Page 751 of The Bonding Games: Part 1

They all blink at me.

Other than Player 4, who licks his lips like he is planning to eat me, even though I have made it quite clear plenty of times that I am not on the menu.

“What if I drop into the room when my opponent has got there first and I’m impaled on an Avri sword they had held up just waiting for me to fall onto it?!” Player 35 has his usual hyper-and-wild look about him amplified a hundred times over, and his voice has almost risen to a screech that tries to slice up my poor eardrums by the end of his question.

“Then you are dead,” I point out dispassionately.

He gapes at me. “But—”

“So I’d advise you not to do that because it will reflect very poorly on me, and I will not be happy.”

“When are you ever?”

My head whips around to face Player 17. “What was that, Player?” I hiss, daring him to repeat himself.

The one who is convinced he loves me threateningly steps towards him and growls, “Watch your tone with my Bonded.”

“Our Bonded,” Player 35 corrects with a passionate, angry pout aimed at Player 17 too.

The grumpy one raises his hands beside his head, palms out. “Fucking hell, I’m sorry, okay?”

38 opens his mouth to add his own input, but then those heavenly words bless my ears:

“Let the Game begin!”

“Oh no! I can’t do it!”

“You got this, Bestie! Come on!”

“Wait—!”

“Fuck yes. Let’s go, Havoc.”

“Fuck’s sake.”

Rolling my eyes, I reach over my shoulders as I begin to stride towards the gargantuan rectangular structure standing in the middle of The Dome’s arena floor, knowing they will follow like good soldiers when they see their queen on the move. I must say, I am incredibly proud of how easily I made them bow before me. Not that they needed any convincing.

Other than Player 17.

He is risky in quite a few ways, that one. But I will tame him.

Forearms crossing over each other so that my left hand grips the armoury stick on my right shoulder blade whilst my right hand clenches around the one on my left, I then whip them out either side of me, arms coming down to my sides in wide arcs in my signature move as I manifest the Avri within the ebony batons into my preferred curved blades with ease, the blackish-crimson glow whispering the sweet promise of death as they glide through the air.

“Oh hells—I can feel my dick leaking for you, baby!”

Completely dismissing Player 4’s bellow that has attracted half the Evots and Exots’ attention who are running along in the same direction as me—as well as the disgraceful tingling heat that snakes low within my stomach—I leap into the air, Avri platforms forming beneath each of my boots. Using them to push off of, I leap higher and higher, until I launch myself from the last one and onto the flat top of the huge structure of clear taalk containing many rooms beneath, each of whose walls form different shapes: squares, hexagons, triangles, pentagons . . .

The roof of the contraption opens up beneath my feet when I reach one of the triangular ones, vanishing as if it were never there, and I drop straight through, gracefully spinning in the air until I land in a roll. Springing back up to my feet, my body whirls around in a flash to face the horde of Players just as they start to pass above my room, and my keen eyes watch the green and red Avri pads on their undersoles pressing against the commanded energy used up there: It is instructed to look and act like taalk to match the rest of the structure for every single moment other than when one of the two Players allocated to the specific space below steps onto it, then the Avri will allow them to fall through, locking the Players inside when they have both arrived until one of them is dead. And if neither ends up killing the other after the countdown—which is only fifteen minutes for this Game—reaches all zeroes, a toxic gas will fill the room and end them both.

It is so clever. I love it.

The triangle is typically the worst shape any Player can get unless they know how to use it to their advantage considering it is easiest to corner an opponent, and therefore be cornered yourself, when there are three narrow points able to aid in boxing you in. However, this poses no issue for me, of course. I am simply impatient for whatever unskilled idiot has been paired with me to get the fuck down here so I can have my fun.

I have many unwanted emotions accumulated within me that it is crucial I expel before they can sink their roots into me properly.

All because of them.

It is only more proof that all men do is seek to destroy you.