There’s no need for fear.
Our enemy is nothing in the face of my Bonded. Each and every one of them.
The outer doors open with a grinding sound, and the gloomy day is blinding after an hour in the building, but only for a moment before the shadow creatures consume the light as they move forward, working their way towards their targets.
Our Transporter immediately pops out of existence, taking the man and the child with him, and the Damaged One steps forward, his mind now fully on the work in front of us. As his shadow creatures fall around us, I fight the urge to reach inside of him and pull his bond out, to have the three of us reunited here together on this battlefield, and watch as our gifts blend together to seek out our victory, but my Bonded is still very nervous about what's going on.
I’ll show him that there’s nothing to be concerned about.
Instead of worrying about the trivial concerns of mortals, I continue my work of picking out the souls of the lesser Gifted around us, churning up their life essence into pure energy and funneling it through to the Dark Bonded one until I’m sure he’s invincible.
There's another explosion to our left, the force of it knocking us all from our feet, and he catches me, one arm banding around my waist like a steel bar as he steadies my feet. His shadow creatures snarl all around us, advancing towards the group a few hundred feet in front of us, and I have to wait for the smoke to clear enough to get a look at them.
Pathetic, the lot of them.
They might be stronger than I am right now, but I have only been in this reincarnation for a fraction of the time that they have walked this earth, all of them fully Bonded and at the peak of their abilities. We still have so much further to go, and I will do everything in my power to make sure that we get there.
Before I can continue working my way through the pathetic Gifted in front of us, the shadow creatures strike, hundreds of them swarming and killing indiscriminately as they work toward the back of the group where the enemy is waiting.
Screams of terror and pain sound around us, the sounds of flesh and bone being torn apart filters through the rain to us, and a shiver of joy and excitement ripples through me.
They’re magnificent.
There are pops around us as enemy Transporters begin to bring in reinforcements, but I’m picking them off faster than they’re arriving, keeping the threat we’re facing at a very manageable level. I feel the inkling of a foreign being trying to reach into my mind, his talons digging into my skull, and I change my tactics.
I send power to my Bonded instead.
He glances at me in shock, but he gets my plan instantly, his Gift flooding me and shoving the man out of my head. I might not be strong enough, or practiced enough, to keep him out on my own, but my Bonded is, especially with the kick of power.
We watch as the grass turns red with the blood and gore of those who came here to harm us, and the stacks of bodies begin to pile up. Occasionally, there’s the sound of a gun firing, but mostly, the carnage comes from my Bonds and me.
It only lasts for a few minutes, a retreat is called in quickly when it’s clear that they’ve underestimated who they were dealing with and what we’re capable of, and then the pops become about getting people out of here.
I make eye contact with the man who loves knives, the one who cut and hacked at the girl for years just to get to me, and right before his Transporter helps him escape his death, he smirks at me, dipping his head in acknowledgment.
It’s a promise.
A promise that now that the stage has been set, the war is coming together around us, and now that I have my Bonded, we’ll face each other until one of us comes out victorious.
Chapter Seventeen
Oli
My bond doesn't let me take control again until the Transporter gets us back to the Sanctuary.
I don't remember all of what had happened while it was in control, but my body is still thrumming with the power that I now associate with the Soul Rending. It’s clear to me that we had killed a lot of Resistance while we were there, and I'm not sure if I should feel horrified at my own lack of concern about that.
I only wish that we had been able to kill Davies or the Trigger.
Gryphon gets his hand on my neck to ease away the churning feeling in my stomach, but North stands stock still next to me without so much as a glance in my direction.
Very weird.
“Are you going to do something to get him back? Or are we going to have to pour a tub of ice water over his head or something?” Gryphon snaps, and I frown at him.
“What are you talking about?”
He leans in a little closer to me so that the TacTeam personnel around us can’t hear, but North can, probably why he’s doing it instead of just using our mind connection. “Your bond funneled power to us all while we were out there, and it triggered North's bond to take over. It hasn’t given him back yet.”