A carrot on a stick, effective because it’s true.
I want that man dead. I want to be fully Bonded and tear him apart slowly. I want to feed him piece by piece to the shadows at my feet.
A voice sounds in my ear through a small machine. “Bassinger, stop riling her up and keep clear of the rest of us until we’ve secured the area.”
I don’t like hearing them in my ear like that, but when I move to bat the earpiece out, the Everlasting One grabs my hand to stop me, gently moving me over to where there’s cover for us to watch the operatives work.
They’re efficient.
Outnumbered ten-to-one, they pick off the runners and what Transporters they can. I watch as they work and the Everlasting One takes out a gun of his own, checking the safety as he holds it at his side. He offers me one, but I shake my head. I’m a god, a gun means nothing to me.
We need to have a conversation about this ‘god’ stuff sometime soon, Bond.
I ignore my Bonded and watch as he directs his people into the camps to flush out more of the enemy soldiers. There are stragglers everywhere, a few of them making it to the scrub before the operatives take them out. I don’t think we’re expecting much from it but when the Everlasting One curses viciously, I look up to find a blonde woman staring back at him, shell shocked.
When her face finally twists into a snarl, the girl inside of me whispers that it is his sister.
She takes a step towards him and I move in front of him, raising my own arm, only to have him press up close to my back, murmuring to me, “Don’t kill her, Bond. We can take her in and deal with her however North decides, but just—”
His sister turns on her heel and runs, bullets hitting her body and bouncing off of her because her gift is the same as her brother’s.
The girl tries to take control again, to force me into submission, but I keep the helm. “Agreed. The shadows will take care of this for us.”
The Everlasting One looks over at me, but I snap my fingers until the shadow pup comes to my side. “I need her alive and as untouched as you can manage without being hurt yourself. Fetch her for me.”
The shadow blinks at me and I know that the Dark One is seeing through his eyes, that’s why he is pausing.
The girl inside speaks directly to him before I deal with it myself. Atlas didn’t attempt to hide her or talk her way out. He just asked to take her in instead of killing her, for now. I think we can give him that, right?
There’s a pause and then the shadow is off, moving faster than my eyes can properly track as he chases the enemy girl down. The Everlasting One takes a deep breath and watches but doesn’t attempt to interfere. I feel a deep need to destroy his family once again, to hunt them all down and feast on their souls until they are nothing but ash and dirt beneath our feet.
The Dark One speaks directly to us again. I’ll have August bring her to Kieran for an immediate jump. I don’t want her talking to Atlas and attempting to manipulate him. Let’s keep it as clean as we can for now, Bonded.
I look out at the carnage around us and say, “The Dark One is getting her out now, taking her back to be detained. She’s alive and will stay that way.”
The Everlasting One gives a curt shake of his head. “I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to see any of them. Let’s finish this and get the fuck out of this shithole.”
There’s another explosion of fire and he wraps his arms around me again, ready to cover my body with his own to protect the girl from the heat and damage. There’s a Flame there controlling the fire, making sure to only burn the enemy and their camp without taking out our own. My Shifter is in full wolf form and tearing through the camp, snapping and tearing men apart with nothing but his powerful jaws. Pride swells within me at the magnificent sight of him.
I want to be involved but I also want to watch them work, to know what my Bonds are capable of and to know that they’re worthy of the Bond Group they’re in. It’s good to see that they are.
Then I feel it.
One of my Bonds is hurt.
My eyes shift and it’s game over on the whole night, the mission, these men and women. My bond just wipes the entire camp clean of them all as I cast out my web to find which one of them has been hurt and where the fuck they are. Tearing their souls out is easier than breathing and there’s a satisfaction to the unanimous thump nose as they all fall to the dirt as one.
There’s shouts and chaos around me from the TacTeams but I ignore them, single-mindedly stalking through the mess.
Gabe, the girl whispers, and my heart skips a beat. I mean, rationally I know that it has to be the Shifter or the damaged Dark One. If it was one of my Bonded, I’d know exactly who it was and how they were hurt, and the Everlasting One is bullet-proof.