Page 23 of Blood Bonds

We need to get a move on.

Azrael looks up at me with soft eyes, ones he should not be so open about showing in mixed company, and whines like a pup. She’s ruining him. The more time he spends with her, the more he craves the gentle and loving tones she gives him. All of the belly scratches and soft pets… he’ll be useless in a fight soon.

He whines again and I roll my eyes. “Fine, you can go find her. Don’t eat anyone on the way.”

Chapter Eight

Oleander’s bond

It’s tooeasy to wipe out the camp.

Too easy and unsatisfying. I wish there were more challenges or people to torture but, aside from Franklin, there’s only the women who were talking shit about me and the few guards.

Triggering their nightmares gives me a little something, a small thrill, but not enough, and I find myself eager to just tear their souls out and be done with it. Unsatisfying.

The little girl who is usually in control, she’s there somewhere at the back of my consciousness, but the best way to do what needs to be done is to keep her out of it completely. She’s too sweet for this amount of destruction.

Irelish it.

I feel when they come for me, the edges of where I’ve cast out my senses tingling as they appear in the camp, but I’m too focused on the three Resistance idiots in front of me to go after those Bonds of mine.

I already know they’ll come to me. Even when their petty, human differences were getting in the way, they were still coming after me and the girl I live within.

Zarah, Linda, and the mouthy guard, Cam, are all strung up on the tent poles by their wrists, their feet dangling a little off of the ground. I have to say, they sure do make these structures strong. It had been an absolute bitch to get the three of them up there but worth every moment of that pain.

Linda and Zarah are both dead already, their minds breaking far too quickly, which was honestly predictable for the type who would believe the Resistance propaganda. The moment they’d become blubbering shells, nothing left but a heart still pumping in their chests, I’d finished the job. There’s nothing satisfying about a body going through the motions in a slow decay.

But Cam is holding out, a real sport.

He’s jerking about as he slowly chokes on the blood pouring out of his eye sockets and into his open mouth. It’s gory. I make a note to hide this memory from the girl, to tuck it so far back into the deepest recesses of her mind that she’ll never feel that useless spike of guilt over it. She will, she always does over the things I do to protect us both, but I don’t. They dared lay hands on us, so they’re dead.

I hear the tent rustle behind me but I don’t turn to look, because I don’t want to miss a second of Cam dying. I can sense something entering the enclosed space with us, but it’s not a Gifted, not even a human, and I finally force my eyes away from my prey to get a look at what is here, disturbing my work.

The serpent is as black as the darkest, starless night, though his scales still shine. It’s unnatural and dangerous andmine. I stare at him, transfixed at his beauty, with my feet rooted to the grass underfoot. A dark god in his own right.

He rears up until his eyes—void perfection—are level with mine. We stare at each other for a moment, a moment of recognition because we were made for each other, made out of each other before we were separated and put on this Earth, only to seek each other out eternally.

And then he strikes.

Not me, obviously. He’d never harm me or the girl. No, he strikes and tears Cam from where he’s hanging. Blood sprays over the tent walls, and I enjoy the sight of watching the Dark One’s creature devour those who dared to touch me.

The tent flap rustles again and they arrive. Three pieces of my soul, only one who has given me what I want, the other two just as resistant as the girl is. A ripple of irritation runs down my spine, but I step forward to stroke a hand over the shining body of the serpent, reveling at the gleam of its unnatural scales against the blood-spattered ruin of my hands.

My Bonds and their abilities are magnificent.

“What the hell is she doing?” the Shifter whispers, and the Dark One hushes him, his footsteps rustling as he approaches me. I don’t turn to face them. Instead, I watch as the last pieces of Cam are consumed in a bloody, fleshy mess. The way that he just disappears is comforting, because he deserves to be wiped from this earthly plane entirely.

The snake turns to stare at me again, its eyes taking in every inch of me but they get stuck on my leg, where the damage that Davies had done to the girl is soaking through my pants. It’s not a concern to me, nothing to get in the way of the destruction this place needs that Ifinallyget to wage.

I’ve waited a long time inside of the girl for this moment. No injury would stop me from getting what I’m due.

When the snake slides past me, bumping along my side and back over to his master, I stand and finally turn to face my Bonds. They all stare at me with very different expressions on their faces. Shock, horror, contempt, concern, disgust. I know most of it is for the men and women here that I’ve killed, but still, I preen a little at the awe. It doesn’t matter if it’s a horrified awe, they still look at me like they know I’m a god.

Finally, the Dark One speaks, “Oleander, you’re bleeding.”

I look down and see that the tourniquet has indeed shifted, but the pain is nothing. The blood loss might affect me, but we’re not there yet.

My Bonded stops the Shifter from darting forward to me with a palm to his chest, his eyes shifting to bright white as he says, “Bonded. Let me fix it.”