Opening my eyes thoughtfully, I gaze at my new Bound for a moment. As it turned out, this one wasn’t the big mama of the group, but was instead one of her daughters. As a result, it was a bit less of an ordeal to convince her that we could become her new family than I thought it might be.

My mana having regenerated a bit – apparently being in Battle of Wills automatically counts as being in some form of meditation – I immediately start to work on her legs. It takes me a couple of mana loads to heal them, but as I found with Catches-leaves, after having done one, the other turns out to be easier.

Once her legs are mostly healed, she pushes to her feet and eyes the rest of my Bound warily.

“You’re one of us now,” I remind her. “None of us will attack you or hurt you intentionally. Except in sparring,” I add after a moment. “And then only to help you grow stronger.”

Sighing a little tiredly – emptying and filling my mana pool several times in a row always makes me feel exhausted – I eye the rest of my Bound.

“Let’s head back to the rest of the group,” I say. “If you can all move well enough?” I get a series of assents from everyone around. Except for Lathani who’s still out cold. But that’s OK – I just head over to pick her up. Since I’ve already dealt with her spinal injury, and the puncture to her lungs, that shouldn’t cause her any further damage.

We make our way back to where Hades and Persephone are standing protective guard on the rest of my Bound.

Is all well? Persephone asks as we come into view. Then she raises her head in surprise as she sees the hulking behemoth accompanying us. A new companion? she asks next.

Yes, and yes, I send back to her with a sigh. To add to the menagerie, I tell myself privately next. Goodness knows what Kalanthia’s going to think when I come back with four times the number of Bound I set out with. Though she might be more concerned with ripping me a new one over Taming Lathani. Hopefully only figuratively.

“Everyone can relax a bit,” I say. “Problem solved.” The creatures around me react in a variety of ways. Some actually relax, going back to drinking, eating, or resting. Others don’t seem quite so reassured, and continue gazing around themselves nervously. Honestly, I don’t care too much. I need to heal everyone who was injured the rest of the way, then bring those carcasses back here for my meat-eaters to enjoy. Sooner rather than later.

Actually…maybe I don’t have to wait until everyone is healed.

“Hades, Persephone, can you take a group of helpers back to the battle ground and bring the three carcasses there back here, please?” I ask them. A moment after, I feel the nagging sense of a notification. With a hunch of what it might be linked to, I quickly pull it open.

You have designated your Bound ‘Hades’ and ‘Persephone’ as team leaders. Would you like them to co-lead a team, or each lead a team separately?

Co-lead a team / Individually lead separate teams.

A smile pulls at the corners of my mouth. Well, at least that’s easy to trigger. Hesitating for a moment, I decide on the second option: while I reckon they could co-lead a team fine, I remember that there was a limit on the number of beings that could be part of each team. I don’t know if the limit is the same if it’s co-led but at least this way I know I’m doubling up the potential numbers.

Would you like this team to be temporary (ending at the end of the assigned task) or permanent (requiring intentional dissolution).

Temporary / Permanent

That one’s easy; I pick ‘temporary’. Although I reckon that River, Bastet, Hades, and Persephone should each have a permanent team at some point, now is not the time to decide who should be part of those.

With my choice, the boxes disappear and a couple of numbers appear at the corner of my vision. I see ‘Had’ and ‘Per’ written with a fractional value of zero out of five below them. Within a few minutes, those numbers have changed to four out of five for each ‘team’. With a quick glance at me for my approval, the two kiina are off, their teams trailing behind them.

Unsurprisingly, most of the creatures are meat-eaters, but there are also two herbivores and one omnivore present. Or at least, I assume that based on what they’ve been eating so far. I’m not surprised Persephone chose them – they’re the biggest of my Bound apart from the triceratops and their strength will no-doubt be useful in the task.

With that delegated, I turn to healing my Bound.

Getting to Lathani last, I’m surprised that she’s not woken up yet. I send a scan through her body, hoping with a sinking heart that I didn’t miss something vital. Sitting back after inspecting her body closely, I find myself puzzled at her ongoing unconsciousness. As far as I can tell with my magic, she’s fully healed – yet she’s still asleep.

“Any thoughts?” I ask Bastet who’s come to investigate. She nudges Lathani and sniffs at her for a bit.

She will wake when she’s ready, pronounced the raptorcat.

“But what if there’s something wrong?”

There is nothing wrong. She is working on her Energy channels.

“Now?!” I exclaim. Is this really the time and place for that?

When struck by inspiration, it is necessary to follow it or risk being unable to recall it later.

“But as far as she knew, we were in the middle of a fight! She could have died!” Bastet sends me her version of a shrug.

She must have trusted you to keep her safe.

While a part of me is undeniably flattered by that, the rest of me can’t believe just how irresponsible Lathani’s being – and I really don’t understand why Bastet is being so blithe about it. Not when we both know the stakes if Lathani is killed before we get back to Kalanthia. I know that I’ve been guilty of spacing out and becoming distracted at the wrong time, but at least I knew to wait until I was somewhere safe to do something like working on my Energy channels!

Not to mention going off hunting with Trouble on her own! Or whatever she was doing. I thought that she’d matured past that sort of loose cannon behaviour. Or was it only the effects of the Bond?

I huff, trying to get rid of my frustration and, yes, worry before it causes me to lash out at someone undeserving.

“Can you keep an eye on her, then?” I ask Bastet. “Let me know when she wakes up.”

Of course, she agrees, settling down next to the nunda juvenile. I glance around, seeing Trouble sitting sulkily next to River.

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“He’s in time-out?” I ask Bastet, my eyebrows raised.

He is to spend some time thinking about exactly what he did, and how he should have better approached it, Bastet answers. To me, that sounds pretty much like a time-out. Well, probably good for him to do that! Perhaps we should require the same of Lathani when she wakes up.

“Did he tell you why he was out there with Lathani?” Bastet sends me a feeling of uncertainty.

He was unclear. They were hunting; that’s all he would tell me. Which is as much as I’d gathered from him before.

“I see,” I murmur, glancing between the two of them. If they’re going to team up on a regular basis, I’m going to be completely grey long before my time. Or they’re going to be dead. Hopefully after all this, Kalanthia’s going to be more on the ball with Lathani. Frankly, I’m still surprised that she didn’t bother coming after us. Where is all the maternal anger and protectiveness that she’s exhibited on many other occasions?

Well, we have to deal with the hand we’ve been given. And right now, I have something else I need to do: getting to know my new Bound.

*****

By the time Bastet lets me know that the nunda juvenile is showing signs of waking, I’ve managed to finally make some good progress with each of my Bound. While I haven’t managed to name them all yet, I now know exactly how many have each type of Bond, sorting them into three general categories.

Out of my twenty new Tamed Bound, I’ve already ‘lost’ one – Catches-leaves who had had a temporary Bond which is now a Companion Bond. Then there are six others who have a similar kind of Bond – a very temporary one which is based purely on gratitude for my help. I get a sense of it being a repayment for a debt. These range between what I estimate is a month and three months.

Eight more have a longer duration Bond, but still temporary. I get the sense of these being a sort of trial period. In comparison to the first group who seem to have no intention of permanently changing their lives, this group gives off the sense of wanting to see whether being part of our team is better than going it alone or trying to find others of their kind.

The final five are all individuals more like Sirocco. They have committed in the long-term, but each have their own specific requirements. One requires time away to find a mate and protection during her time of brooding. Another requires me to find at least two females of his kind to join him within the next few months. A third already has a pack and will only continue with her Bond if I can prove to the others that they ought to join us too. The last two have simply required that I offer them sufficient food for themselves and any young they have, and an expressed preference of having more of their kind. These, in fact, are the two deer-like stio, one of which was the first creature I released.

I wonder how much use some of these creatures will be, and whether I might choose to end our Bonds prematurely when Bastet interrupts me. I quickly hurry over to the rousing nunda cub.

“Lathani,” I breathe in relief before putting on my professional face. “How are you feeling?”

Better, pack-leader, she says, none of her usual attitude in her voice. While part of me appreciates that, the rest of me would much rather she’d decided to be like that before running off and almost getting herself killed. Again!

“Then can you please explain to me why the hell you thought running off with Trouble of all companions was a good idea?!” I demand, having to work very hard to prevent my voice from rising above an acceptable level. I compromise by making it all the harder and sterner instead.

Lathani looks away, her body language as slumped as Trouble’s had been when I’d first confronted him.

I….I wanted to be useful.

“Useful?” I hiss. “Exactly how is going off and enraging a group of cyran useful?” She looks even more abashed.

We didn’t mean to! We thought there was only one of them. And that it would offer lots of meat for you. I heard you say that you needed to hunt. I thought that I could do it – I’d been doing so well with the others when I went out hunting with them. I thought I could do it on my own. Then little-sibling spotted me going into the bushes and followed me. I tried to send him back, but he told me he’d tell Elder if I didn’t let him come so….

“So you did,” I concluded, sighing heavily. With that exhale, a whole load of my frustration and anger are released, leaving me simply tired. The excuse of so many children and teenagers: I didn’t mean to.

My thoughts can’t help but go back to that immensely painful time when my own choices led to the death of my mother. And while, looking back on it years later, I know that it wasn’t my fault the driver who hit us was drunk, it was my fault we were out on the road at all. My lies and my cowardice which landed us in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like Lathani, I didn’t mean to.

“You need to stop doing this, Lathani,” I tell her earnestly, a note in my voice that’s almost begging. “Do you realise just how close you came to death this time? And that’s less than a day after you almost died against the danaris, a fight which you shouldn’t have been in at all.”

I know I bear some responsibility for that: it was my decision to Bond and then permit her into the fight with the danaris. But at the same time, I was forced into making a decision by the fact that she followed us in the first place, and the knowledge that if I didn’t Bond her, she would have probably tried to join us at the wrong moment. However, there were other options than the one I chose, so I accept some responsibility for that.

This particular situation though…no, I don’t accept any of the blame here. Yes, I said that we needed to hunt, but I’m not Henry II whose followers interpreted his own frustration as a desire to kill the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time. Lathani might be my responsibility in as much as she’s a youngster under my care, but she’s not one of my Bound. Not since her Tame Bond snapped with the dawn.

I know, Lathani says, drawing me out of my furious thoughts. I have to mentally dial back, to work out what she’s responding to.

“Do you, though?” I ask, my anger resurging. “Your lung was punctured, Lathani. Your heart was bruised. Your spine was damaged enough that you would have been paralysed if I hadn’t been there! Even without any more intervention from the cyrans, you’d have died within a few minutes. With them present, you would probably have been crushed after they’d dealt with Trouble.” My hands are waving in the air with my passion, the fear bubbling within me and turning to rage.

I know, Lathani says again, this time with a depth of understanding that makes me pause. When we were in that odd space, I felt my life dripping away from me. I felt my soul for the first time. And then after, I felt life fill me again as you poured your own strength into me. For the first time, I understood.

Her fervour makes me pause.

“Understood what?” I ask, a little uncertainly. She hesitates.

I cannot explain it. But in that moment, I understood something important, something that changed my path in life.

“And that’s why you decided that the middle of a battle was the right time to start working on your Energy channels?” I ask, another head of steam ready to build up over that particular choice.

I knew you would keep me safe, she answers, so earnestly and so confidently that it quite takes the wind out of my sails. And if I did not do it then, I sensed that a future would be forever closed to me. A future I knew that I wanted. That I needed.

I don’t understand exactly what she’s on about, but Bastet was firm about the point that sometimes inspiration has to be acted on, regardless of the precarity of the situation around, and Lathani seems to be saying the same.

“Alright,” I say finally, my anger all bubbled away. “Just…you can’t keep doing this, OK? Making choices that impact the others around you as much as, if not more than you yourself.” Yes, I know – practise what you preach and all that, but I’m working on it.

I understand. And I’m sorry, pack-leader. I eye her for a moment. An apology certainly isn’t amiss, but there’s something wrong, something I’m picking up in her body-language or emotional projection.

“Lathani, why does that sound more like you're apologising for something that hasn’t happened yet rather than for something that has?”

Because it is, she says, sounding almost regretful over it.

“Lathani?” I ask, half a question, half a warning.

Pack leader, you have protected and guided me, opening doors to my future that would have stayed closed if not for your actions. We are stronger together than apart. You have risked your own life to protect mine and so I give it to you. We are Bound, now and until death.

“Lathani!” I exclaim, even as part of me can’t help wondering why this sounds like a marriage vow. “What are you-” And then I cut myself off as I feel it snap into place.

My eyes wide in horror, I can’t help a sudden realisation from going through me.

Thanks to what Lathani has just done, I am now completely and utterly screwed.