Bonded

By Anna Augustine

I grasp the cold metal handle and swing open the door of Interrogation room B. With its cinder block walls, steel table, and single chair that sits facing the door, it sends a chill down my spine. My bond pet nestles closer to my neck, hiding from the man tied to the chair.

Jedidiah Conlee. He’s six feet of dark and handsome, the smell of his aftershave and the cut of his fine clothes belying his status of underworld criminal. I grind my teeth, thinking of the bond pets he’s stolen.

“Where are they, Conlee?” I cross my arms and glare.

Conlee curls his lip. “As if I’d tell you, with the way you treat my people.”

I fight the urge to beat the information out of him. I’m the only woman at the Department of Bonded Pets, and I don’t need brute force to get Conlee to tell me what I want. I have other talents.

“You are who you are by choice, Conlee.”

“I didn’t choose who my parents were, Copper.”

“Just as I didn’t.” I lean my palms against the table, relishing the cool metal against my sweaty palms. “The DBP has been more than fair to your kind.”

“My kind?” Conlee’s calm façade disintegrates like old paper. “My kind are who we are ’cause your kind deemed us unworthy.”

His kind were those without the birth, ranking, or genetics to be able to bond to a pet, and they were bitter. Bitter enough that they stole a shipment of the animals.

“Where are they?” I ask again.

He won’t tell you. The soft, chirpy voice warms my consciousness. I stroke my finger over my ferret’s tiny head. Her lanky body shifts against my neck as her whiskers tickle my chin.

He will eventually. He must know it’s hopeless to resist the DBP.

He’ll tell you something, but it will be a lie. It always is. They don’t have our gift.

Conlee’s jaw tenses, his cold gray eyes boring into me once more. He tips his head toward my neck. “Your bond pet?”

My ferret shifts, unwinding herself as she crawls down the length of my arm to perch between Conlee and myself. Her beady eyes watch the man, her pink nose twitching.

“Conlee, meet Talusa.” I gesture, missing the warmth around my neck as the cold closes in. “She’ll tell me everything you know.”

“How’s a bloomin’ ferret gonna tell you anythin’?”

I trail my fingers under Talusa’s chin, smirking at my prisoner.

Walking behind his chair, I scoot it closer to the table and Talusa. “The way we extract information is not pleasant, Mr. Conlee. I recommend that you tell me what I want to know before things get… messy.”

Conlee shifts. “What’s your bond?”

I straighten, gliding back around the table as I flick the collar of my coat up. “Telepathy.”

“Of course.” His accent thickens and he rolls his eyes. “What I mean is, what is your special bonding?”

I smile coldly. “Oh, Mr. Conlee, we’re the lie detector.”

Now!

Talusa leaps onto Conlee’s shoulder, sinking her tiny teeth into his neck. He yelps, his eyes widening as my pet licks a dab of his blood from the puncture, her nose wiggling in delight before she springs back to the table. Sitting up on her hind legs, she waits for the truth.

Talusa cocks her head to the right. He knows nothing about the stolen pets.

What do you mean? He has to! He’s our only lead!

Talusa rubs her nose with her paws then shakes her head. No, he doesn’t know anything.

I glare at the man.

Conlee laughs mirthlessly. “Did your little ferret friend discover the truth, Copper?”

“There are people waiting for those animals. They both need their bond partners, and soon.”

“Oh, they’ll be bonded. Just not to the pretentious people who paid for ’em.”

I get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. “What do you mean?”

“Those pets are being bonded as we speak.”

“Tell me you’re joking.”

His smug expression tells me he isn’t.

“You fool!”

“What?” His brow raises.

“Did you learn nothing in school? Pets are specifically bred for a certain owner. Bonding them to the wrong one? You may have unleashed an animal Armageddon.” I pause, eyeing him. “And you’re going to help us stop it.”

“If you think for one bloomin’ moment that I’m joining your little pet squad, then you’re crazier than your reputation led me to believe.”

“Not the DBP. You’ll join me.” I grin at Talusa, whose toothy smile tells me she likes what I’m thinking.

“Why?” He juts his chin out stubbornly. “Why should it matter to me?”

I stalk around the table, twisting a fistful of his shirt in my hand as I lower my face to his.

“Incorrectly bonded pets and owners?” I nearly whisper. “They drive each other insane. Rampages, murders, unbridled magic. Do you understand what your people have done, Conlee? You’ve ruined the tenuous balance we’ve tried to maintain for decades.”

“By refusing a whole group of people the bonding?” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that for a moment. Do you?”

“It doesn’t matter—”

“Do you believe it?”

I hesitate. I cannot imagine life without Talusa. As a child, I dreamed of my pet—what it would be like to work with her and be connected. If I had been denied Talusa based on my parentage, I wouldn’t be where I am. Yet that doesn’t change reality.

Talusa snickers in my mind at my train of thought. What are you going to do about the pets, Cally?

I groan as I untie Conlee from the chair.

“This mean you believe me, Copper?” he asks, rubbing his wrists.

“That’s Detective Cally Copper to you,” I all but growl.

“Fine, Detective Cally Copper.” He’s entirely too cocky for a man bound for prison. “Where are we going?”

“To stop a war.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anna Augustine lives with her family of eight in a small, midwestern town with two dogs and a whole lot of crazy. Anna is the author of romantic fantasy When You Found Me and is currently working on a pirate fantasy. When she’s not writing, Anna is either working as a teacher’s aide in her local elementary school, taking photos for her bookstagram, or trying to put a dent in her never ending to be read pile.

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