Page 117 of The Bonding Games: Part 2

Shaking breaths are exhaled into the air, relief making me light-headed.

“Fuck, Havoc.” Tate is the first to break the silence this time with a near-deranged groan, eyes literally rolling back in his head as if he’s just been injected with an intoxicating substance. Ezla’s skin is smooth once more, but there’s still blood left behind, smudging as his hands rub over legs. “Yes. I’ve been fucking waiting for this day.” His words drop to a deep growl as his manic-like stare finds hers again. “I knew you’d love me. I’m gonna fuck my own love deep into you, and you’re gonna take it all while coating my cock in yours in return.”

Frozen, colour has returned to Alby’s cheeks as he gapes at him. He seems to glitch before coming back online and whipping his own gaze Ezla’s way. “E-Ezla, I-I . . . I love you so, so much. I—” He has to wipe at his eyes as more tears streak down his cheeks, but they’re less sorrowful now, holding a happiness in them that can’t be truly expressed another way. “I-I’m so ha-ppy th-that I met you.”

“Me too!” The full force of Tiger’s sunshine returns in the next second as Ezla opens her arms for him. He barrels into her, and Cooper grunts at his added weight as he half sits on top of the two of them. I shift back to give them room. “I love you like—like . . .” Frowning, he pauses, thinking hard, before he all but shrieks, “There’s no comparison! That’s how much I love you!” His teeth flash as they catch the white light above the shattered mirror, the only Avri that’s not red in Ezla’s room, intended for better visibility as it always is when not representing Neutrals. “And I knew you’d love us back!” he cheers as he crushes her to him. “We have to celebrate.”

“Oh, we’ll celebrate,” Tate rumbles, then proceeds to hump the air.

I scrub a hand over my face, but I’m already hardening, blood rushing down south at the thought. Still . . . “I need to clean up this mess,” I say quietly, flicking my eyes around the room, the glass and bits and bobs all over the place. My gaze settles back on Ezla. “And you.” Then it moves to Cooper. “And you should also take a tablet for your nose.”

“Ah. I apologise for that.” Ezla doesn’t sound sorry at all. “But that is . . . Please do not do that.” She hesitates before revealing stiffly, “The way you forced my mouth open . . . My father— Joseph has forced me to take tablets like that.”

Cooper’s face falls, guilt so strong it bleeds into my own emotions crashing through him to Ezla. “I’m so sorry. Fuck, I’m so sorry—”

“Do not let me go,” she snaps savagely, and he stills where he’d been pulling his arms from around her. “That would be wildly hypocritical after the speeches you have just given me.”

Scrubbing a hand over his face, he obeys silently, but that crippling remorse doesn’t waver.

“You are not like him,” Ezla says firmly, and Tiger moves away slightly to give her glare better access to Cooper. “You did not know. As with Scotty earlier, your intentions were not aligned with the result. Be calm. I will simply add to your list of punishments as I have done with him.”

My heart skips a beat. “Do you . . .” I swallow when her attention finds me. “Do you forgive me, Love? I’m so goddamn sorry . . .”

“I am not forgiving.”

Fists clenching at my sides, I murmur, “I know.”

She doesn’t make a sound for far too long. Finally, she tells me, “I am not sure I am capable of forgiving anyone for anything. That is simply not who I am. But that does not mean my feelings for you have changed, my sensible one.” The next beat of the organ in my chest echoes in my head. “It simply means you must atone, and I will take great joy in giving you what you deserve.” Her eyes sparkle with a familiar wickedness that sends a shudder through me.

“Cooper!”

He jolts at Ezla’s abrupt bark. “Yes, Vengeance?” he mutters, trying and failing to hide the absolute misery on his face.

“You are not like him. Stop thinking like that. We have already spoken about this. I will punish you, and that is that. As I said, you did not intend to hurt me. I am aware you simply wanted to heal me. Which reminds me . . .” Stroking a hand over Tiger’s head, my brother letting out something I can only describe as a purr in response, she instructs, “Tiger, please give Cooper one of those tablets. Scotty and Tate, too—they have been scraped by the glass.”

As Tiger gets to work right away, I glance down to see she’s right, finding a few minor nicks on my arms and legs from mine and Tate’s tussle. “They’re only small, Lo—”

The murderous glare Ezla levels on me shuts me up right away.

Cooper swallows his tablet dry before Tiger hands two to me, one of which I pass to Tate, who shoves his down his throat while still eyeing our Bonded like she’s the first and last meal he’ll ever get to eat. And yet there’s a haunted gleam in those hungry eyes that tells me his horror and pain hasn’t faded as fast as it would otherwise seem.

“We have plenty remaining before they run out. Besides, I am sure I can have more made if I can get back into the Avri labs—”

“You’re not going back into that building—”

“We have already decided we are going to search the penthouse again, Cooper, have we not?”

His lips purse. “Yes, but—”

“In any case,” she cuts him off once more, and he grits his teeth, “these are actually not too important. We do not need to have loads and loads when we get by just fine without them. I do not wish you to become reliant. The only reason I had them in the first place was . . .” Ezla trails off without needing to remind a single one of us. Before anyone can comment on that, she shrugs out of Cooper and Tiger’s hold, which is met by a huff from the former and a whine from the latter. She begins, “I will shower now—”

“I’ll help, Havoc, ba—”

“No, my beast. I will shower alone. And when I am done, I will find you all naked and waiting for me in our Bonded bedroom.”

My mouth goes dry. Yet I say, voice rougher than intended, “I need to clean up this glass first, Ezla. It’s dangerous.”

“I can do that.”