I feel it the moment our Bonded Group is complete.
I'm sure everyone does.
It's as though a piece I didn't know was missing slides into place in my chest. Suddenly I can breathe at full capacity, having no idea that for so long it had only been at eighty percent. I should feel relieved, grateful, ecstatic, every good emotion you can possibly think of, that we’re now protected by having a closed circuit between the six of us, but there’s a part of me that desperately wants to stalk through this house, break down Oli’s bedroom door, and kill Nox for touching my Bonded.
Our Bonded.
I don't need to reach out to Oli to know that she's okay. I can feel her there in my chest, and she’s also content with the completed Bond. I’d only been able to stay calm about the whole fucking mess because Gryphon was in there as well. He was acting as a sort of ‘chaperone’ to make sure that Nox didn't hurt her in any way while she was so vulnerable to him, but I can't shake the feeling that I need to go and see it with my own two eyes.
I don't understand why he hates her so much.
I don't understand how her running away could’ve hurt him so deeply that he still couldn't see sense once the truth of it all was presented to him.
I get the feeling that the guy has some deep-seated mental issues or something from the way that everyone treats him. I have to admit that the idea of him being in our Bonded Group still pisses me off. He’s a liability and a danger to Oli. I’ll never take that shit lightly.
We’ve almost lost her too many times already.
I'm still sleeping on a mattress on the floor of my newly finished room, but I couldn't care less about it. I’m hoping to only have to sleep in here a few nights a week when Oli wants time alone with her other Bonded, so the idea of picking out anything and being fussy with it just doesn't interest me. Gabe had been a good sport about helping me get it done, as well as his room, while everybody else was away. There’s still so much to be done around here before the house is actually finished, he easily could’ve told me to fuck off.
He’s also a surprisingly patient teacher, and his dedication to getting this place finished, and getting Oli away from the rest of the community, is definitely something that I can get behind.
He’s someone I don’t mind sharing her with.
Once we’d finished grouting my bathroom and laying the carpets, we had moved on to North’s room, which needed the most work. The guy is fussy as fuck when it comes to interiors, which means more work for us. I would point it out to him, loudly and often, just to be an asshole, except that the guy also built an entire town for his community without once asking anything of them beyond their loyalty to each other and to help where they can.
I might cut him some slack for insisting on incredibly fussy tile work.
Gabe hadn't let me touch a single thing in North's room, not trusting me to not fuck it up, and I don't blame him. The only good perk there was that during the day, we had figured out how my power had grown.
Gabe had been working underneath a Jacuzzi large enough to fit eight fully grown men in it that North was having installed in his bathroom, when one of the temporary supports had given out and the whole thing had plummeted towards Gabe’s head and chest area.
It probably wouldn't have killed him, especially if we'd gotten him to Felix fast enough, but he definitely would have been seriously injured had it actually managed to land on him.
The moment I heard the wood cracking, my Gift had burst out of my chest, completely involuntarily and in a way that I had never felt before. I could see it though. I could see the protection that it had placed on Gabe. When the Jacuzzi bounced off his chest and back into place, he’d caught it and held it up with ease, as though he had all of the strength in my body.
He'd glanced over to me in complete and utter shock. “What the fuck was that?!”
I shook my head, but a small bead of sweat formed on my forehead as I snapped back, “Get out from under there! I don't know whether or not I can hold this.”
He scurried out and placed the tub back onto the ground, changing out the support and checking to make sure that it was secure this time with the practiced ease that he does everything. “Could you do that before? Is that something that you've always had up your sleeve and just forgot to mention to me or…?”
He let the sentence trail off and I took a second before I answered, staring down at my hands where they were glowing and then back over to him, that same glow over his skin. “I’ve never done that before. I don't really feel my Gift the way that you guys do. It's just a part of me. I can't manipulate it… or, at least, I couldn't before. Fuck. I don't even know how I did it now!”
Gabe cackled and pushed a hand through his hair, covered in sweat and dust from all of his work. “Well, I guess we can say now that we are definitely friends if your bond is deciding to protect me from shit. I wonder if it would do that for the rest of the guys too?”
I shook my head. “Fuck knows, but I doubt it'll do it for every one of the other Bonds.”
Gabe gave me a side-eye and slumped against the bathroom countertop. “You know you're gonna have to let that go, right? Oli is Bonded with the rest of them as well… or she will be soon. You’re only gonna hurt Oli if you keep kicking up a stink about him.”
He didn’t say exactly who he was talking about, but it didn’t take a genius to figure it out. “I know, and I'm careful not to put that sort of pressure on her. Doesn't mean I have to like him, and it also doesn't mean I have to use my Gift to stop bathtubs from falling on his head. Natural selection isn’t always a bad thing.”
Gabe scoffed and shook his head, moving back through the bathroom to collect his tools so we could head off to have something to eat before moving on to another room. We’d eaten breakfast early, and I was fucking famished.
I should’ve just let it go, but I couldn’t. “Why are you fine with him? You know what he did to her.”
He grimaced and pulled a face as he snapped his toolbox shut and lifted it into his arms, stalking out of the bathroom. “I do know, and I know how Oli feels about it, which is enough for me. I'm not going to tell her how to feel about something, and she told me that it was between the two of them.
I shook my head at him, but I kept my thoughts on that to myself. I don't want to tell my Bond how to feel about something, especially something like that, but I also am not going to stand around and let him hurt her, to have her just accept it because he's her Bond.
When we got to the kitchen, Gabe placed his toolbox down on the floor gently, careful with the hardwood floors he’d spent so long installing, before opening up the fridge and grabbing out the take-away lunches that we had ordered from the dining hall. Neither of us had wanted to stop to make lunch, and the chef was always thrilled to know that he was cooking for us.
Another perk of being in the Draven Bonded Group.
Gabe waited until we’re both eating before he spoke again. “I think maybe that you are seeing things that you want to see because of your sister and that whole fucked-up situation.”
I gave him a hard look and he shrugged back. “I’m not saying that Nox did nothing. I'm saying that Oli is not your sister, and her bond definitely is not your sister's bond. I think at any point, if it was what you think it was, her bond would have done something to protect her. It’s wiped out entire camps for her. Fuck, we’ve both seen the destruction it's wrought. I'm not saying it would have killed them, especially now that we know that it probably can't kill him, but killing isn't the only thing that she can do. I'm pretty sure the bond would have, at the very least, punched him in the mouth. If it was what you thought it was.”