situation widely known because we’ve already lost one Draven to a Resistance sleeper cell this year. Keeping him around for the sake of a Bond who never wanted any of them in the first place is just plain stupidity.

North doesn’t listen.

He never listens anymore, another strike against her.

But even after Bassinger is locked away, we’ve spent three entire days sitting around, trying to find where they’re all being held, with no luck. All of the monitored campsites and residences are running business as usual, and there is no new intel. Zero. They know we’re listening, so the moment they have Fallows, the lines all go dead silent.

So we’re back to working through the old intel and searching for some clue or little sign that we might have missed about where they are. Gryphon is better at strategy than paperwork, and he spends his time keeping his Teams on standby for the moment we have something, so it’s up to North and I to sift through it all with a fine-tooth comb.

There’s only two things that pop out, and neither of them are enough to go on.

Alaska, in the highest and coldest area that would be an absolute logistical nightmare to attempt an extraction.

Or possibly in the middle of the Sahara desert, which would also require a lot of communication with the local authorities and Gifted community to go in and get them back, so either way, we need to be sure about it before we move in.

It doesn’t come down to that.

At dinner on day three of her being gone, while we’re all arguing viciously about what to do next because Gabe is furious that we’re not going to just traipse around in a desert or a frozen tundra until we trip over her, Gryph lurches away from the table with a bark, his chair crashing to the ground.

The blood drains from his face as he feelsit. The ghost of Fallows’ pain as if it’s his own. My bond begins writhing in my chest, that terrible thing it does now around her, but whatever is happening in the Resistance camps, Gryph can sense it stronger, thanks to their connection.

Then he lets out a roar and goes down to his knees as his legs buckle underneath his weight. I haven’t heard a sound like that out of him since the last time he was shot while on duty, and North almost loses control of his own bond in response as he bolts over to him with a snarl. Gabe shoves away from the table, but his hands are shaking and his face is unnaturally pale.

Someone is hurting their Bond.

I know it because I can feel the echo as well, the sensation of pain that isn’t my own, and my palms immediately break out in a sweat. My bond wants to find her, to save her, to take the pain for her and tear apart whoever dared lay a hand on her.

She’s not mine. I shouldn’t feel this way about her.

I should feel this way about anyone. I know better than to fall for these tricks, and there’s no way I’m ever putting myself back in that situation.

Never.

“What is it? What’s happening to her?” North snaps as his phone starts ringing on the table. We all ignore it but the moment it stops, Gabe’s starts up, and he grunts at it.

“It’s Bassinger. He must feel it too.”

Gryphon takes a gasping sort of breath. “She’s being tortured. I got into her head, but she shoved me back out. Someone is carving her up.”

Kill them all. Filthy heathens, touching what’s ours.

I shake my head as though it’ll clear the sound of my bond away. My creatures don’t like sharing, not even with the others, and no matter how much I tell them that I won’t have her, they don’t want someone touching her either.

Gabe shoves up to his feet and snaps, “Where the fuck is she then? We’re going to the desert, send a team to the snow. We can’t just sit the fuck around anymore—”

He’s cut off by the audiblepopof a Transporter arriving, and then Kieran Black is groaning on the ground at Gryph’s feet, looking as though he’s been beaten by the entire population of the Resistance. From the look on both North and Gryph’s faces, he’d better have been.