Page 271 of The Bonding Games: Part 1

I destroy everything.

Screaming my fury, I throw glasses, rip the silk sheets on my bed apart, slam my hairbrush into the wall with an echoing crack that does not calm me like it should.

Maybe it is because the only thing I truly want broken is their necks.

The audacity of those men to bond me.

Roaring even louder, I numb my own eardrums with the volume. But I do not. Fucking. Care.

It is not enough.

Never enough.

I whip out my armoury sticks, slashing at anything and everything in sight that is not indestructible taalk.

I WILL KILL THEM! I WILL OBLITERATE THEM! They have ruined everything! Everything!

So in return, I will ruin them.

18

SCOTTY

Ezla didn’t stay in our Bonded chambers last night. Didn’t even visit. I’m not surprised, but it just feels . . . off? Odd? Like we’re . . . missing something, as me, my brother, Alby, Tate, and Cooper sit around our dining room’s lustrous rectangular table in chairs so comfy I could sleep in them.

Or someone, as the sixth, excruciatingly empty chair that keeps blaring its absence of an owner every time my eyes can’t help but crawl over to it tells me.

Tate’s fork clatters unceremoniously onto his plate as his fist booms down on the table.

Alby yelps, hands racing to his chest on reflex as his plate wobbles from the force, and my own heart almost passes on to the afterlife at the sudden aggressive break in silence.

“Where is she?” Tate seethes, glare burning holes into me as if it’s specifically my fault that Ezla’s not here. “She’s supposed to be here. She was supposed to be in my bed last night, and she’s supposed to me on my fucking lap right now or with her gorgeous ass on that chair!” His voice almost risen to a shout by the end of his raving claim, he jabs a savage finger at the empty chair on the other side of Alby, who’s sat on my right, frozen in place.

I also did not need him putting the image of Ezla’s ass in my head. The shape of which her Avri suit does nothing to hide and that my eyes couldn’t help but flick down to when she’d stormed off after Game 1.

My blood heats.

Fuck’s sake.

Tate continues his tirade, drawing my mind away from those curves to focus back on his fuming expression. “Instead, I’m stuck playing happy families with dickheads who are trying to steal my girl!”

“Wait a minute—"

Tate doesn’t let Cooper finish, not even seeming to have heard his exasperated tone, his enraged stare still digging into me. “You were supposed to help me get her!”

I take a pronounced breath, trying to stay calm and keep my tone even. “And I did.”

“THEN WHERE IS SHE?!”

“I don’t know,” I grit out. “I can’t control where Ezla goes or what she does.”

His glare intensifies.

“How about we do a get-to-know-each-other game?” Tiger interjects, drawing those daggers his way instead.

“Tiger,” I sigh, but my brother doesn’t pause, already on a roll. And nothing can sway him when he’s on one of those.

“I’m Tiger Gold! I’m nineteen, I’m stronger than my brother—”