It's one of the reasons I think the Resistance wants Oleander so badly.
A Gifted with an unmatched range to dispose of the non-Gifted and Gifted alike, she's everything they could’ve ever wanted.
Gryphon fidgets in the seat next to me as Rafe directs the car over to the private parking lot. This is an emergency meeting, and there’s very little press that we’ll have to make our way past, only a few men holding cameras, taking photos, and a couple of reporters with microphones. They’re clearly the only people in the area, and with such a short lead time, the usual vultures couldn’t make it, thank God. Usually when we meet, all of them show up, hundreds waiting for us, ready to stick their recorders in our faces to misconstrue the slightest thing that we might say wrong.
It's concerning, to say the least, but I'm grateful that I might have a little more wiggle room with what I can say to the woman, because if anyone needs some home truths, it’s Oldham.
“Remember not to say anything. She's going to do everything in her power to turn you into the horrible monster that she has fantasized we are, including talking about our Bonded.”
Gryphon shrugs, easily staring off into the distance as though he's focusing on some conversation I can't hear. His ability to read minds is also a plus here. Another tick in the box of why he's escorting me and not Nox.
“I kind of figured that. If I snapped at every person who tried to use my Bonded against me, I wouldn't have any hours left in the day for her. Don't worry about me; just focus on your bond and keeping him in line.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “Are you so sure it’s mine we need to be worried about? Have there been any changes with yours that you might need to tell me about?”
He sends me a dry look. “I’m not the one who keeps secrets about my bond.”
I hold back a wince as I mentally give him a point on a scoreboard that I never really keep track of.
He's not wrong, I did lie to them all about my bond. To be fair, I was doing my best to lie to myself about it, just as much as I was lying to them. My own fear of what lived inside of me and the potential of what it could do to my Bonded and every other person I came in contact with had overridden my loyalty to my Bonded Group.
I’m not proud of it, but I won’t try to lie about it either.
“My bond is fine. Its number one concern right now is Oleander and making sure she never has to soul-bond with anyone ever again.”
He winces and nods. “Yeah, I think we can all agree on that.”
No questions asked. Neither of us have discussed what that moment felt like or the fact that I had completely shut down, but I also don't feel any embarrassment with him about it either. Gryphon isn't the type of man to judge me, and I have never felt any sort of extra shame around him any more than I have ever felt around Oleander or Nox.
He knows what that moment had cost me the same way I know what that moment cost him, and what's the point of a unified Bond Group if we don't have each other's backs during the worst possible moments of our lives? He's seen mine, and he knows all about Nox’s. I hope for his sake that we never have to see his.
Rafe pulls the car up as close to the building as he can get. Gryphon steps out of the car first, slipping easily into the old practice of him acting as my security.
We're trained at the same level, we're in the same Bonded Group, and his life means just as much as mine, but the non-Gifted don't understand that, and it's easier to act this way around them.
Rafe opens my car door at Gryphon's signal, and we walk into the building together. The white ring is clear around Gryphon's irises, and I murmur to him quietly, “Probably best if we don't walk in there like that. Oldham will start running for the hills if she sees it. We won't get the chance to explain that what you're doing is for her safety as much as ours.”
Gryphon shrugs with the slightest smirk curling up his lips. “It'll be a quick end to the day if we clear her out of the building though, won't it?”
I shoot him a look. “We need to convince the non-Gifted that we're not a threat here. If we just wanted to scare them away, I would have brought Nox.”
Gryphon looks around the building one last time before the white light fades from his eyes. “There's no one here who is a threat. No one except the senator herself, who is convinced that we're all trying to kill her, so have fun talking the crazy bitch out of that.”
I sigh deeply and roll my shoulders back before I open the door to the assigned conference room.
Give me a battle on the field surrounded by my own shadow creatures, with my Bonded at my side and the rest of our Bonded Group, any day over this verbal bullshit.
Chapter Sixteen
Oli
One of the many advantages of my bond finally coming out to help deal with the Wasteland is that I wake up the next morning feeling energized and ready to take on whatever the world throws at me. It's a far cry from what life used to look like after I’d used my Gift, but now that my body has adjusted, I no longer need to take three-day naps.
I bounce out of bed easier than any of my Bonded and, God, is it freaking magical.
North and Gryphon leave to travel to a meeting with the non-Gifted, and my bond and I take a good hour to come to terms with that fact. North assures me before they leave that Kieran will stay on high alert, ready to go after them should he need to. In the end, my bond makes the call that they're safe enough for now.
The Resistance will want to fight back against us, and we already know that North is one of the highest targets, but Gryphon reassures me that he will hear them coming from a mile away and will return home to us immediately if he needs to.
Instead of spending the day freaking the hell out about them both, I text Sage. We agree to meet at the Tac Training Center for an early morning workout. Gryphon had made a comment about sticking to my training just in case before he’d left and, despite Atlas’ protests, I convince all three of my Bonded left behind to come train with us for the day.
There's still no love lost between Atlas and Nox.
Gabe is bouncing like a schoolboy as we leave the house together, and I insist on jogging down there to warm up, sending a quick text to Nox to make sure that he is still meeting us down there after his night of research at North’s offices.
I’m not sure how there could possibly be anything that he hasn't gone through at this point to research what has been happening to Gabe’s dragon, but he’s been relentless nonetheless.
The newest wave of Gifted who have been allowed to join the Sanctuary had brought with them more textbooks and ancient tomes, relics of their families, and everything had been passed over to Nox.
I feel bad and as though we should be helping him, but North had reassured me quickly not to be concerned when I’d mentioned it to him last night after Nox had left the house.
“He would want to read them himself no matter how thoroughly you were explaining it to him. So, honestly, you’d just get in his way.”
It doesn't make me feel any less guilty, especially when we arrive at the Tac Training Center and find Nox standing at the front with a coffee in one hand and his phone in the other, looking as though it's been days since he last slept. My bond tugs in my chest, unhappy as it reaches out to him, and he glances over at me when he feels it caress against his own.