Page 558 of The Bonding Games: Part 1

I’m also half comforted and half freaked out by the range of information in there.

“Alby?!” Tiger gasps, everyone too focused on the fact Ezla called me by my name for the first time in front of them to ask for whatever words she gave me—it was pretty obvious by the pause and my enlarged eyes that she’d spoken to me mind to mind. “Oh my! This is exciting!”

“Do me,” Tate insists, still crushing a wheezing Exot against the floor with his muscled body. “Wanna hear that hot-as-fuck voice say my name, Havoc.”

“Ugh! Get the fuck off!” the Exot beneath him spits in disgust, writhing around like a bug as he tries to dislodge my . . . friend. Yes, that’s what he is, and I still can’t believe I have those, the term shocking every time I think it. “I can feel your junk prodding into me even through the sinthine!”

Tate looks furious at once, digging a livid glare into the man. “Fucker! That’s my Havoc’s dick! You don’t deserve to be anywhere near it!” He leaps to his feet in a way I still don’t understand how he can with his size, then turns to his obsession.

Only after delivering a kick to the Exot’s side that’s so hard the sound of impact seems to bounce off the walls.

“Fucking psycho!” Player 84 wheezes, curling in on himself.

Ezla completely contradicts her earlier words to me when she sends an arrow soaring for him, where it buries itself in his thigh.

Now that the Game’s ended, the regeneration serum will have stopped working, so he’ll have to go to the infirmary for that. But somehow, Aider’s managed to get the one that hit him out of his neck in time for the wound to have healed; he must’ve yanked it out just seconds before the countdown finished.

It’s really anyone’s guess if a wound like that will heal during the Games because the Avri in the serum never seems to be able to decide if it can fix neck injuries. So it’s not as common to aim for it unless you want to slice the entire thing in half, since your target could stay alive. It’s why the neck isn’t classed as a fatal hit during The Bonding Games even though it could be one.

“Oh,” Tate purrs, eagerly approaching our Bonded. “Was that protectiveness? Give me more, my darling Havoc. I’ll sit you on my fat cock as a reward. I promise I’ll pleasure you all day, every day.”

My face flames. I’ll never get used to his lewd remarks.

“Come.” Ezla turns on her heel without acknowledging him and starts to lead us all to the exit, manoeuvring around the high and low walls and hidden alcoves that make up the maze-like structure we’re in. Tate watches her ass as she goes, following dutifully like the rest of our Bonded group, while Aider’s stays back to collect themselves.

I can’t help but follow Tate’s gaze. It’s just so . . . grabbable-looking . . .

Amazing description, Alby, I think to myself, mortified and glad it’s so dark that nobody should notice.

Well, unless I’m unknowingly throwing my thoughts and feelings Ezla’s way. In which case . . . Please, no one look at me ever again.

***

Our gazes drill into Ezla, completely fixated as she opens the door to our Bonded washroom. Tiger’s wide blue eyes catch mine over her head, his mouth hanging open before it forms silently around the words, Oh my god.

I nod back in some silent language we’re both completely understanding, telling him with my frenetically bobbing head, I know right, this is crazy!

“Get in.”

We all rush into motion at our Bonded’s order, scurrying after her and out of our stupors.

But we all stand there like idiots in the bright white room when the door closes behind us.

“Why are you not moving?” she snaps. “Go shower.”

Tate pouts dramatically. “Without you?”

The heat of her glare sears into him through her visor.

He licks his lips and runs a hand through his dark brown hair before shrugging and heading over to one of the showers, pulling back the curtain, then stepping in and drawing it closed behind him.

That was . . . unexpectedly uneventful.

Me and Tiger share a confused look, and even Scotty and Cooper display similar expressions, suspicious, the former squinting at the curtain as the sound of water hitting the floor blasts through the room.

“Huh,” Tiger starts. “So he’s like—”

“Fucking hell, just like that, Havoc, baby.”