Its eyes flick back to Nox as she continues, ”No, you don’t. You just hate that I'm still here even without it. You think that your form of devotion is the only one. I've lost this cycle, but I need to do what I can for the next one. I'm not just going to throw away a chance at finding some allies.”
Nox’s bond turns to look at Gryphon, then its eyes flick down to me, devotion and obsession in them as it traces my face. “We don't need allies. We need you all dead.”
I feel as though if I leave it up to the bonds, we’re going to be stuck here forever talking about who is the strongest and what nefarious plans they all have for each other. And no matter how possessed and unrecognizable Sage might look at the moment, I can't stop thinking about my best friend and her body being used right now.
I reach out to my own bond where it’s slumbering somewhere around my spleen, but it merely yawns and stretches before rolling over and going back to sleep. Fighting in the Wasteland has worn it out enough that without direct danger to our Bonded Group, it's just not interested in coming to the party.
I cast another fleeting look in North's direction, only to remember that the last thing he would be willing to do would be to let his bond out to finish this off, so instead, I focus back on Nox.
I haven't spent a huge amount of time with his bond, or any of the bonds really, but I have a level of comfort and familiarity with it that I just don't have with Gryphon’s yet.
I want this to be over,I send through our mind connection to it, and though Nox hears it, he knows it isn't for him and leaves the two of us to speak.
The bond doesn't look at me, but I feel its presence in my mind straight away.
Do you want me to end it?
I scowl and answer quickly,I don't want you to hurt Sage… but I want that bond out of her, and I want it never to get back in again. Can the Soothsayer really do that?
With you, he can do anything. Now that we're all together, I don't doubt his limitlessness at all.
I tilt my head back until I'm staring at Gryphon’s bond, upside down and a little confusing, but I can tell he likes that I haven't tried to step away from him, that I have just allowed him to be close to me for now.
I'm tired, and this all feels like it’s for nothing. I'd rather be done with it and go back to the house together. If you can get it out of her head, do it now, please. For me. Just don’t hurt her.
Sage's mouth opens again, ready for the next litany of insults and sharp barbs, but Gryphon's eyes flash again, that same eerie, unnatural, blackness that they get when the god-bonds call on their power, and Sage collapses back to the bed, a groan ripping out of her chest that definitely sounds like one of her own.
Gryphon’s bond looks down at me with that same expressionless face. “I closed her mind to the god-bond. It cannot use her again, Bonded.”
CHAPTERTWO
Oli
Felix goesinside the cell to check Sage over, but the god-bond didn’t do any damage to her that he can find. North agrees to let her go home for the night under her Bonded’s watchful eyes. Kieran hovers over her like the god-bond is going to physically fall out of her and he’ll have something tangible to fight, something to murder with his bare hands. Felix is also staring at her like she might drop dead at any second, so really, they’re just as bad as each other.
Wick doesn’t say a word.
Neither does Riley.
As I watch them all leave, I feel a little puddle of dread start up in my stomach about that whole situation. It sort of feels like I’m leaving Sage in a den of wolves, snarling at each other’s throats and just waiting for the chance to rip them out.
There’s also other things for me to worry about here.
North is still covered from head to toe in grime and gore from the battlefield, the war we’d fought and won today, but I don’t hesitate as I lean forward and wrap my arms around his waist and soak in a little of his strength for a moment.
I’m exhausted.
The type of exhaustion that I haven’t felt in a long time. The type where I could pass out for three days just to recover. I haven’t felt this way in months, not since I’d stopped fighting my bond and accepted what I could do with my Gift to help my Bonded Group and our community. I knew that the fighting had worn me down, my body becoming a conduit of power as I pulled souls and churned them through to my Bonded, but I wasn’t expecting it to affect me like this.
Usually, I feel stronger.
“It’s the god-bond’s pain. She weakened the vessel before the bond took over,” Gryphon’s bond says, and I feel North tense against me.
Nox steps a little closer to Gryphon, his own eyes black, but the look on his face makes it clear that he’s the one in charge, merely calling on his Gift right now because of the tension in the room. Atlas and Gabe are both hovering close to North and I, their own eyes clear and concerned without a single trace of the gods within them.
We probably couldn’t handle any extra power in this room right now.
“Calling me avesselisn’t the best idea right now, buddy,” I mumble back, but he hears me well enough.
