Page 40 of Broken Ties
“And here I was thinking it was Shore’s team? I always thought you were the most loyal friend and Second he could have, but with all this protesting, I’m starting to think you’re hoping for a promotion.”
He shakes his head again, reaching for me, but my eyes flash again and suddenly I’m surrounded by my creatures. “Touch me and they strike. This is the only warning I’m giving you.”
He curses viciously, taking two steps back, and the rest of the team are no longer covertly eavesdropping, all eyes now on us. Aarav is looking green, as though he’s figuring out if he’s going to have to wade into this fight after his current Team Lead, but Kitara is shaking her head at us both.
“Shore’s gonna have a lot to say about this.”
My eyes flash again, a dozen more shadows darting away to spill into the mall after Azrael. “Like I give a fuck about a scolding from him, and if that has you quaking in your boots, then you’ve all gone soft too. I’m not going to cower away from the difficult or messy operations. I won’t stop until every Resistance asshole is in the ground—or eaten alive by my shadows.”
FOURTEEN
ATLAS
“If I have to sit through another one of Emmerson’s speeches about ‘Gifted tradition’ and ‘power birthrights’, I’m going to vomit. The carpet here is tragic, so no loss there, but I hope your shoes aren’t heirlooms or something, Bass. I know your mom likes you in that shit. Fucking hell, when did these parties get soboring?”
Kyle shoots a look at me, constantly begging for my approval, and the smirk I’m forced to give him in return as I pull my phone out of my pocket to play along is enough to have him practically squirming in his seat with pride.
It’s fucking pathetic.
Glancing at my phone, I instantly hate every person in this room a thousand times more than I did before and,fuck, I didn’t know that was possible. I turn my body away from my friends, shielding the screen as much as I can.
The photo my Bond has sent through is a selfie, nothing particularly suggestive or even staged about it, but it only takes a glance to have my knees buckling underneath me. Bond or not, she’s everything I’ve ever wanted. Gorgeous, perfect, stunning; nothing even comes close to describing her.
Her silver hair now has a purple tint to it, the simple curls falling on either side of her face making her skin glow, and the cerulean depths of her eyes look even more intense now. That gaze of hers could trap my soul without her Gift coming into play, and I’d be on my knees begging for more.
I want to know what she tastes like, how her lips move against mine, what sounds she makes when she’s writhing underneath me and begging for more. Is her skin as soft as it looks? Does she blush easily or am I going to have to work for it? Shit, I don’t know which one I’m hoping for more, but I know with every fiber of my being that I’m going to love it.
I already love her.
God, I’mdesperatefor this girl, and I can’t have anyone finding that out.
Shaking myself out of that thought, I look across the dining room to find my father tipping back the last drops of bourbon in his glass. Then, without breaking eye contact with the Gifted he’s speaking to, he holds out the glass arrogantly. Without pause, one of the servers rushes to his side to refill it, and a shot of adrenaline spikes in my blood, waking my bond in my chest.
This is the moment I’ve been waiting all night for, enduring hours of bullshit with a smile fixed on my face that even my mother hasn’t been able to see through. That’s my father’s sixth refill; the cunning look in his eyes grows sharper now that he’s too inebriated to hide it properly, and he starts calling out to some of the other Resistance leaders to gloat about their latest conquests together. He has always loved these sickening circle-jerks, their own little celebrations as if there’s something to be proud of about the violence they're responsible for. The important part is that while he’s busy getting his ego stroked, he won’t be keeping tabs on me.
Theperfectcover for what I need.
Smirking, I take a glass from the server who passes by us all, watching as the woman opens her mouth to protest but almost bites her own tongue off when she realizes it’s me. Kyle laps that up as well, snickering under his breath as he slings an arm around Walker’s shoulders. Zariah isn’t here, a small mercy, but only because I told my mom I’d stop the small amount of compliance I’m allowing her now if she forced me to be around her.
With the way my mom’s mind works, it was so obvious to me that she’d try the easiest solutions first and would shove me at my previous hookups as a Bond deterrent, regardless of how gross that sort of manipulation is. Both to me and the girls in question, but my mom doesn’t care about any of that shit.
Threatening her with outing my Bond Group to my father stopped her in her tracks, but only enough to be spared spending the evening with Zariah.
The dinner party is being hosted by my mother, with all of my father’s closest friends on the guest list. The way she plucks at the strings of her puppets to invite my so-called friends here, all but throwing them at me in an attempt to shove me back into my subservient role as the perfect Bassinger son and heir, is insulting at the very least. As if I’m so fickle, so weak-willed that all it would take to forget about my Bond is alcohol and pretentious gossip with these bottom-feeders.
I tip the entire drink back in one go, turning to leave the empty glass on the cabinet behind us as I drawl at Kyle and Walker in a low tone, “Fuck my shoes and fuck my mom’s party; let’s find something worth our time.”
I have Kyle’s attention already, but surprisingly, Walker’s head jerks over to me as well. “Fucks sake, Bass, don’t tell me you want to bail out already just to find some ass for the night? You’re going to catch the clap at this rate.”
No matter how much of a ball-less wonder Kyle is, Walker actually has a spine. I can’t imagine being stuck in a Bond Group with someone so polar opposite to me, not in the ways that count at least, and if Walker deserved my sympathies, he’d have them.
As it is, being a child born into the Resistance with no signs of complaint or question for their existence, he has none.
I shrug at him, sliding my hands into my pockets as I take a step away from them both with a deceptively nonchalant smirk. “I said ‘worth our time’. I’m not going to risk my parents bitching me out just for that.”
Kyle grins, tugging Walker along with him as he follows me obediently. “You’ve already bagged all the best, I guess it would be boring for you now. Condolences to your dick, Bassinger.”
Fuck, I wish they’d stop talking about my dick and all the—stupid, regrettable, immature, the list goes on—shit I pulled the last few years. It makes it so much harder to pretend I’m having the night of my life over here while my guilt and fury eats me alive inside.