Page 83 of The Bonding Games: Part 2

“Do not be afraid. I will guide you through it all. I may also use the opportunity to punish you together as you thought to . . .” Her jaw stiffens. “As you were hit together in Game 4. I need . . .” Brows scrunching, she looks down at her lap, and her voice lowers. She hasn’t closed the bond, so I sense the faint wisps of embarrassment as she admits, “I will need you in quite a few ways. I do not like to think of Air Battles. The entire Game was . . .” Unable to put it into words, which is understandable as I myself struggle to cope with the barrage of distressing emotions that slam into me without mercy at the memories, she simply repeats as she raises her chin, composing herself, “I do not like to think of it. So I would like to feel your lives, and I would like to know I still have control over those lives. You will keep breathing for me. I will make sure of it.”

My heart skips a beat even though her words aren’t directed at me. Alby unsurprisingly looks teary, and Tiger visibly swoons, their love and pain and adoration and desire all mixing into a potent concoction that flows freely into Ezla, and therefore all of us. “I love you too, Ezzy,” Tiger breathes.

Appearing moments from melting into the floor, Alby whispers, “I-I love you as well, Ezla. And—and I want to do everything with you.”

Ezla’s swallow is visible, though she keeps her head held high as if to hide the effect all this is having on her. But again, she doesn’t close off the bond, and I feel so much . . . warmth, confusion . . . happiness.

By this point, my heart’s pounding, and I murmur roughly, “I love you, Vengeance.”

“I’ve always loved you, Havoc,” Tate rumbles next.

Scotty smiles softly. “I love you with all that I am, Ezla.”

She’s sitting even straighter than before as she roams her mismatched gaze over each of us slowly, taking her time on us individually with that overwhelming attention of hers. Her mouth opens slightly. Closes. Hands now clasped in her lap, her lips part once more, and the blood starts to rush by my ears, my palms growing clammy. “I . . . I . . .”

Hope radiates from all of my brothers, but it diminishes the longer those words we’re yearning for, dying to hear, don’t come.

“I . . .” Ezla’s head shakes before she orders, “Finish eating. Then we will return to the Training Centre.”

Eyelids taking her from view, my head drops. The mood’s plummeted in the room, and a suffocating silence descends.

It’s so much to expect from her after all she’s been through—I know that . . . But I crave those words more than anything. And again, the bond’s still open, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a hell of a lot she’d kept supressed just then.

So how the fuck do we get her to let the last hidden pieces of her out?

***

“Cooper.”

On the way to my bedroom, I pause in the middle of the hallway.

We finished dinner about an hour ago, so no one’s gone to bed yet, but me, Tiger, Alby, and Scotty were planning to stay out of our Bonded bedroom for the next few hours to give Ezla and Tate some time alone like she promised him.

So I don’t understand why Vengeance has come back into the doorway after having just gone in there with him, wearing nothing but her little black underwear.

My mouth goes dry.

“Yes?” My voice comes our far rougher than intended.

“Come.” She turns around without waiting for my response.

I huff. I’m still hurt—and yes, slightly pissy—from earlier, but my body doesn’t care about that, already swollen and hard for my Bonded from just one glimpse. And my mind clearly doesn’t have a good enough reason not to follow after her like a trained dog, because I’m walking into that bedroom without a smidge of hesitation in under a second.

“Close the door behind you.”

The low, silky caress from Ezla’s lips moves my limbs, and the taalk slides closed behind me with a gentle swoosh before I even know what I’m doing. Swallowing thickly, I turn to face the rest of the room.

Tate glares at me from his position on the bed where he sits crossed-legged like a sullen teenager.

I can’t keep my snort in. “What’s this, Vengeance?” I shift my gaze away as Tate growls, coming to rest it on her.

“Tate is receiving his first punishment,” she tells me leisurely, twirling a lock of her unbound chestnut-brown hair around her finger.

My brow raises. “And what does that have to do with me?”

“You are going to help me.”

I scoff. “Sorry, Vengeance, but I think we’ve just found one of the very few things I won’t do for y—”