Page 71 of Blood Bonds

I know our bonds are not like the others.

“Let me speak to him. I miss him.”

I side-eye the bond but it hasn’t moved, it hasn’t crossed any of my very carefully established boundaries.

It never does.

I’m the one who breaks things, not the bond trapped in the girl who looks as though she was dragged out of my deepest, darkest fantasies and splayed out over my pillows.

I don’t trust either of them. “If you two Bond while she sleeps, they’ll kill me, you know. They’ll never believe that I didn’t do it.”

The bond smirks slowly, looking somehow older than the nineteen-year-old’s face it’s wearing. “I’ll be on my best behavior. Let me have him for a little while. Just sleep and leave us to it.”

I shouldn’t, but my own bond wakes up from the darkest recesses of my mind to let me know that he wants to speak.

No fucking. North will kill us both.

My bond prickles at the ruling but answers,No Bonding. I want my Bond for a night.

It’s reckless, but I let go of my control and leave them to their reunion. I try to stick around enough to at least know what they’re doing, but my bond blocks me out so they can be left alone.

I wake, hours later and only just before dawn, with the girl splayed out over my chest and her nose pressed against my neck, my heart thumping the second I come to and feel her there.

The only reason I don’t throw her across the room to get her the fuck off of me is because I don’t want to have to explain to any of them why I’m in the bed.

I manage to get her back onto her pillows and the bed straightened up before I lurch into the bathroom and get the shower running to cover the sounds of my retching. Once that part is over with, I climb under the hot spray still in my clothes. I can’t stand the sight of myself right now, not the scars or the reaction to waking up with her on top of me that hasn’t been deterred by the vomiting.

Rahab sits at the bottom of the shower, the water moving through his body as though he were a ghost, and Mephis keeps watch at the door. His head sticks through the solid wood every now and then to see what’s happening in there.

Gryph comes to collect the girl while I’m scrubbing my hair. He scowls at the bathroom door and Mephis when she mentions needing the bathroom, but leads her out to use his before they train. I should feel bad. I should have some level of empathy for how my fucked-up brain ruins everything, but I can’t.

I’m too busy trying to scrub her off of me before I completely lose my fucking mind.

“What happened to you?Wasn’t Oleander supposed to be in with you last night? You look like shit.”

I don’t stop to speak to him on my way to the coffee pot, picking up the biggest cup in the collection and pouring out the black liquid until it hits the rim. The bonds obviously spent the entire night speaking to each other, and while my mind ‘slept’, my body did not.

North’s new office looks exactly like his old one layout-wise, but with none of his usual decadent luxury. I’m sure if we’re here for long enough, he’ll find a way to get some marble installed in here.

“Nox? Do I need to go find my Bonded and check if she’s okay?”

I send him a dark look. “Sleeping on a couch so thatyourBonded can get what she needs isn’t very restful. If you’re so desperate to pant after her, then I’m not stopping you. Go be pathetic elsewhere.”

His eyes flash black at me for a split second, a tiny slip of his control, and I smirk at him. I will never not enjoy watching him crumble over a little girl made of poison.

How the mighty fall. It really is pathetic.

“Stop taking your bad mood out on me. If you want the day off to hole up with your books, then just say it. No one is forcing you to be here.”

Ah, but he’s wrong about that. I’d had to open up all three of the windows in my room to attempt to air it out and get her sweet smell out of there. My bond refused to let me change the sheets, it threw a bitch fit over it if I’m being honest, so I was forced to just get rid of the rest of it as much as possible.

I’m going to have to drink tonight. The only way I’ll get through sleeping in there is if I’m wasted, and for once, my bond agrees with me.

“The water supply has been compromised.”

My eyes snap up from my cup of coffee to meet North’s scowl. He nods at me and continues, “There are only two points of the line that aren’t covered by security, it had to happen there. The filtration system picked up the foreign bacterias there and automatically shut down. Sawyer was woken by the alarms and called me at seven. He’s already been through what footage we have, but it looks like there’s someone living here that is a plant.”

I curse under my breath. We’d always known it wasn’t just possible, but probable that we’d be bringing a sympathizer with us.