Page 280 of The Bonding Games: Part 1

Tiger shoots me a wide-eyed look as we approach with me following our Bonded like a lost puppy, and I smile shyly back.

“What’s this about?” Scotty asks a little warily as he stops walking and folds sturdy arms across his chest.

Ezla stops as well. “You fight like shit.”

A beat.

Scotty’s lips have parted slightly like he can’t believe what he just heard. “Excuse me?” he finally says, not hiding his offence. “We’ve been training hard—”

“Not hard enough.”

“I’m hard enough.”

I choke at Tate’s dirty comment as his salacious gaze roves over Ezla.

Scotty completely ignores him, as does everyone else. “Well, we haven’t exactly had a full Bonded group to train with like everybody else.”

“And?” Ezla drawls, and I can imagine an imperious eyebrow raising beneath that black visor.

Actually, scratch that; no I can’t. I have no idea what she looks like—not the shade of her skin, not the colour of her hair, the width of her nose, nor the colour of her eyes. But I’m sure they’re as beautiful as everything I’ve seen of her so far, even though that’s only her fighting and—

“Do not blame me for your incompetence,” she continues, splitting through my train of thought. Then turns to me, not giving Scotty any more room to argue. “You need a lot of work.”

My throat bobs.

“And you are too skinny. Not underweight, but your body is not equipped to handle The Bonding Games.”

I’m not sure why, but it’s a billion times more humiliating hearing this from her. Yet I notice that, oddly enough, I don’t feel as small as I usually would despite my embarrassment. Maybe because the way she says it isn’t mean but clinical, a detached observation that holds no cruelty, no anything, actually.

It’s an odd combination of emotions now planted inside of me that I don’t know what to do with.

It’s Tate’s turn next. “You are a decent, worthy opponent.”

His entire being lights up like a Christmas tree, an almost innocent look of boyish excitement flashing through his eager eyes. “Yeah? Thank you, baby. I knew you’d appreciate me—”

“But you have attempted to copy my fighting style.”

His slow grin is unrepentant, tongue running along his top teeth. “And what about it? Every part of you is stunning—and I want any pieces I can get.”

She ignores ninety percent of that. “You cannot fight like someone so much smaller than you; you must use different techniques. Although many things you have copied from me have worked out, there is a reason your Score is 89 and not in the 90s.”

“Been stalking me, baby?”

As if he’s not the only stalkerish one here from what I’ve heard so far.

Ezla doesn’t dignify him with a response before letting her attention fall on Cooper, and Tate pouts. “You have an aversion to violence,” she states.

At her words, Cooper tenses. “What? No I don’t—”

“Do not lie to me.”

Her cold, even voice could turn the sweat dampening my brow from simply being in her presence to ice.

Cooper’s jaw clenches, but he doesn’t respond.

“We will have to fix that,” Ezla decides, then turns to the last member of our Bonded group.

He flashes a broad smile paired with an enthusiastic wave. “Hi, Ezla! Long time no see! We were thinking we wanted to woo you—”