Page 18 of Bonding Beasts (Bonding: The Ultimate Guide #3)

He gives me a head bob that almost dislodges my hands, and his eyes slide from side to side and take in where he is. What follows is a lot of growling and glaring.

And he’s back, ladies and gentlemen.

“Mitri,” he barks out, and I’m enveloped in a cloud of smoke. It smells a lot like the incense from the hallway mingled with mint.

I turn his head so he can see Mitri slumped in the chair next to his cage. GV’s looking down at him, and I notice her hand is stuck reaching for him.

“Wake him next. Use your gifts,” his words stumble to a halt as I turn him back to face me.

“I can’t,” I whisper back, leaning close enough to the cage that my face almost presses against the bars. “I’m using it to keep them still. If I lose focus, they could go free.”

I check in with the spark to find it gleefully, causing GV’s body to tremble with tiny shocks to her nerves.

“And apparently, torturing them a little,” I mumble with a glare.

“King?” he breathes out, and his eyes focus on him.

“I’m sorry, Mal. I think we can get the brainwashing out for both of them. I promise I’ll do my best to get him back to you, okay?”

He takes a deep, shuddering breath and focuses back on me. “Wake Mitri, now .”

“Okay, I’ll try,” I agree, gently lowering his head.

I walk to where Mitri sits, sidling around GV to crouch at his feet. The manacles around his ankles are held with padlocks that have a strange glowing symbol on them, the same with his wrists. Why him and not the cages? Never mind, that means they have keys.

I turn to GV and look at the silky dress she’s wearing with doubt.

“I’m not seeing that dress having pockets,” I mutter, leaning around her to see King. He’s wearing slacks and a loose-flowing silk shirt. “Better option.”

Walking around her to get to King, I feel a viselike grip on my wrist. I jerk, trying to pull myself away, but the limb doesn’t move. The painful hold begins to cover my entire arm, but I can’t see what’s holding me when I look.

“What the fuck?” I try jerking back again, putting my body weight behind it. The pain as I try to dislocate my own shoulder puts a stop to that quickly.

“Mal?” I squeak out in a panic. “Something has me!”

I hear chains rattle harshly, but my arm is jerked forward until I slide towards GV.

“Mitri! Wake up!” I scream as I stop directly in front of her line of sight.

The feeling creeps over my chest and back, settling over my hips.

My right arm is free, pressing uselessly at nothing as it tightens around my waist. It flows down over my legs, slamming them together painfully, and squeezes.

I breathe in to scream again and feel my feet lift from the ground.

Whatever it is has enough power to hold me aloft as I struggle in vain.

It tightens like a boa constrictor around my body, forcing my breath out. My knees start to grind together, but I can’t pull them apart. Whatever this is, it fights against me. I can’t feel anything when I try to grasp along my body, so there’s nothing to fight.

Mal roars in a fury and begins struggling harder.

The spark wavers in indecision before starting to loosen its hold on them.

“No! Don’t let them go,” I groan as my ribs press in. I look around to see what could be doing this but see no one in the room.

“Mitri, please!” I whimper. “ Ben! ”

The slow tightening stops momentarily, and then I’m crushed from below my breasts to my knees in a sudden snap.

My left arm shatters as bones crack, and I choke on a scream coated in blood.

The world becomes a kaleidoscope of pain blurring at the edges.

Darkness blankets my vision as I cry out without sound.

Tears pour down my cheeks as I struggle with the only limb I have available. And then my body drops to the ground.

I must lose consciousness because when my eyes open, GV has moved, and King is gassing Mal again as he snaps and snarls with rage.

The agony washes through me again, and I fight to stay conscious.

The spark is frantically trying to repair my internal damage, forcing bone shards out of my organs, and re-inflating them.

Breathing is easier, even if it is torture.

I can already tell by the numbness below my hips that my legs are useless.

“As interesting as that was,” GV’s shrill voice hits my ears, and my eyes roll to see her again. “I’m not amused.”

She’s walking towards me, hovering over my prone body with a smirk. “What was it that you did to us? I’ve never felt anything like that before.”

She gives me a second to answer and shakes her head when I lie there, trying to breathe. “Whatever it was, you made a mistake. Here’s a hint. Never get in the eyesight of a telekinetic.”

Fuck, I’m useless .

How could I forget that she can move things with her mind ? Locking her muscles left her body useless, not her brain. Fuck!

She begins laughing at whatever look I have on my face and waves to King. He sets the canister aside and comes to stand with her. He doesn’t look down at me, staring straight ahead and waiting patiently.

“Grab her,” she says dismissively and walks away.

King looks down at my body and grabs the front of my shirt. He hefts me into the air with no effort, and I could only wish my transition from prone to upright was that easy.

My vision winks in and out like a shutter as my body sags, boneless. I’m sadly familiar with this sensation, and my sanity seems to be doing just fine at the worst possible moment.

I grip his arm with my right hand as I begin to pass out. The pain is overwhelming. With my legs crushed, my ribs broken into pieces, and one of my arms pulverized, I can only stare down at him as he looks up. For the first time, I get a clear view of his face.

His eyes are vacant, as if no one is home inside, which creates confusion in me. Wouldn’t he be all grins and evil laughs by now? Or is that Kimi? The pain is muddling my thinking.

“What did you hope to achieve?” GV asks with a laugh. It’s a grating, high-pitched sound that irritates me.

Why couldn’t just one thing go right today? I would kill to be able to give her a witty comeback. King’s hold shifts, and I’m reminded of every shattered aspect of my body, causing me to gasp in pain.

She stops at Ben’s cage and taps on it thoughtfully, “So, what is this? I’m not overly impressed with it. Sure, it’s scary, but useless.”

I grunt in anger and pull my lips back from my teeth in a grimace.

“Looks like we’ll have to be rid of you both, then. No one would question your death,” she gestures towards me with her fingers.

“And this one no one knows about,” she kicks Ben’s cage.

Scilla is going to be so pissed when she finds out about this.

“Screw keeping you alive. I don’t care what you are,” she continues, pacing in front of the cages. “Kimi has gone on and on about ripping your heart out. ”

No.I have enough nightmares. Just crush me to death already!

“How about… King rips your heart out and gives it to him as a gift?Do you think he’ll be more manageable at that point?Thoughts?”

I must have blacked out for a minute because she’s standing beside King now, looking at my face as if she expects me to answer. If I could have, I would set up the vote for crushing me instead. Too bad I’m having trouble breathing due to the pain and internal bleeding.

Chains begin to clink again, and GV sighs in frustration. “Who now?”

King pivots enough for me to see Mitri beginning to slowly straighten up.

“No. Not you ,” GV flicks her wrist towards him in a casual move.

I watch Mitri’s head twist sharply with a loud crunch and flop back until his chin rests on his chest. His body sags in a dead weight, his knees splaying open as he loses control over his body.

The bond stretched between us breaks into pieces and disappears from my sight. I can’t feel his calming presence anymore.

That sound. The wet crack of his bones echoes in my mind. My brain can’t accept what I’ve just seen, trying to make me believe it didn’t happen. None of this is happening right now, right?

I look back to GV, struggling to breathe, and she laughs.

She stares at Mitri and laughs at what she’s done to him.

The see-saw of sanity slams down with a vengeance.

It’s so obvious what I should be doing right now. I can’t believe sane me hasn’t been doing it all along .

She killed him. For nothing . He wasn’t even fully awake yet. This bitch just took him from me, and now she’s laughing. She plans to do the same thing to my sunshine?

I’m going to fucking annihilate her.

I try to get the buzzing spark to attack but it’s focused on keeping my useless body alive. Waste of time!

“Rip her heart out, throw it into Kimi’s cage,” she says, and her annoying cackle echoes around me as she turns to face me.

King doesn’t hesitate to begin, but I’m no longer concerned with him. His fingertips dig in under my sternum and start pressing up, searching for the organ everyone seems obsessed over. My spark begins to try and block his advance by hardening my skin.

“Open up the bond King has with Mal. All the way. Distract him.”

It hesitates, fluttering in place, then locates the red and black line between them and forces its way inside. I can’t see what it’s doing in there, and I don’t care. My focus is elsewhere.

GV is no longer a person. She’s a disease. Something that I’m familiar with eradicating without remorse.

She's a cancer that has spread so far that it’s touching everything I care about. The rest of the infection will clear up if I remove the root.

With the spark holding King steady, he might survive for the others to question. I’m already dead, and there is a slight chance that having my heart removed will kill me for good this time. I’ll risk that.

This bitch is going to die .

Vendetta: “Finally. He told you not to hesitate.”

“What?”

The new yet familiar voice is inside me. How? The bond broke .

How did I get-

My mind flashes back to Mitri pushing something into the front of my pants.

How did they miss a gun in my pants? Are we all idiots here? King is looking right at me!

Vendetta: “Release his arm and draw me.”

As it’s speaking to me, GV turns back to face Mal and reaches through the bars.

Don’t fucking touch him!

Vendetta: “FOCUS!”

My hand fumbles into the front of my pants. King is so concentrated on getting beneath my ribs he doesn’t notice when I pull the gun out.He’s taking forever to get to my heart.

Dude, Kimi would have punched right through my ribs, no problem. This guy is lame as fuck.

Now, all I have to do is hold this heavy thing up despite the pain and blood loss.

Vendetta: “I will aim if you pull the trigger.” His voice is full of relish as he taunts me.

I’m in too much pain to question it. My body struggles instinctively against King’s onslaught. The pain isn’t manageable anymore.

“Do it before I black out again,” I grimly think to him and focus on her as she taps tauntingly on Mal’s cage.

My arm jerks up without hesitation and aims at the sickness in front of me. My finger settles over the trigger and gently squeezes without a single moment of hesitation.

There’s no recoil and no sound as it fires. Simply a flash of light that blinds me with its intensity, and I’m suddenly falling. I start laughing hysterically as my sanity flips back and forth, my vision winking in and out.

King collapses underneath me, keeping my head from hitting the floor, but my body rolls off his and lands in a crumpled heap beside him. Being boneless is kind of familiar by now. Hence my obsession with putty.

Hence. Damn Mitri for bringing that word back.

The see-saw struggles up as breathing gets more challenging.

I’m exhausted. It’s time to tap out on this round.

I see GV’s headless body wobble unsteadily on its feet before it falls.

I did that.

I killed her.

What have I done?

Hot tears spill out as I take in her corpse with horror.

What have I done ?