Page 50 of The Bonding Games: Part 2

Gasping, my eyes snap back open.

And collide with two inky-crimson ones.

19

COOPER

What.

The.

Fuck.

There’s a rampage inside of me, a torrential rain of emotions slamming into me over and over again, trying to make sense of themselves and push to the forefront. Relief is in the lead, but a close second is the overwhelming apprehension, followed by a heavy dose of horror and confusion.

“Love . . .” Scotty voice is unsteady, almost breaking. And he’s wary, I can tell, as he takes in the set of blackish-crimson irises revealed to us with our Bonded’s eyes back open. But not wary enough as he reaches out—

He’s launched off the bed with a bellow.

“What—” Spine snapping straight along with all the other men’s, Alby’s head whips all around him, eyelids stretching impossibly wide in a flash. He can’t seem to decide whether he’s meant to be checking on Scotty or Ezla, brain likely too scrambled, just as mine is, to even form a coherent thought.

And none of us have time to before Ezla’s elbow cracks into Tate’s face.

“Fuck!” Blood spurts, and he clutches his nose as he yanks himself away from her. He’s off the bed in an instant, looking only stunned for once rather than giving the impression he’s feeling any sort of arousal here. Because even he knows something is very, very wrong.

Tiger scrambles backwards, the lack of understanding clear in his huge blue eyes along with pain and alarm. “E-Ez—Ezzy?! What—what are you doing?!”

Scotty has straightened, and he drags Alby backwards as Ezla rises slowly, her stare scanning over the five of us as I come to complete the line my brothers have made at the foot of the bed, the towels that were in our hands long forgotten. It’s eerie, and not in the way I’ve come to like, as those matching crimson eyes take us in, observing, cataloguing.

Her head tilts a fraction, and I swallow thickly.

Scotty holds his hands up, keeping his movements slow and non-threatening. “Ezla, Love . . . it’s us. It’s just us . . . your men.”

My heart drops right down to my feet as I finally process what’s happening.

Joseph’s done it. He’s . . . changed her.

My chest spasms with unbearable pain, a suffocating ball lodging itself in my throat.

“No . . .” Alby says hoarsely, and I can hear his own heart breaking in the single syllable as he, too, catches on.

“Havoc.” Tate’s mutter is gruff, hand stained red to match the fluid dripping from his nostrils. Intense eyes on her as always, he shifts a fraction of an inch forwards.

But he stops dead at Scotty’s warning look, following his silent order without question in a miracle instance, because we all know how delicate this situation is.

Rising onto her knees in the centre of our Bonded bed, Ezla’s head moves deliberately, attention taking its time picking apart each detail of the room, as if she’s never been in here before. It stutters on the pile of gold we’ve kept by the wall since the Halfway Ball, waiting for her to come and collect it, almost like we could lure her back to this room with the jewellery. Then moves on.

But I know no one missed that.

Scotty catches my gaze, and, ever so discreetly, he nudges his chin to the right while our Bonded’s attention is diverted. Dipping my head just marginally in response, I begin to edge in that direction, and from my peripheral as I keep my eyes lasered in on Vengeance, I note a large form doing the same, inching around to the left side of the bed, while Tiger and Alby stay in place either side of Scotty at the end of it.

“Love . . .”

Heart slamming against my ribcage, I watch as that void stare moves back to Scotty.

He holds out his hand, arm extended towards her, and my posture tenses further. “Love, come here. I won’t hurt you.”

I’m trying hard to trust him here, to follow his lead, but my trepidation only grows as our Bonded’s features remain expressionless. She seems like a true predator here. Not human, but a creature whose only aim, whose only thought, is to destroy her prey. That unnatural gaze seems to see right through Scotty, all the way into his soul. And her lack of emotion isn’t uncommon when she has a mask on so often, but it’s never been like this. Like, even though we can feel her again, she’s not really here at all.