He doesn't immediately move her onto his lap or fuss with her as I would. He simply presses a hand to her chest to feel her breathing for a minute and then lets her go, letting her sleep peacefully. The way that he loves and treats her is incredibly selfless, a stark comparison to the selfish way that I covet her.
It doesn't make me feel bad though. If anything, it makes me feel like I need to take more, to take everything from her until I have it all.
“I’ll call North,” Gabe mutters, sharing a look with Atlas, but my bond finally moves, reaching out a hand, and my palm turns black as shadows fall from it.
Mephis and Procel come down and immediately move to the bed, jumping up to flank either side of her. Atlas stares at them distrustfully, and my bond finally speaks. “They will guard her. Do not attempt to move or disrupt them. I will only be gone for as long as it takes to fix the problem.”
Atlas nods, slowly shifting away from the shadows a little, but his eyes stay on her. Finally, my god-bond loosens the grip on my body, letting me take control once more, though it continues watching.
Gabe lets out a breath behind me. “What crawled up its ass? The rest all left happily.”
I shake my head dismissively at him. “She's sleeping too heavily. You need to watch her, and call me the second anything changes… for better or worse.”
Gabe startles and steps towards the bed. “What do you mean by that? She always does this when she uses power.”
Atlas shakes his head. “This is different. Can't you feel it? She's not the only one resting.”
Gabe scowls and shrugs. “That makes sense though, doesn't it? She took out something bigger than she ever has before, of course her bond needs to sleep as well.”
I shake my head. “I don't like it. Just watch her and call me. I'll go deal with these fucking idiots at the office and then I'll be back.”
“You or your bond?” Atlas asks as I turn on my heel.
“Does it matter? We're one and the same,” I say as I shove the door open, stalking out to where Black is waiting for me.
The relief on his face at the color of my eyes is stark. “If you’d have told me six months ago that you'd be acting like this over your Bonded—”
I fucking hate that word.
Using it like that, about her, it makes my skin crawl, so I cut him off. “We need to get this over and done with. I need to be back here.”
He scowls at me as he claps a hand on my shoulder. “Do you need me to send Felix up? He's already waiting, if you need him.”
I shake my head. “No one's looking at her without me there. We'll deal with this, and then when I get back, I can look her over again and make the call.”
Kieran shakes his head. “It's not a good day to be the General.”
It's never a good day to be the fucking General. I hate the man, even more so now than ever before, which is something I didn't think was possible. He is taking me away from Oleander right now, when she needs me the most, and that is inexcusable.
We transport into the bottom floor of North’s office, the area that is open for the public to come into and wait to speak with him. It’s usually fairly empty, nothing more than a glorified thoroughfare area, but we find it packed with bodies.
I’m not very surprised to find ourselves appearing in the middle of an all-out war.
The fact that North is in the center of it, vigorously brawling, is more than a little shocking, however.
If anything, I would have guessed that Gryphon would’ve thrown the first punch at his father, years of resentment finally bubbling to the surface, but our Neuro is the one trying to get North off of the General.
More shadows fall from my body and start cleaning up the mess around us, winding their way around the TacTeam personnel and pulling them all out of the fray. One-by-one, they line the bodies up until they are sweating and shaking in fear by the wall.
North’s shadows are only exacerbating the fight, but when they come across mine, they have no choice but to calm down, secure in the fact that I'm here to help, and they can’t fight against their own, no matter what the situation might be. Without the pressure of the rest of the TacTeams around them, Gryphon manages to pry North off of his father, his hands finally wrenching away from around the General’s throat. The older man makes the sweetest gurgling noises as he gasps for air.
I sidle up beside them. The black stain of my god-bond creeps up my throat, and a smirk stretches across my lips as I see the blood running freely out of his nose. It all makes me look like the demon the General is so sure that I am, and I’m more than happy to play the part.
I wish I could kill the cunt myself.
“Well, well. I didn't think it was possible for someone to goad North into that sort of attack, but I suppose if anyone could do it, it would be you.”
The General stares up at me in pure loathing, and I relish it… right until he opens his fat mouth.
