Page 624 of The Bonding Games: Part 1

“Yeah?” Cooper grunts, getting back into position.

“Yes,” she confirms tonelessly, arms folded over her chest.

“Fuck yes, Havoc, baby.” Tate moves over, and the rest of us follow his lead, surrounding Ezla in a loose circle.

Watching their faces through their clear taalk visors, I take in their subtle hints, adrenaline buzzing through me, charging up my limbs. My hands clench around the unmanifested armoury sticks we commonly use to safely mimic real battle.

A barely perceptible head tilt from Scotty.

We strike.

Springing forwards, I aim in a practiced arc for Ezla’s helmet to force her to duck, and she does. But of course she doesn’t fall into the trap as Cooper aims low while the other three all aim for different parts of her body: She springs up and is almost horizontal in a second, avoiding the blow from Cooper’s baton while she twists in the air, using her legs to smack both armoury sticks from Tiger’s hands before he has time to even think about snatching them away; then she latches an arm around Scotty’s neck so that when she comes back down to the ground, he goes crashing down with her, landing with a merciless thump and a grunt on his back. Not a heartbeat later, she spins just in time to meet Tate’s blow, their batons whacking together forcefully as their battle rapidly escalates, giving everyone else time to hastily recover and, with relentless determination, charge again.

And it goes on and on and on.

I’m aching and sweating despite the fresh air in my helmet working to cool me down and my Avri suit rushing to absorb the moisture from my skin, but I don’t give up. And I can see Ezla is actually having to put a fair amount of effort in here, only encouraging my own to increase.

“Come on!” she taunts, warped puffs of air sounding from within her helmet, proving my suspicion that this is actually a decent challenge for her. “Show me you are worthy of me.” Boot slamming into Tiger’s knee to send him to the hard floor, earning a pained yelp from him, she continues, “Or would other men be better suited?”

There’s no hesitation.

We all lose it.

Tate lets out a roar of ruinous fury and jealousy at just the thought, and my own war cry isn’t far off as I lunge along with my brothers. “YOU’RE MINE!” he seethes, his armoury stick managing to graze her arm before she dodges and zips around for a quarter of a second to meet blows from both Tiger and Scotty, pushing them back to subsequently be able to do the same with me and Cooper on either side of her in the next millisecond.

“Ours,” Cooper corrects through laboured breaths as he swiftly dodges Ezla’s baton. “Ours, and don’t ever fucking mention another man again, Vengeance. Especially not like that.”

While she’s distracted with him for that marginal blip in time, Tiger, Scotty, and Tate already striking out—even though we all know she’ll deflect their blows before they can ever land with her impossible speed and movements—I drop low in my favourite skill Ezla taught me.

And she’s only zero-point-something seconds too slow to completely avoid my foot as it whips out in an arc, too focused on avoiding my brothers’ unrelenting attacks.

She stumbles.

The wolves pounce on the tiger.

And they win.

Samming to the ground, Tate uses his huge body to shield her fall while simultaneously locking his thick arms around her neck beneath her helmet, only hard enough to keep her head in place while his legs curl around hers, keeping them secure too. Tiger has landed on top and has her wrists imprisoned in an unyielding grip as he straddles her, and I zip over to snatch up one of her armoury sticks while Cooper grabs the other.

For a moment afterwards, no one moves. All that can be heard is heavy, panting breaths as our chests rise and fall heavily.

Then Ezla shifts in silent demand, and Tiger warily frees one wrist as if worried she’s aiming to trick us and is about to spring into attack-mode again.

But she doesn’t.

Instead, she moves her gloved hand under her chin, unlocking her visor before flipping it up.

Revealing a stunning face split by the most beautiful wide grin I have ever seen in my life.

Everyone sucks in sharp breaths.

That’s . . . genuine, full joy. Elation.

“Well done. I am proud.”

And that is not an unfeeling tone.

Not at all.