Page 27 of Bonding Beasts (Bonding: The Ultimate Guide #3)

“Bees,” Ben’s voice cuts through the static, but I lose track of what he says afterward. It doesn’t really matter. All three of them are much stronger than I am, and I’m weakened. I close my eyes tightly, feeling a severe case of vertigo overtaking me.

I find myself seated at the table across from King and Mal, staring blankly at King’s shoulder. I don’t want to meet his eyes, but I’m not quite sure why that is. I just know I can’t look up and won’t look down anymore. I can drift here in the quiet if I don't see the instruments.

The noise around me is muffled and far away. I’m able to make it all white noise in the background. Something perfect to sleep to. Familiar growls and a few bays echo in the fog surrounding me.

All I can see is a shoulder, almond in hue, rising and falling with even breaths. A slight male shoulder, tightly wound with muscle, familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. I don’t think I’ve ever seen King without a shirt.

A series of discordant sounds distract me, like dozens of utensils falling from a table at a restaurant. The murmur of voices gets louder and fades away. A new sound comes, the trill of a large bird, sad and low, but it pierces the fog. A subtle and somehow blaring sound that jerks my head up.

Yellow eyes, hooded with an upward tilt at the ends, meet mine.

Varied almost neon striations and a pupil so dark you can fall into them.

A gentle caress across my forehead, fingers trailing over my temples and running through my hair, massaging my scalp, urging me to relax.

A gentle nudge deep inside my head, spreading warmth and shelter around the bubble I’m encased in.

A hug without physical sensation. Pulling me forward in the seat.

There’s nothing here but the fog and those eyes .

A band around my thumb begins tightening. If I could feel it, I know there would be pain. It’s causing tingling in the digit. Lack of blood flow. The metal cracks, falling away, and my thumb throbbing subsides.

The hug is inside me now.

This must be what it’s like to be content. Safe and calm. Like slipping into a warm bath after a long day when your muscles ache…

No. I wouldn’t take a bath. That’s a tub filled with water, and I can’t stand being surrounded by it. I have a flash of the tank and hands pushing me under over and over until I’m too weak to fight, and the lid shuts with an echoing clunk.

I’m suddenly aware of the yellow eyes as they widen with shock.

The drowning feeling disappears, and I begin to breathe again. When did I stop?

A golden hand, tipped with neon pink claws, grabs out at the eyes, and I flinch. My position isn’t defendable. I need to push this back and figure out an escape route.

Rule two. I can’t stop fighting. The Old Man would be pissed at me right now.

My eyes fall away from the gripping talons, the blood beginning to well up from torn flesh, and the fog overtakes the sight.

The table is clear of any instruments, and my brows furrow in a frown. Did I imagine it all? But why would I imagine that? Some of it I didn’t even recognize. Maybe a new memory coming back to haunt me? I’m not sure anymore. I am insane, after all.

Where is the seesaw? I can’t tell if I’m up or down.

I slide my eyes left and right in confusion. The tablecloth is gone, replaced by gleaming wood, and the candelabra stays, flames dancing merrily as the wax drips into little cupped metal pieces. I hear a foreign, feline-sounding growl, low and rumbling, and glance up.

King’s face is pulled back by a metallic hand, neck muscles straining from the tension, but he doesn’t struggle.

Another hand joins the first, pale and firm, fingers covered in silver rings, clenching around the warm hued throat, cutting off his air.

The claws across his forehead dig deeper into his skin. I don’t like it, and my frown deepens.

Stop , I try to say it out loud, but I don’t know if I can. I’m lost in the fog. Would they even hear me?

The hand unclenches, the talons slowly withdraw, and King takes a deep choking breath through his nose. His lips are sealed shut by a piece of white fabric. He’s still choking, nostrils flaring. He tries to cough as the pale digits hold firm on his neck, waiting to squeeze again.

“He can’t breathe,” I manage to choke out. “Don’t hurt him.”

His head drops back down, and those eyes focus on me again.

The gently restrained hug returns, more cautious now. It’s a wild animal waiting just out of sight for a scrap of food. I recognize the feeling. Staying hidden. Searching for food, shelter, and warmth.

I’m suddenly in a house, an old wooden cottage with a comfortable chair perfectly molded for my comfort. A cheery fire crackles near my feet, just past the ottoman. Hands gently knead my shoulders, and I let my body go weightless.

There’s something seductive about this. Being waited on hand and foot. A table by my side is filled with foods I don’t recognize. I know that it’s there in case I need it. No starvation or thirst, just the comfort of knowing that if I need it, it’s there .

I’ve never had this pampered feeling before. It doesn’t seem like it’s mine. How can I recognize it when I’ve never felt it?

Yellow eyes blink at me, dark auburn brows pulled down to give them a more confused air.

I sit back. I need to get out of here. I can’t get stuck going up, up, up again. Why am I sitting down? Do I want to be tortured to death again? No, I don’t.

I’m an adult, not a child. I know how to work through pain. I can fight through panic. I just need a second, a weapon.

“Give her a weapon,” a calm voice floats across the fog to me, confusing me more. Who is it talking about? Another scientist?

“Do it now. She needs to feel like she can defend herself.”

A flash of silver catches my eyes as something slides across the table before me. My hand instinctively grabs it, and a revolver is held in my bad hand.

Peacemaker: “There you are, darling. I’ve missed you.”

I recognize this piece. It’s Mitri’s, a tiny part of him that he traded away.

Peacemaker: “I need you to focus only on me. Can you do that?”

I stare at it without answering.

Peacemaker: “ Good. Now, what is happening? You’re here, but not here.”

What a perfect way to describe it. As long as I’m not here, I can’t feel the pain. But I need to focus and get out of here.

Peacemaker: “Why?”

The first thing that comes to my mind is the rib spreader. I remember how it felt when they -

Peacemaker: “Okay! Stop. You may not feel the pain, but I do.”

I blink as I focus again on the revolver.

Peacemaker: “This is an anxiety attack? Like what you told us about?” His voice sounds strained.

Worse. The numbness is worse than that but comforting at the same time. I’ve been fighting against being like this for so long now, and I can’t even remember why.

Peacemaker: “We need to find something comforting. What about Mitri?”

I flashback to his angry face as he hauled me to the table, and my imagination takes over as he ties me to the chair and picks up a scalpel.

Peacemaker: “No. We wouldn’t do that. Not to you.”

“It isn’t working,” a voice growls from my right.

I look up and meet yellow eyes again. I’m not as numb as before, and I have a question.

“Did you do it willingly?”

Silence falls around me, and I realize that while I’ve been focused on the gun, other things have been happening in the background.

The phantom hands stroke down my cheeks in a barely there caress.

“No,” King answers calmly.

“Was GV being controlled?”

“No,” he replies, and his head tilts as those fingers sink beneath the flesh, touching on memories I want to hide from, digging things up from where I’ve managed to rebury them.

He wants to pry? Fine, let him have it all.

King’s eyes widen as the color washes out of his face, leaving him an unnatural shade of gray. He chokes and turns his face away to take a deep breath. “The instruments are for me. To question me.”

“Are you lying? ”

“No!” he gasps and struggles to get away from me. From my memories.

“They were going to torture you?”

“They were going to let you torture me,” he protests.

That makes me hesitate, brows drawing down in confusion. “Why would I do that?”

His eyes catch mine again, and I recognize the surprise on his face. I can see his whole face now, his lips parted in shock. “I tried to rip your heart out.”

“You sucked at it,” I feel my shoulders shrug, and I’m so close to sliding into the driver’s seat now that I’m beginning to feel the ache in my arm as it rolls up and down.

“ What? ” King asks in disbelief. “I was trying to fight the compulsion.”

“Sure you were. It hurts worse when you punch through the ribs. You pussed out by digging under.”

“ Bees! ” Ben’s irate voice sounds a lot closer than before. I’m almost there.

I glance down at the gun as it pulls my hand across the table to aim at King. I rub my thumb over the hammer, feeling the rough texture. I’m surprised it hasn’t been worn down by time and use.

Peacemaker: “Please, darling. I keep myself fit. Just pull the trigger.”

I feel my lips twitch. He sounds as pissed off as Vendetta was.

I’m facing King with a smirk, back in my pain-filled body. He stares back at me, confused and eyeing me like I’m an entirely different animal than what he was expecting.

“So she was the mastermind?”

He gapes at me before he blinks and straightens slowly. “Beatrice? ”

“I don’t get it. If you could whammy me, how did she get control of you? Wouldn’t you be stronger than her? Nobody said anything about her being a psychic.” Scilla is going to be pissed that her dossier isn’t accurate.

“Are you back?” Ben asks tensely from the side.

“You did whammy, my wife,” Kimi calmly inserts.

“Was it the hexes?” I ask and look over at Mal. He’s still gagged, and I grunt in frustration. I let go of Peacemaker before I half stand, painfully lean across the table, and rip the cloth off.

I’m not sure what I was expecting. It’s just fabric, but it peels away painfully, causing Mal to snarl at me while I gape at him in surprise.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t think it would hurt,” I draw back from him quickly, gasping and sitting down. The pain of my weight on my butt is nauseating.

The offending piece is clinging to my fingertips like it’s backed by superglue. I try to shake it free with no success.

“She’s back,” Ben mutters and wipes a hand down his face.

My hand flops down onto the gun with a wince.

Peacemaker: “Are we just going to gloss over the fact that you completely lost it?”

“Yup. Denial is my friend.”

Peacemaker: “Mitri will have questions.”

“Mitri always has questions!”

King, Mal, and Ben all rear back from me in surprise.

“Oops, that was out loud.”

Peacemaker’s laughter is so loud that I miss what Mal says.

“You want Mitri to question him?” Kimi asks in a deadened tone and glances between King and me .

“No,” I drop my head and glare at the gun. “King, please explain everything.”

“Everything?”

“Yeah, everything,” I transfer my glare to him and shift the gun in my hand on the table.

King’s eyes track the movement lazily, and he smirks. “You won’t shoot me.”

“ I won’t,” I let the sentence marinate in his mind for a moment, and his eyes shift to Mitri.

“Don’t look at him, look at me. No more whammies,” I snap, leaning toward him. Peacemaker slides closer to him, too. Without my permission.

Both his eyebrows rise as he slowly looks me over in contemplation. Then he relaxes back against his chair as if sitting on a throne and tilts his head mockingly. “Ask me what you will.”