Page 664 of The Bonding Games: Part 1

My chest clenches and burns worse than hellfire, agony ripping me apart at the seams. At the same time, wrath like no other surges up within me—wherever within me is, because I currently can’t feel my body, and I don’t have one in this place, I note with some confusion. Before my groggy mind finally pieces together what’s happening:

This is a dream. A nightmare.

I’m inside my Bonded’s head. Her memories, I think.

Fuck, this is such an invasion of privacy. Yet I can’t look away from the horror show playing out right in front of me:

“I hate you! I hate you! I will kill you! I will do it—”

Ezla’s own agonised scream cuts her off as her fucking father, the man who’s supposed to love her, cherish her, nourish her, grabs his dinner knife and lunges onto her, slashing the blade savagely across her face.

Ezla’s sobs completely obliterate my heart. And there’s so much red . . . so much blood all around me . . . so much fury that it visibly taints the nightmare surrounding me a crimson hue as my emotions seep into the images.

Ezla’s violently shaking hands grasp at her face, and her eye when they move away, dripping blood . . .

It’s split in half.

I feel bile rise in the throat I become more and more aware of along with the rest of my body as consciousness begins to drag me away then. But it’s not quick enough to shield me from what happens next:

Tearing her nightie up her body while Ezla screams and cries and slams her palms to the taalk beneath her to try and get away, dragging them across the floor uselessly, the Game Master uses his larger limbs to keep his daughter pinned down. He tugs open his trousers, freeing his disgusting fucking dick at the same time he yanks her skimpy underwear to the side. Then he slams into h—

Voice hoarse, I cry out as I shoot upright in bed, the devastating sound of my Bonded’s unbearable pain ringing in my ears.

Through the haze lingering over me as I struggle to get any air in, chest rising and falling in time with my frantically pounding heart, I can vaguely make out other heaving breaths around me and a small sob that’s either Alby’s or Tiger’s.

No, no, no, no, no . . .

Fuck!

My hand trembles madly as I shove it through my messed-up hair, damp with sweat from the fucking temperature of my body from seeing—

“Fuck! Fuck— Love—!” My head whips to the right as I finally catch up with reality. Only to see all the other men in my Bonded group in a complete panic as they hover over a writhing Ezla while she sobs and pleads, still stuck in her head, fists strangling the silken black bedsheets, her figure illuminated by the Avri lights someone’s turned back up.

“What’s happening?!”Alby sobs, his hand a vice around hers, and if there were ever any doubts, there’s none now about whether Ezla accidentally dragged them into her head while she slept as well. Never have I seen a single one of them so unhinged, so out of their minds, so utterly hysterical.

“Scotty, help!” Tiger’s voice cracks, and his usual spark is nowhere to be found under the force of the sheer terror drenching him. “Help her!”

Tate has completely lost it beside him, muttering nonsensically under his breath and yanking at his hair, his crazed eyes concerningly manic as they bore into Ezla, but I can’t focus on that right now as I scramble over to our convulsing Bonded.

Scooping her up in my arms, I settle her thrashing body between my legs, my back to the headboard and hers pressing to my chest. Her sweaty skin slides against mine, her body just as heated as mine too, worse even. “Shh, shh, shh . . .” Dipping my head, I press my sticky cheek to hers, gasping for breath in time with her. “It’s okay, baby . . . It’s okay, Ezla, Love. Wake up,” I rasp, and I don’t fucking know what to do when she doesn’t. I’m supposed to always fucking know what to do!

“Wake her up, Scotty,” Cooper grits out, trembling fists crushed into tights balls at his sides as he kneels directly across from us. He’s struggling to keep his cool, eyes darker than I’ve ever seen anyone’s. “Wake her up now.”

I’m trying! I want to shout at him. But I have to be the one to keep my head here, like always. So I bite back my bellows of frustration, stress, panic, terror, anger . . . I shove it all into a tidy little box to deal with on my own later.

“Come on, Love. Come back to us—come back to your men. We have you now. Not him. You don’t ever have to go back to him.” I rock Ezla gently as my eyes squeeze shut, and I throw my head around a bit, trying to dislodge those horrific images from my mind. Yet at the same time, I don’t want to forget—not when it means sharing the burden with the woman I love. It’s what I’ve been desperate to do, in fact. And I’d suspected, we all had, I know, but we couldn’t be sure. And seeing it . . . I’d hoped it wasn’t true, that it was simply the worst-case scenario my mind could conjure.

And it was.

But it’s also the reality.

“Ezla . . .” I say soothingly, running a hand over her tangled hair, but both my voice and actions are unsteady. “It’s just a nightmare.” It’s just a nightmare, I repeat in my mind, attempting to push the words to her through the bond, wondering if maybe that’s the way to reach her since she’s stuck in her head. It’s just a nightmare, Love. You’re in our Bonded chambers—with your Bonds: Tate, Tiger, Alby, Cooper, me—Scotty.

My heart leaps as she jolts awake without warning.

And she doesn’t do it quietly.

“GET OUT! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!” She’s not her cool, composed self at all as she rages about in my arms, no technique whatsoever. When she’s in a state like this, I’ve noticed she seems to forget she’s perfectly capable of defending herself against anything.