Page 614 of The Bonding Games: Part 1

No matter how much I wish it were not so, or how often I remind myself they wear the colour green with their black, and that it puts them beneath me.

But none of that is why I have frozen in place.

No. It is because my father . . . is not here.

It has been two hours, I know, since the time I was supposed to arrive. But my father is someone who would wait each minute out with patience, eager for my return and the punishments to come.

So where is he?

My blood runs colder that the Arctic Ocean.

Turning my head slowly, my eyes scour every millimetre of the room around me.

Nothing.

I still cannot find him. Not a trace.

The black organ in my chest cavity that seems to be kicking at my ribcage more and more often lately starts to rise and rise in speed uncomfortably. This is worse than if he were to have been here. Whatever he is up to, it must be more pernicious than diabolical.

Stalking out of the room, I climb the spiral staircase up to the second floor, every sense on high alert. When I reach the master bedroom and my fingerprint opens the door, the soft sound of the opaque taalk sliding away from the left wall and disappearing into the right shifting the air, I freeze again.

He is asleep.

On his front, he is out cold, his naked back rising and falling evenly, the silk sheets at his hips. The lights are dimmed, too, only the faintest crimson glow of the Avri strips around the room to aid my eyes. And it is so, so quiet. I can hear every breath from him, while my own is held motionless in my lungs.

Something is very, very wrong.

What is he playing at, and why can I not figure it out? Come on, Ezla—think.

But none of it makes sense.

While my mind weaves through every possible reason for my father’s strange behaviour, I cautiously back out of the doorway, the taalk automatically sliding closed as the sensors detect the waning of my presence, the image of my father sprawled out in bed disappearing from view.

For a moment, I stand here, unmoving, the most on edge I have been in years and hating not having any answers. But one thing is clear:

The Game Master is playing a different game now, and I need to learn the new rules before it is too late.

52

TATE

Licking my lips, I stay behind Havoc as she walks, adjusting the crotch of my Avri suit at the sight of that hot little ass moving. And then I remember that ass is mine, just like the rest of her, so I go to slap it—

Cooper catches my wrist.

I snarl at him, and he arches a brow. “You’re just gonna mess around with our Bonded’s ass in the middle of a shopping centre?”

“Yeah?” I scowl at him, not understanding the problem. “That’s my girl.” I point at my beautiful, ruthless Havoc, heart giving an insistent thump in time with my steel cock as I gaze intentionally at the back of her helmeted head. Then I move my finger lower. “That’s my ass.”

The dickhead rolls his eyes. “And what if she doesn’t agree?”

“It’s not about agreement—Ezla’s always been mine, and that includes every part of her.”

“That’s not—”

“Holy shit!” Tiger’s booming, excited voice cuts Cooper off, and I glance at him before following his saucer-sized stare to the large store before us.

It’s shockingly white, probably for better visibility if the excessive number of fabrics in trillions of different colours, with every single shade imaginable, that I can see through the glass shopfront is any indication—I certainly wouldn’t be able to tell the minor differences in the colours of purple up front if it weren’t for the bright white backdrop.