It’s my family that I should hate.
She blinks rapidly, trying not to let the tears fall, and scrubbing at her cheeks when they do regardless. “You promise not to regret this, right? Even if— even now that my bond will get stronger and start something else new and gross?”
I stoop down a little so we’re eye to eye, grabbing the back of her neck in one hand gently so that I’m sure I have all of her attention. “Oli, I need you to listen to me right now, because I’ve never been so fucking serious about anything in my life. You’re my Bond. If you get stronger and burn the whole world to the ground, then I’ll be there at your side, watching it burn. I’m not the good guy, Oli. I’m not one of the Dravens or Shores of the world. It’s you and me, and nothing else matters to me.”
She ducks her head back down into my chest and I can feel the tears there. She’s had a long day, but it still rips me apart that she’s feeling like this. “Don’t cry, Sweetness. Don’t cry, because it makes me feel violent, and this whole town is going to end up rubble around us if I lose my shit right now.”
My lips chase the hot stream of tears down her cheeks and, fuck, I would do anything to take this fear and pain away from her. Anything to stop this world from hurting her any more than it has. Every time I shut my eyes, I can see her laying on that table with Silas fucking Davies standing over her with a knife, and I can’t take it anymore.
“Oli, I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life… except for how badly I want you to be safe. I want you as strong as we can get you, even if that means your bond starts eating every soul it comes across. Does that make me as bad as my father and the rest of the Resistance? Maybe. Maybe, but that’s the price I’ll happily pay. The road to hell for me is paved with everything I would do for you, and that list never fucking ends.”
I wake up just before dawn to pee. I hate to leave the comfort of the blankets and my Bonded, but when I get back to the cave entrance, the dawn sky brightening around us, Oli looks perfect laying there on her stomach amongst the blankets.
There’s one thrown over her waist and ass like she was attempting to be modest as we fell asleep together but failed miserably at it. Her hair is fanned out and her cheeks are a little rosy from the warmth of the cave. It was the perfect night, one I don’t want to leave behind any time soon.
I want to remember this moment forever.
I would take a picture of her there, but I’m monitored by the Dravens and Benson so much that they’d end up seeing it, and this moment isn’t for them. This is for me and my beautiful Bonded, glorious and dangerous that she is, and I wouldn’t share it with any of them even if my life depended on it.
I grab my phone out from my jeans where they lay forgotten on the cave floor after I kicked them off last night. There’s a voicemail from an unknown phone number blinking there, and dread pools in my gut.
I have no loyalty to my father after everything the man has done. I have nothing for my mother’s other Bonded either, but my mother… she tried. For the wrong reasons, but she’s the same brainwashed human that my sister is too.
Aurelia.
I don’t want it to be one of her Bonded on the line either. I’ve been chasing my own demons for so fucking long that it’s almost impossible not to feel shitty over every little part of this.
There is a little bit of guilt too because I know I’m on the right side of history now, and I will always choose my Bonded. I will always choose my Bonded, no matter what happens here.
I glance over my shoulder at her again and enjoy the sight one last time without the bullshit waiting for me on my phone clouding the moment. She sighs in her sleep as though she can feel my eyes on her, rolling over onto her back, and the blanket slips away from her body until she’s completely bared to me.
Fuck, she is magnificent.
I know that it’s natural for a Bonded to think that way, but Oleander Fallows is the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. Every inch of her was created to draw me in, and there was never a world in which I’d choose my family’s suicidal ideology over her.
I turn back to my phone and step out of the cave, wearing nothing but my boxer shorts in the sticky night air.
“Son, you need to stop and think very carefully about what you’re doing here. I get it now. I understand what you were so angry about, but we need the girl. You’re thinking with your bond too much. Take a step back and look at the bigger picture here.”
Useless fucking drivel.