Page 44 of Bonding Beasts (Bonding: The Ultimate Guide #3)

Ben

The files are spread everywhere. The table, the floor, and Kimi’s lap as he sits perfectly still. His eyes lower to the one spread in front of him, and he begins to thumb through it at speed. He’s going fast enough that I doubt any of the information inside sets in.

Mitri stands where she knelt, seemingly unfazed at her violent outburst. He’s staring at the red folder she dropped before her mad dash out of the room. I can hear her retching.

Mal begins picking up everything slowly, glancing inside each folder and looking away with a flinch.

King is frowning down at the pages in his hands with the slightest tremor in his body, lips curling back in a snarl with no sound.

Mike crouches close to the doorway, cradling his arm with tears in his eyes as he watches the room Bees just fled into. I walk over to the opening and calmly close the door, cutting off any possible view of her.

This is one of her worst nightmares. For people to see what she believes makes her a monster.

It’s all here, written in black and white, and she sees it as proof of her evil doings.

I can already feel her withdrawing back into the shell I was able to crack open simply by virtue of not being a ‘person’ when we first met.

I don’t consider her evil. I know evil. She’s so far removed from that it’s unimaginable.

Many people see my Mom as evil simply by existing and doing her job. So what if she enjoys it? So what if it isn’t what others accept as normal? It’s her normal.

But there is a certain something that is missing in Bees that would denote a darker soul. She just can’t see it. Even if she did have that darkness inside her, I would cherish it because it is hers.

“That isn’t right,” King points something out from over Kimi’s shoulder. I don’t know how he can read anything with how fast the cat flips through.

“Is it not accurate?” Mitri asks as he stoops to pick up the red folder. His lack of emotion causes a tremor of hunger to start inside me, but I don’t lose focus. I need to see what their reactions are. If I need to get rid of them all.

Either way, someone will pay for this fiasco.

“She didn’t kill them for sport,” King explains, and Kimi pauses his page-turning to listen. “They begged her to do it. She made sure they didn’t suffer. She thought she was setting them free the only way she could. I saw it when I was in her mind.”

Mal stares down at the plethora of pages in his hands with sorrow. “She thinks she’s a monster because she gave them what they wanted?”

“The only freedom is death,” King replies with resignation. “The first one told her that, convincing her to kill her. She was so young .”

I forgot that he took some little joyride in her head when he tried to manipulate her out of her disassociated state.

Was that just last night? How many hits can my mate come back from when they keep flying at her? Hits that I have yet to shield her from .

“They were killing her,” Mal says with disgust.

“Over and over,” King says softly, and the hunger grows.

“No,” Mal snarls. “ They were killing her. The other patients. What would it do to her mind, a mender’s mind, to help someone die?”

Silence follows as they contemplate. At least the dragon is following the emotions as well as the facts.

They’re treating this as if it were some case they’ve been assigned to work on. As if Bees isn’t in there falling apart with no one to help her pick the pieces back up again.

I want to go to her, but I can’t be in there yet. I need to make sure they aren’t a threat. I don’t know if this is their way to compartmentalize and focus, but this isn’t what she needs right now. I want them all out of here. I want her to feel safe again.

“Fyodor,” Mitri intones from where he stands, a single page held in his hand.

It draws the attention of the entire room.

He places the red folder gently on the table and sets a single sheet on top of it. I step closer to look, and my inner shaking increases, my control slipping.

The photo reflects dark hair and blue eyes so light they appear almost translucent.

I know this face. I understand things in her nightmares that she was too young to comprehend.

This scientist wanted her. Not just to torture but to play with in an even more sickening fashion.

He was obsessed. I also know the berserker tore him apart before leaving my mate strapped to a table, slowly dying.

Everyone stares down at this with varying degrees of emotion. Impassive, enraged, sickened. Kimi is the only one not looking at the page, his eyes glazed and far away.

“It seems he had a hand in this,” Mitri continues .

He looks up at King before turning to Mal. I can’t see his flat expression from this angle, but King and Mal nod once at him in agreement.

Kimi stands abruptly from his seat, holding Bees’ folder loosely in one hand, and steps towards the sliding doors behind him.

“What are you doing?” King asks with a disgruntled frown.

“Plan B,” Kimi says with all the calm in the world.

“You cannot destroy it,” Mitri informs him with authority. “We may need the information inside – “

The tenuous control I was fighting for slips from my grasp as if the tether had been oiled.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t relish it.

I’m mid-shift when Kimi’s tail whips out, breaking past the Hag’s glamour. With a snake-like quickness, it wraps around Mitri’s neck and cleanly slices his head off.

My howl is set loose from my throat as I complete the shift. The target of my rage is lying in two pieces on the floor, and I have no outlet.

Mal roars at me in warning, grabbing King and pulling him back behind him, fully succumbing to his fight-or-flight instincts. His wings flare out to block his mate from my sight, but I’m not interested in either of them.

Mike disappears with alacrity behind a closed door. I’m not concerned with him being in Bees’ presence. She can take care of herself against a weakened meat bag.

I tear into Mitri’s corpse, ripping and shredding as much of him as possible. Mal and King disappear during the distraction. I sate my hunger for the moment, then turn to the table, destroying it along with any folders that lie there .

Kimi is outside, and I can smell a fire starting as he burns her file and watches it all turning into ash.

Unsatisfied and hungry again, I crash through the glass and stalk behind him. That tail whips up and points towards me, end sharpened for piercing.

“You watch. Don’t interfere.”

His tone isn’t flat anymore. It’s filled with that darkness I’m more familiar and comfortable with. My stalk becomes an alert trot until I reach his side, his tail tracking my movements as if it can see me.

This, I understand. This , I approve of.

The file upset her, and now it suffers for it.

The immortal hurt her, and he took his head.

Sure, it’s a simplified version of emotions, but we are simpler creatures, he and I.

I look down at the Human seeming figure.

Here is the determination I wanted. The willingness to crush any obstacle that stands in its way.

In the form of an insane cat with the will and determination to destroy a Goddess, not once, but five times.

The intelligence to know when that evil is no longer present and pause to reassess.

This is what she needs. Vengeance given flesh.

With my rage lessening at every ember-filled flick of Kimi’s tail, my mind calms enough to bring rational thought to the fore.

The immortal only seeks knowledge. I shouldn’t fault him for that.

He is a sociopath, after all. But, he needs to learn that actions have consequences when it comes to Bees.

I think the cat beside me might be willing to help teach him.

I don’t think he’s unsalvageable after this stunt.

Nonetheless, it will take some time for Bees to feel the same comfort with him as she did before.

Kimi pulls the red folder out from his jacket pocket and thumbs through it, the pages blurring in his hands .

I don’t know when he snagged it from the table, but I’m grateful for it. I was too quick to destroy everything, unthinking.

Not all of these people are dead, and they need to be.

He takes his time looking through the seven still left alive, his fingers tapping over each picture in a rhythm that repeats on all of them.

Then he closes it and slides it back into the jacket.

His tail sifts through the ashes left, ensuring nothing else is left, and any sparks are put out.

He returns to the house and holds the sliding door open for me.

The glass looks like I never broke through it. The table is once again clean to the point of sterilization and repaired. Mitri’s body is missing, and so is the gore and blood I left behind.

This infestation of brownies may not be as inconvenient as I thought. It also helps that Bees is in love with the kitchen because of them. I’ve never seen her so excited and animated over anything before. I admit I’m jealous, but the need to hunt down the blights has disappeared.

I find myself giving up a lot of things for my mate’s happiness. The least of which is allowing any of these people to stay.

What if I’m wrong about the cat? His attitudes are unreliable, and I’m finding it hard to pin him down.

I watch him take the newly stacked pile of folders off the table. I suppose my efforts at destruction weren’t as thorough as Plan B. He opens one of the doors leading to a bedroom, and Mal’s snarl echoes as he tosses them inside and says, “Study.”

Then he walks past me and down the hall to my room, opening the door and staring at me pointedly.

My lips curl back, but before I can emit any noise, he interrupts, “Clean. ”

I’m abruptly aware of the taste of Mitri’s flesh in my teeth and look down at my paws. I’m saturated in his blood. This is not something Bees needs to see right now.