“I’m sure you're the one who told North and Gryphon that they needed to learn how to trust my bond. Well, this is part of that as well. My bond says that I am safe with the dragon, so I'm safe.”
Atlas groans and rubs a hand over his face. “The same bond that we just found out might want you dead to take over your vessel? I'm sorry, but I am not so quick to trust what it's saying if it thinks that we're just going to stand by and let it take over fully.”
Oli shakes her head as she cuts off the water, opening the shower door and grabbing a towel. I feel pissed off at that small piece of fabric for just as long as it takes her to start to dry off, bending down to reach her legs, and I’m once again struck down at the sight of her perfect ass.
“I trust it, Atlas. It's always been honest to me, even when the truth hurt and damaged the relationship between us. If it says to trust the creatures, all of them, then I'm going to. Besides, the dragon just wanted a cuddle.”
Atlas turns to send me a savage look, but I’m both unwilling to get into this argument with them and utterly unable to as Oli starts to pull on her Tac gear, her body twisting and flexing in a way that has me needing a cold shower.
He rolls his eyes at me and steps towards her once more. “I’m not going to apologize for worrying about you, especially now that everyone else seems to have forgotten how much danger there is still in the unknown.”
Oli pulls the shirt over her head and then steps towards him, bridging the last of the gap as she winds her arms around his waist. “I'm sure everybody else will freak out about it as well, but the way I see it, we have more weapons on our side now. The fact that my bond brought out a dragon in Gabe isn't a bad thing, and we need everything we can get our hands on to deal with Davies and the rest of the Resistance.”
She doesn't say it, but we're all thinking about his family, the other people that we're going to have to deal with.
Atlas is completely aware of this fact, of the threat that his family is to us all, but it still feels like an asshole move to point out that we're going to have to deal with them just as much as we're going to have to deal with Davies.
Oli pulls away from Atlas to finish getting ready, tucking her shirt in and pulling her hair into a messy ponytail. I finally regain control of my legs and stalk forward to climb into the shower, still completely unabashed about being stark naked in front of them both. Oli sneaks me a sidelong look with just a hint of pink on her cheeks.
“If you wait for me, I'll come to training with you,” I call out as I soap up my chest, smug as fuck at the way that her eyes linger on my movements.
“I’m not going straight to training,” Oli says before her eyes flick back up to mine. “North slept in his office last night, and I'm going to go see him.”
Well, fuck.
Atlas and I both exchange a look. It hasn't been a secret that North has been acting completely out of character since Nox's death and resurrection.
I do not envy my Bond having to go and sort that situation out.
I'm not worried about her in the least, more that it could really go one of two ways. Either North is going to have a complete breakdown over everything that happened, or the two of them are going to have screaming, angry, rough sex in the office. Okay, maybe I am a little bit jealous about that part because even after spending the night with her and worshiping every inch of her perfection, I still haven't had enough.
I don't think I'll ever have enough.
“Give me a minute then, Bonded. I'll walk you over there.”
Chapter Thirteen
Oli
Gabe walks me to North’s offices, but I make him leave me in the elevator so that I can go up to see North by myself. Gryphon had checked in with me when he and Nox arrived back at the house just before Gabe, Atlas, and I had gone to sleep. He'd been the one to break it to me that North was sleeping in his office again.
North’s words down in the cells when he’d walked away from me still echo in my head. I don't want him to think that I am trying to ambush him now with Gabe, so I send my Shifter Bonded home with a kiss.
I still can't believe I had jumped into his head overnight and met his dragon.
The possibility that my bond had done something to his when it’d demanded he shift into something bigger is terrifying to me. We already have three bonds with the potential to make their own personal brands of trouble. We can't really afford to have another. I can't stop thinking about the way that Gabe’s eyes had shifted to amber when we were together, and the way that his hands had changed from the consistent and desperate sort of touch to the branding demand.
I've been with North and his bond enough to know the shift between man and god.
What had happened with Gabe cut a little too close for comfort.
It's something I need to speak to Nox about. His research parameters need to be widened a little more because… well, he’s looking for ‘born’ gods.
What about ‘made’ gods?
All of this just brings up more questions. Where did the gods come from? And how were they made? Because if Gabe has been changed, then what's to stop it from happening again? What's to stop the Resistance finding out about it and finding a way to shift some of their own as well?
There's also the chance that they already know. They knew enough to have the breeding programs that have been going on for generations now, at least two, because the Dravens’ had been messed with, and there is the potential that Atlas’ parents had been selected rather than found with the blood tests.
The fact that the Bassingers just went along with the Resistance’s plan of abandoning who they were supposed to Bond with and ‘selectively breeding’ astounds me. The idea of building a life with someone who wasn't part of my Bonded Group makes me feel sick to my stomach.
I’d literally rather die.
When the elevator doors finally open up to the office, I find it dark, only the glow of North's television illuminating the room. It's playing the news, a non-Gifted woman is talking, though the sound has been muted. She’s standing in front of a grocery store that has been torn in half by either a hurricane or a very powerful Gifted. I know what my money is on.
There’s papers and boxes of files strewn everywhere, piles of books next to the couch that Nox usually sleeps on, and the clutter of a man refusing to leave everywhere.
I carefully make my way over to the desk where North is sleeping, his head slumped down onto the flat surface, and I’m grateful to see August sitting at his side.
At least he hasn't been alone here.
There's also a part of me that feels relief that he is finally trusting his shadows enough to have them watch over him while he gets some rest. I know that only a few short weeks ago, North wouldn't even trust them in my presence while he was awake. Me, his Bonded, who tamed all of the shadow creatures the moment I’d laid eyes on them.
Even Nox’s snarling, savagely perfect pups had loved me right away.
I stroke a hand over August's head and let him give me a quick sniff as he checks in with me, his bottomless eyes shining at me like a thousand stars in the inky black void. It's impossible to describe what the shadow creatures really look like or how they shine when every part of them is blackness, but they do, and they’re even brighter for me.
I press my face against his and coo at him affectionately until some of the tension leaves his body. He knows that I'm here to help North however I can, that finally the distance that he’s demanded between us is going to be bridged.