“Lahn. He’s… all I have left now. He’s back at the camps and… I need to know if there’s a chance you’ll be going there. He’s only five.”
Oh, God.
I could handle just about anything but them having a freaking kid as a hostage. My bond stirs in my chest, taking an interest in the conversation, which is a little weird.
Find the boy.
Ahh, excuse me? Since when do you care about rescue missions for kids?
We protect them all, not just the Bonded. Even the mouthy one.
The mouthy one? Sawyer? I poke at my bond a little more, but it just goes back to sleep, still processing the aftereffects of the soul.
Sawyer.
Holy shit.
I grab my phone, ignoring the looks my flailing about is getting from everyone else, and I send a message to Sawyer, and then Gray, for good measure. “No one judge me here if I’m wrong. My bond… said something and I want to test it out.”
Gabe nods along happily and questions Aro a little more while we wait, mostly about her brother and where she’d come from originally before the Resistance had grabbed her. She’s actually twenty-one, older than she looks, and she’d lost her parents when they’d all been grabbed.
The elevator doors open again and Gray steps out, frowning over at us all like this is particularly weird. I mean, it definitely is, but we’re on borrowed time right now.
Any minute that meeting is going to end, and we’ll be off to find Unser and bring him home.
I’m not at all subtle. “Gray! Hey! Come over here for a second. I have someone I want you to meet. This is Aro, she was kidnapped by the Resistance, and her brother is being held captive. Any chance that you’re… feeling something? About her?”
Gray stares at me like I’m freaking insane, but when he looks at the tiny girl in front of us, he looks so unsure of how the world is still spinning on its axis that I know that my hunch was absolutely correct.
Aro is Gray and Sawyer’s Bond.
Their Central Bond.
Ten minutes later, Sawyer finally arrives, only to also stare at Aro like he’s about to propose, glancing over at Gray like he’s trying not to publicly pinch himself. They both fumble a little over their words with her, and I will absolutely be giving Sawyer shit about it later.
Aro is hesitant, again thanks to the Resistance camps, I’m sure, but it’s plain to see that she’s having that same pull to them as they’re feeling to her.
It makes me wonder how the Resistance ever lied about Bonded Groups and what they make you feel deep in your chest the moment you lay eyes on them. But I guess if you’ve never felt it before, how do you explain it to someone?
I glance over at Gabe and murmur, “Strongest Bond Groups, right? We take care of family, that’s what makes us different from them. We can’t leave a five-year-old behind. Not now, not ever.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nox
The meeting with the returned TacTeams is less frustrating than sitting in on one of North's council meetings, but it’s still an exercise in restraint.
All of the men here deserve my respect.
Every last one of them has chosen a career that involves them risking their lives over and over and over again for members of our community, not all of whom respect and appreciate that. The problem is that all of them think guns first, brains second, which is the entire reason that North, Gryphon, and Vivian are so high up within leadership roles.
They think like tacticians instead of soldier grunts.
“Just go in, set your Bonded off, get her to do whatever it is that she does, sucking souls out of all the men like some sort of—”
“I’m going to stop you right there before you say something that has a shadow creature ripping your head off your fucking shoulders,” Vivian says, cutting in.
Marcus stares over at him before flicking his eyes in North and Gryphon's direction, finally sensing that he might have worded things a little bit on the disrespectful side. I'm sure I look nothing but bored, but he still gulps when his eyes land on me as well.
There's nothing quite as terrifying to anyone who has met North and I before than staring down a Draven. Something useful our father had left behind was a legacy of rabid shadow creature beasts, and while that isn’t the case, the perception of them being that way sure does come in handy at such meetings.
“Our Bonded Group is newly completed. That means that our powers have not had the chance to settle yet. It was only at the Wasteland yesterday that Gabriel Ardern discovered what his power growth had done for him. It is still a risk to have my Bonded go.”