Blood Bonds: Chapter 10

MY EYES FLUTTER open at the sound of the shower turning on, and North’s arms tense around me as he readjusts his hold to stick his hand under the stream of water, checking the temperature. I’m still wearing Nox’s sweater but my pants have been stripped off, leaving me in my underwear, and my face is pressed into his neck so that I’m surrounded by his scent once again.

I clear my throat and try not to sound like an embarrassed child as I say, “I’m awake. You can just put me down.”

He doesn’t answer me as he steps fully into the shower stall and then sits down on the built-in marble bench that runs along one of the walls, still holding me close to his chest. I really should get my face out of the crook of his shoulder and face the man, but we’re in a shower stall together and I feel a little light-headed at what’s happening here right now.

Especially the part where I have no fucking idea of what that is.

I clear my throat again and finally he says, “Do you need something to drink? When did you last have something? Your bond wouldn’t accept anything from us while it was in control.”

Holy shit.

How long was my bond in control, and what the hell did it do if he’s in here cuddling up to me and pulling me into a shower?

“This morning… or how long was I asleep? Maybe yesterday.”

He nods and starts to tug at the sweater to get it off of my body. “This morning. You’ve only been asleep for an hour. I thought you might sleep through the shower.”

The moment he gets the sweater over my head, I realize I have nothing on underneath the damned thing. I finally sit up a little in his lap to unwind myself from him and freak out about this, wrapping my arms around my chest and shooting him a very scandalized look.

His face doesn’t change, and his tone is kind but also very matter-of-fact as he says, “There isn’t a single one of your Bonds who hasn’t seen you bare to the waist, Oleander. We all held you while you healed.”

I groan and shove my face into my hands, desperate to pass out again and forget that the conversation is even happening. “Is there anything else entirely shameful I did? Did my bond attempt to assault any of you again, or am I going to be spared that particular horror this time around?”

“Whatever you need, it’s our duty and honor to provide.”

I have no words to even attempt to answer that, and it doesn’t really answer anything for me anyway. “What the hell happened while I was gone? Where is all of this coming from? The last I knew, you didn’t trust me. Now, you’re in here with soft words and offering me whatever I want… I’m so fucking confused right now. Which one of us has a head injury I need to freak out about right now?”

He’s way too calm about my rambled word vomit. So calm that he doesn’t react at all, except to shift his grip on me to my hips to hold me steady, and once he has a good grip, he opens his mouth and all of my secrets come out of it. “You were kidnapped from the hospital. You were held in a Resistance camp for two years while they tortured you for information about your gift and your Bonds. You gave them nothing. You escaped when Silas Davies left, and your bond took over to get you out. You then spent three years on the run to lead them away from us. You slept in halfway homes, sublets, and the streets while you were barely more than a kid because you didn’t want them to get access to us… or your gift. That’s what’s changed.”

My mouth opens and then closes with a snap, because that’s a whole lot more information than I was expecting him to have. That’s a lot more than knowing my Resistance code name would have gotten him, but I guess it was a good enough starting point for him to hunt down the rest.

My cheeks heat again, and when I slide off of his legs, this time he lets me, though his hands stay over my hips to brace me and hold me up. “You’re making it sound heroic. It was mostly me being terrified and trying to flee.”

He stares up at me with those same broody eyes he’s been giving me throughout this entire conversation. “You were sixteen when you escaped them, of course you were terrified. How you endured what they did to you without murmuring a single word is beyond me, but it was more than the something I asked from you before you left.”

I swallow roughly, trying not to feel self-conscious about my basically naked state, and mutter, “I didn’t give it to you though. Atlas told you, and you’ve figured it all out from there.”

He shrugs and then his fingers hook around the elastic waistband of my underwear, drawing them down my legs without a single word, and my dumb ass just stands there and lets him. I’m kind of stunned at his presumption, that it’s just totally fine for him to undress me completely and I’ll just… be fine with it.

I guess this is the most North action I’ve seen out of him since I returned, and that’s why my brain hasn’t caught up with the situation fully.

He stands up and motions to the marble bench. “Sit down. Davenport has had to fix your leg in stages, and you still have one last session before it’s fully healed.”

Again, I just do it because I think the information dump has broken the small, sassy part of my brain that woke up with me, and now I’m on autopilot while shit reconfigures in there.

Then, with a rapt sort of focus, I watch as he strips down, peeling off his Tac gear and dropping it on the ground outside of the shower stall. He doesn’t hesitate or pause until he’s standing there completely naked in front of me.

I force my eyes to stay very firmly above his waist, a feat that I’ll go to the grave being proud of considering that I’m sitting down and my eyeline is, of course, dick level.

I can’t speak, my voice has dried up, and he either doesn’t notice my meltdown at the magnificent sight of his chest, or he’s choosing to leave me in the puddle he’s made of me as he turns his back on me to test out the water again. Then he ducks his head under and gives himself a quick scrub down.

Blood and dirt I hadn’t noticed before muddy the water, and the strong, masculine scent of his soap fills the air until he’s practically glowing with cleanliness.

Then he turns back to me and holds out a hand.

I take it, and a deep breath, and let him pull me up and under the blissfully hot stream of water. Because he doesn’t make a comment or even a sound while he works, I manage to get through him cleaning me without too much awkwardness.

He uses all of his own supplies, his soaps, and then he massages his shampoo into my hair with fingers that might just be magic. I have to hold in a moan of pure pleasure as goosebumps explode over my skin.

When he takes the handheld showerhead down to wash out the shampoo, I get self-conscious again, though this time it has more to do with the fact that my nipples are pebbled up and betraying just how much I’m enjoying this little moment of his ministrations, and I try to grab the showerhead from him. “My leg should be okay, I can do the rest.”

He’s at least a foot taller than I am and easily moves it out of my reach. “No, stay right where you are. Just shut your eyes and enjoy it.”

Goddammit. His fingers slip easily into my hair, massaging my scalp again as he rinses out the shampoo, and I just give in. I’m still tired, and I’ll use that as my excuse later when this all inevitably bites me in the ass.

Is it going to?

It has to, right? There’s no way that hearing the sad little story of what they did to me would have him changing his tune this drastically… right?

Once my hair is clean, he goes over my body one last time with the soap, which I’m sure it doesn’t need, but I do what he told me to and just keep my eyes shut for it all. When he shuts the water off and opens the door again to grab a towel, I stay where he left me, my arms wrapped around my waist and his scent overwhelming me.

I feel safe and secure and loved for the first time since my parents died.

I have to take some very long and deep breaths to stop myself from bursting into tears. I’m sure I could pass them off as exhaustion or some sort of bond reaction, but I think North has seen more than enough of me for one day. If I haven’t scared him off so far, then I’m sure it’ll be me weeping over a fucking shower that’ll do it.

His feet are almost silent on the wet tiles but not quite so when a huge, luxurious towel wraps around me, completely enveloping my small frame in its sheer magnificence, I’m not startled and I keep my eyes shut for another moment.

Then his lips brush over my bare shoulder and I let a single tear roll down my cheek unchecked.

No matter what else happens between us, I’ll remember this small gift of kindness he’s given me for the rest of my life. This will go down as the moment I let myself admit how much I want North Draven. How much I crave his domineering and assertive nature, how much I need him, even if he does act on my behalf without ever asking me what it is that I want.

That even while I was determined to hate him, he’s worked his way under my skin and I don’t want to dig him out.

“Turn around on your good leg. I’ll get you out of here.”

I do as he asks and let him scoop me up into his chest. There’s another towel wrapped around his waist, but without the styling he usually puts into his hair, I can see the same tight, dark curls as his brother falling over his forehead. His eyes were always striking, the deep blue depths of them against his tanned skin, but there’s something about the way he’s looking at me tonight that has my breath catching in my throat dangerously.

Am I about to fall in love with a Draven, over a shower of all things?

He sets me down on the bathroom countertop and carefully dries me off without another word, his hands reverent and gentle over the miles of soft skin on display. I watch as he catalogs every last one of my injuries, every bruise and broken patch of skin that Felix hasn’t bothered to heal up yet, thanks to the more devastating thigh injury. If I wasn’t so sure about him right now, I’d assume the murder in his eyes was a warning to me.

It’s not.

It’s a plan he’s putting together to go after any Gifted who might have touched me and is still breathing. There’s plenty from my first time in the camps, but only Davies made it out this time around.

I don’t want to think about that man anymore. I force my eyes to follow the droplets of water cascading down his chest instead, the way that there’s the smallest of dimples on his cheek that I’ve never been close enough to notice before, and the strong muscles of his throat that flex as he works so diligently to getting me dry. He’s fucking gorgeous, always has been, only now I’m letting myself take note of it.

The problem with looking at all of those details is that it wakes my bond up and, my God, does it want him to push me back and fuck me until my legs don’t work. The exhaustion that was filling me up moments ago in the shower burns away, and my pussy throbs between my legs. I have to swallow a whimper that creeps up the back of my throat, and my body feels as though it’s on fire.

North’s nostrils flare and he drops the towel, bracing his hands on either side of my thighs as he leans into me, careful not to touch me, but taking up every inch of my personal space nonetheless.

“You can stop the Bond, can’t you?”

It takes my brain a second to process his words, the lust and sex thickening the air around us taking over me completely, and when I finally make sense of him, I swallow roughly all over again.

He doesn’t mention how he knows that I’ve done it before, because bringing up his brother’s actions right now probably isn’t for the best. I lick my lips, watching in awe as his eyes get stuck on the action and his pupils blow out and swallow his irises, almost looking like the void eyes we share.

It’s a heady feeling, to have this power over him, and when I arch my back a little, stretching out on the bathroom counter, his teeth grind together as he holds himself back.

I could get addicted to this feeling.

“I can. It… hurts, but I can do it.”

When I meet his eyes, he pins me there with a smoldering look, trapping my gaze so that I can’t bear to look away. “Tell me how it hurts. Which parts and how bad?”

Fuck. Me. “After. It hurts when I come and I stop my bond from coming out to… claim you as my Bonded. I feel like I’m burning up from the inside out. It lasts a few minutes, and it’s bad but not unbearable.”

A scowl tugs his brows together and he pushes back from me, leaning until I’m sure he’s about to step away from me and leave me to get dressed. I curse myself under my breath, but then one of his hands comes up to run a thumb over my bottom lip, pushing against the plump curve of it as he watches the movement obsessively.

His words catch me by surprise. “So if I edge you for the next couple of hours, you can enjoy it and only feel the pain at the end? Not ideal, but I’ll take it.”

Edging? Jesus. Do I want that? The rough feel of his palms over my body, his lips on my soft skin, hours of pleasure that never truly reaches its peak?

Wait, that sounds fucking amazing. A little frustrating, but if that isn’t our relationship so far down to a T, nothing is. I want so badly to say yes to him and just spend the night getting lost in him, but there’s still something there.

Something holding me back.

My legs can’t help but part as he slides in closer, his eyelids dropping down a little so that he’s practically smoldering at me. “Do you want this? Stop overthinking it and answer me.”

“Of course I want it—”

“Then Bond or don’t. I’m not waiting to taste you any longer. If you’re hesitating about the power exchange, then just don’t do it. I’m not waiting.”

I open my mouth to argue with him, because it’s not that easy, but he tugs my thighs forward until I’m balancing somewhere between my elbows and his shoulders. He moves like he’s about to eat me out, and I have one last stupid thing rushing around my head that won’t let me enjoy this moment.

“Wait! Wait one second. I need something first, just one thing.”

He scowls at me, stopping the second I’d spoken, but not moving away from where he’s got me balanced.

“Whatever it is, you’re sure it can’t wait? I’m not entirely above begging, Bond.”

Interesting.

I attempt to sound confident. “Your bond is like mine, right? It’s… more than the others. It’s not just a force inside you. It’s a living thing, right?”

The scowl grows on his face and he gives me the tiniest of nods, the smallest gesture, and I plow onwards like this is all fine and I’m not freaking out about even asking this. “Let me talk to it. There’s something I want to ask it, and then we can… I mean, I think I want to Bond after. Properly. We can save the edging for later.”

I think it’s the mention of actually Bonding that gets him to agree because he’s already shaking his head until that part slips out of me. I’m not bribing him, not exactly, because if he says no, I think I might still be Bonding with him tonight, but I have to at least try.

He carefully moves me back onto the countertop, gently and mindful of my thigh, and then he takes a step away, as if putting distance between us again will stop his bond from hurting me or attempting to approach me.

As if a single step away is all it will take to keep me safe.

“If it tries to bond with you, kill me. Or get Gryphon to knock me out. You can still contact him, can’t you?”

I pull a face at him. “I think I’ll lead with knocking you out. No need to kill you over a little bit of sex, North.”

He raises an eyebrow at my sass and blows out a breath, muttering about how much of a bad idea this is, but after a minute, his eyes shift into the voids.

All emotions and humanness wipes clean from his face until there’s nothing but the bond left behind.

It might happen to me on occasion, but it’s still weird to see it like this. It’s kind of hot though, especially the way it immediately fixates on me and rakes over every inch of my bare skin like a branding possession.

I like that a whole lot.

It takes a step forward, and I hold up a palm to stop it, surprised when that’s all it takes to slow it down. Fuck, if only my bond were that obedient.

“One second! I need to ask you something, really quickly. I promise.”

I sound like an idiot, but it doesn’t notice, or care, and it just continues to stare at me like I’m so freaking fascinating.

“The creatures, they come from you, don’t they?”

He nods and lifts a palm up as though he’s about to summon them, and while I’d love nothing more than to check in with my baby August again, I know North will have a freaking aneurysm over it, so I reach out and cover his palm with mine.

The bond stills and takes in a breath before pulling my hand up to his nose and taking another big ol’ whiff of my newly scrubbed skin. I wonder if it sees the soap and shampoo as its scent the way North does, or if he’s about to throw a bond tantrum over how foreign I smell.

So I keep talking, hoping to distract him. “Are they going to hurt me? North is worried they will. He’s worried about losing control of them around me, and I need to know if that’s actually possible. If it’s not, I want to keep August… ahh, the puppy. The Doberman-looking one. You know which one, right? Of course you do.”

He takes in another lungful of my scent, and I start to think maybe he’s getting high from it or something because he’s not really keen on letting me go, but then he speaks.

His voice is sort of terrifying.

It sounds otherworldly. There’s no other way to describe it. It sounds as though I’m speaking to something that does not belong here. Not in this room with me or on this planet, in this timeline, none of it. He doesn’t belong here at all, and yet the pull in my chest that aches for him says he’s supposed to be with me. No matter where that is.

“Mine. You’re mine. No one will hurt you again. Not me, not the others, not anyone. The shadows cannot harm you, they belong to you, as I do. We all do.”

My heart starts thumping wildly in my chest.

I look into those beautiful voids, as dark and beautiful as a starless sky, and murmur, “Can he hear me? Is he listening to us? I can hear it sometimes. Not always.”

North’s bond tilts his head like it’s considering. “What secrets do you want just between us?”

I smile, because the bond talks just like mine does and it makes it easier to speak to it. “None. I just think he’ll be upset at me for asking why he’s so worried about you being around me. If you’re this ready to protect me then… Why is he scared?”

The bond leans down until his nose bumps against mine softly, like it’s afraid even now of hurting me. “The lie. He believes the lie because the truth is too painful. Even now that it’s started to unravel around him, he can’t let it go.”

The lie?

Whether he sees my confusion or just chooses to keep going, I don’t know, but the words keep coming out of him nonetheless. “Bonds cannot hurt each other. They cannot kill each other, not with intent or by accident. But if he believes the truth, then everything he has held on to for all of this time will be meaningless.”

My eyebrows bunch together, but then the bond pushes forward again, sealing our lips together, and I’m kissing North for the first time. Only he’s not the one kissing me. His bond is pushing me backward on the countertop and his tongue is sweeping into my mouth, taking over me and branding my very soul with his mark.

I panic a little, only because of what North will think of this, but he breaks away from me without pushing for more.

His palm takes hold of my chin, and he speaks to me one last time. “No more running.”

The moment the bond slips away from North, he’s grabbing me, pulling me up and into his arms desperately, and hauling ass into his bedroom as though he can leave his bond and everything said between us behind. For a second, I think he’s going to throw me out of the room for talking to his bond and accidentally uncovering a family secret.

One I’m still wrapping my head around.

But when he spreads me out on his bed, his body immediately covers my own, and this time when his lips touch mine, I know that it’s all him in there and not his bond taking over.

They kiss differently.

Is that a weird thing to notice? Probably. Where the bond was a dark possession, North is a consuming force. He wants me, there’s no doubting it, but he wants everything. I can barely stop myself from getting swept up in him, losing myself when we’ve barely even started.

“What did it say to you? What did it do?”

I blink up at him, and then a slow smile stretches over my cheeks. “It’s devoted to me. It’s not going to hurt me. North? I believe it. I know that neither of you will hurt me.”

He stares at me, his eyes locked onto mine, and there’s a need inside of him that I can see so clearly, a need for me to trust him and believe exactly what he’s capable of.

I already know it.

He moves slowly to pull the towel away from my body, as though he’s still giving me time to change my mind and put a stop to this. I’m not going to, even with the impending freak out over my power growing, I know that this is exactly what I need right now.

I can worry about the consequences later.

When he kisses me again, shoving the towel off of the bed as though he’s worried about it jumping back onto my body and covering me up once again, I forget about everything except his lips on mine. I forget about the Bonding and the beings who live inside us, even now straining towards each other. I forget that we’re anything more than humans who want each other.

Then North’s gift joins the party and shatters any chances of pretending that we’re anything but Gifted Bonds.

The lights are on in the bedroom and bright through the open doorway to the bathroom, but the moment his gift bursts out of him, there’s nothing but darkness around us both. I expect to be surrounded by his creatures, to find August staring at me and waiting for pets, but instead there’s only darkness.

A surprise but not a bad one. I can totally handle Bonding in his shadows.

His eyes stay blue, his level of control even in this situation is completely insane to me, but it’s as though this is the small part of his bond he’s willing to share me with right now, and I can get on board.

The tug on my ankle takes me by surprise.

I glance at North’s hands first just to check that he’s not messing with me, but then I feel the thing slide up my calf to circle my thigh and spread my legs out even further.

Before I have to chance to freak the fuck out, more of the shadows come out to grab me, one over each limb and splaying me out for North’s viewing pleasure. He watches it all with rapt attention, an air of smug male surrounding him.

This is all at his command.

The shadow limbs might as well be restraints for how firmly they hold me down. Living ropes that move at North’s every whim. I should have guessed he’d be full of these sorts of surprises in the bedroom.

When he moves to lick and suck his way across my chest, one of his hands slipping down between my thighs, I want to move my arms to bury my hands in his hair but the tendrils of smoke tighten around my wrists, pulling until my back arches off of the bed. North’s lips close over my nipple as his teeth nip at the sensitive nub.

I’m in sensation overload.

How the hell he thought I could handle this without ever reaching my peak and Bonding with him is baffling, because his fingers barely graze over my clit and my entire soul begins to shake.

Then he moves his freaking hand.

“Not yet. We’re coming together too, Bond. Be patient.”

The sullen child inside of me, the one I’ve been so careful about hiding from him, wants to kick him and cuss him out.

“I’ve been patient. How you ever thought I could survive edging is stupid. Fuck me or make me come some other way. I don’t care, just do it.”

He huffs out a breath at me, and then he ignores my demands. Ignores them. Just goes back to his very slow and methodical exploration of my body until every inch is cataloged inside that impossible brain of his.

I might resort to murder, no matter what his bond just told me otherwise.

The worst part is that I can feel his cock, hard and hot against my thigh, a tease of what’s to come, and yet he’s still perfectly happy to be taking his time.

I attempt to tug my wrists free, but the shadows only tighten their hold, sliding down to wrap around my forearms as well so I lose even more of my mobility as a punishment for trying to rush him.

I might die if he doesn’t hurry up.

Finally, with one last swipe of his rough tongue over my nipple, he pushes up and away from my body to sit on his heels between my legs. I try not to think about how obscene his view is, how my pussy is spread wide open for his eyes, thanks to the shadows. As if spurred on by my thoughts, another tendril appears out of the darkness and moves to slide through my slick pussy lips. I tense a little, half terrified and half hoping that it will push inside of me. The adrenaline rush it gives me is like a shot of heroine straight to the brain, my entire body shaking with pent-up desire.

I can feel my juices gush out onto the bed between us.

His nostrils flare as he fists himself, stroking his cock leisurely as he watches his shadow play with me. I feel my clit begin to pulse every time the shadow brushes against it in a cruel tease, just a whisper of friction, but nowhere near enough to give me what I want.

I whimper, a pathetic sound from deep in the back of my throat, and finally he shifts forward, adding his cock into the torturous teasing. There’s a thin line of black over his irises that I know is his bond, watching over me while its host slowly drags his cock over my clit, teasing me with the hot flesh I desperately crave. I find that I also might not be above begging.

What a glorious thing to share.

“If you don’t fuck me soon, my bond is going to come out. It’s already right on the edge.”

He smirks and pumps his hips, still teasing my most sensitive parts. “I think our bonds want to meet, but I’m not letting them have this before we do. You deserve to fuck each of your Bonds yourself before your bond takes her turn.”

I reach down and take a hold of his cock, thick and hot in my palm, giving it a squeeze before pushing my hips up. His shadows wrap around my wrists but he doesn’t pull me away, just a reminder that I’m touching him because he’s allowing it. Goosebumps break out over my body at the thought of him shifting them again, pulling me apart and spreading me out on this bed and starting his torture all over again.

I like this side of his control issues.

“Stop telling me what I deserve and give it to me instead. I’m just about ready to cuss you out and find someone else to make me come.”

His eyebrow rises at the taunt, but when I grin at him, enjoying the hell out of this, the shadow over my wrist finally tugs my hand away from him. Before I have a chance to pout about it, his hips finally pull back fully and then he’s slamming into me; no gentle easing into it.

I never really wanted gentle.

I want desperate and raw. I want to know that they’ve been craving me just as badly as I’ve needed them. I want to know that the great councilman North Draven has been dreaming of what my pussy would feel like and that having it now is everything he’s ever wanted.

I want to be the center of his fucking world, the only thing that matters to him.

He feels bigger inside of me, the girth of him stretching me almost to the point of pain but riding the line instead until I’m sure I’m about to feel him between my legs for days. That feels right to me. It feels as though that’s exactly how things should be between us.

If only I could make him feel the same way.

The long tendrils of smoke around my body move me until I have my thighs wrapped around North, his arms braced over me and my arms splayed out wide. His eyes can’t stop moving between the pleasure on my face, my lips bitten raw and my hooded eyes, and the enticing way that my tits move with every one of his thrusts.

One of the shadows slips over my clit as it moves my hips, adjusting me so that North’s strokes can go even deeper until I feel as though he’s about to come out of my throat. How the fuck did I survive without this? How did I go so long sleeping with this man wrapped around me and not inside of me?

How could I have ever been scared of this?

His strokes are even and deep, his hips are sure in their movement, and with every minute, I can feel my body climbing higher and higher. I can’t even attempt to bite back the whimpers of pleasure, the sounds of the almost-pain I’m in with overstimulation.

I need more.

I pull my wrist against the shadow, sharp enough that North’s eyebrows drop down as he frees my hand. Before he has the chance to do something insane, like stop, I grab the back of his neck to drag his lips down to mine, tilting my hips more to meet his thrusts as I hitch my legs higher on his waist.

He groans into my mouth, his eyes squeezing shut as his movements get more frenzied and rough. I dig my nails into his nape, and the tendrils of smoke tighten around my thighs until I’m sure I’ll be waking up bruised with his marks.

When his hips slam into me one last time, locking us together as we both finally break apart, the relief and euphoria flood me. His eyes shift, but the ecstasy stays on his face as he stays in control.

My own bond reaches out to touch his, but not the same rough claiming it had done with Gryphon. It feels more like two halves of a soul coming together again.

Like my bond has known about him forever and been waiting to feel whole again. Like the shadows have gone feral waiting for me and now that we’re together again, maybe the storm in North’s heart will calm.

I hope he can finally have some peace.

He leans down to press our foreheads together, and then his voice sounds in my head. I have been waiting for you forever, little Bonded.

My pussy tightens around him because there’s nothing so arousing as a sex-drenched confession straight into your very consciousness.

I waited for you too. I waited for all of you.

I know there’s a good chance that Gryphon is listening to us both right now as well. I haven’t figured out how to shield my inner thoughts from him yet without blocking him out entirely, and I think he’d have an aneurysm if I pulled that on him again right now, but he’s good about leaving this moment alone.

There’s no stampede of Bonds arriving outside the door either, no one trying to interrupt this moment, which makes me think that maybe they were all expecting for this to happen. Whether through placating my bond or if North’s revelation about what my motives were made it obvious that he was going to do whatever he had to to tie himself to me once I returned home.

Now I just have to deal with whatever power surge I end up with and try not to fry any poor, unsuspecting people who don’t deserve it.

North turns to lie down on the sheets next to me, not caring at all that they’re a bit gross now. “You won’t. Stop thinking about it. If there’s anything that I’m sure about, Oleander, it’s that you’re not going to hurt anyone. You’re not a monster.”

I’m not sure I agree with him. It’s a testament to how much has shifted between us that I answer him without second-guessing myself. “I can barely control the power I have now. If it gets stronger… I don’t think I can handle anything else.”

He brushes a hand over my forehead, moving the silver strands away from my face. “We’ll see what happens when you wake up again and face whatever it is together. You’re not leaving here for the time being anyway, not until we’re sure it’s safe again. We can keep your contact with people outside of our Bond to a minimum. We can do this, Oleander.”

He sounds so sure of that, so sure of me, and I want to believe him. I want to, but I’m not sure how yet. Baby steps, I guess.

What will the others think about us Bonding? Especially if I say that I’m still not comfortable Bonding with anyone else… at least not right now.

Once again, I find myself in a mess of my own making.

I should just pass the hell out and lose the next three days like I know I’m going to, but I feel wired after the Bonding. I roll onto my side to face him and grin when his eyes track my every movement even in the dark safety of his room. “I feel like I need another shower after that.”

He stretches one hand up behind his head, his chest flexing deliciously like a private seduction. “Anything you want, Bonded. You should enjoy having me at your disposal while it lasts.”

I don’t want to think about the real world, all of the death and horror that we’re going to have to deal with when we leave here, so I keep it light. “You really want to lug me around all over again? Because my legs are out of action and not because of the healing.”

He smirks at me and scoops me up without another word.