Bonding process? What the hell was that?“I don’t understand, Brone.” I put my hand over the top of his hand that was cupping my cheek. “Brone, look at me.”
He lifted his head, and the guilt I saw swirling inside the navy-blue depths made me gasp.What had he done to put that look in his eyes?Fear spiked, my pulse racing. “You’re scaring me.”
“No,” he shook his head. “Please, it’s not bad.” He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before meeting my eyes. I knew my face must be giving off a panicked vibe. “At least, I don’t think it is.” He cleared his throat. “ButIamnotsureyouwillfeelthesame.” The sentence came out as one long jumble of words since he was saying it as fast as possible.
But I am not sure you will feel the same. I replayed the rush of words back.I wanted to reassure him, but I still didn’t have a clue as to what was happening. “I can’t tell you how I feel since I don’t know what you are talking about. Explain it to me, Brone.”
He dropped his hands and lifted me off his lap, placing me next to him on the couch. A wave of disappointment swept through me, but I pushed it down.
Twisting his frame, he took my hand in his. “Not much is known about the bonding process. Those that have gone through it keep what it entails between them and their female.”
Between them and their female?That meant it was something that must have happened with the couples at the rebellion. But Brone and I weren’t a couple. Not for his lack of trying…and you wishing for it.Had we somehow set this process in motion without realizing it?
Holy hell. The dream. Could that be part of it?“You were in my dream, but it didn’t feel like a dream, it felt like a memory.” I clutched his hand,.“Brone, itfelt real.”
His jaw went slack. “You dreamed ofme?”
I nodded. “I was on a battlefield. A cyborg named Sim was there, and you were telling him to get up, but...” I didn’t finish. I couldn’t.
He looked away, his jaw clenching, the skin bunching around his eyes.
“There is more.” His gaze jumped to mine and I hesitated.Should I tell him the rest?I stared at the sight of my hand in his. My thumb had taken it upon itself to start making soothing circles over his wrist trying to calm the rapid beat of his pulse.
“Then I found myself somewhere else. Maybe the same battlefield, but it was after the fighting was over. Everywhere I looked there were Tank Classes.” Bile rose up my throat, “pieces of them.” I shuddered,swallowing hard and forcing the bitter taste back down. Saying it out loud brought it all back. Back to the death and destruction. Trig’s face as he took his last breath. The sound of Brone’s cry. The memories came like an onslaught of rough waves that threatened to drag me under.
My eyes shuttered closed for a second as I took a breath. I met Brone’s wide eyes. “I want you to know that I stayed with Trig. That he wasn’t alone. I sang to him until…until he was gone.”
Brone could only nod, dark fluid welling up.It was real. All of it.The devastation on Brone’s face was the only confirmation I needed.
My brain absorbed the information like a slug to the chest and I rocked back on the couch.Does that mean?“Wait, did you dream of me, too?” I asked, even though my helpful mind reminded me that Brone had rushed all the way to the cabin, and it hadn’t been for tea and a chat. Something had happened. Something big enough to shake the solid Tank Class and make him come find me.
“Dream, no…yes…maybe?” He shifted his frame on the couch, the wrist I was still gripping moving under my fingers. The subtle movement reminded me I had yet to let go of him.Had the start of the bonding process done something to me? Was that why I had felt so lost without him and wanted to plaster myself to his frame?
The sadness that gripped me when I thought my feelings for him and his for me could all be manufactured by this elusive bonding process left a hollow ache in my chest. I wanted this thing between us to be real, even if it made no sense.
Even with me being on the run from an evil corporation and Reaper wanting my head on a spike, I still wanted it.
It was stupid and crazy, but Iwanted it.
I wanted Brone.
It would be just my luck that the first real guy to take an interest in me was only interested because of some bonding thing that I don’t understand the function of.The scientist inside me should be seeking answers, but days of little to no sleep had left my mind a mess. The old fear that I was not good enough slithered through me, sending doubt to pound inside my head.
What about the other rebellion couples? Was their love simply manufactured by this so-called bonding process?I think about all of them, and part of my brain tells me that what they have is something real, but the other part is wondering if I merely want to believe it is.
The again, does it even matter? All of them are beyond happy.
I drop his wrist and push myself off the couch, needing some space from all the things swirling inside my head and from the giant Tank Class that made it impossible to think.
I had thought speaking to Brone would help me-would clear up whatever the hell was happening to me, but now I’m left with more questions than answers.
Brone reached for me. “Nara.” My name comes out like a plea.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I try to calm the frantic beat of my heart. “Tell me this isreal.”
Brone
“Tell me this is real.”The statement threatened to short circuit my processors. I jumped from the couch, dragging her to my frame. “Of course, it’s real.”