10
SCOTTY
In the bathroom connected to my bedroom in my Bonded chambers, I stare at my reflection. No expression on my banged-up face, I take in the discolouration with my good eye, slowly roving my gaze over the mess. I can hardly see out of my left one at all the swelling around it is so severe now.
Lifting my black pyjama T-shirt, I take in the matching black and blue staining my chest, my ribs, my abs.
Then I dig my fingers into the worst one by my hip.
Jaw clenching, I let the pain roll through me, a harsh breath leaving me.
Seeing Ezla today, actually seeing her—her true behaviour, some of what she’s really feeling, her goddamn stunning face—and being able to act naturally with her had helped with all the toxicity festering inside of me, if only for a moment.
And fuck, I wanted to hold her so bad. To comfort her and to comfort myself.
To soak her in, to just finally have the woman I love close to me in the way I’ve wanted from day one, in a way I think she might soon allow, if she wouldn’t already.
But I know I don’t deserve it. I need to prove myself before I can lay a finger on her again.
Right now, she deserves better than what I’ve given her, what I haven’t been able to.
She needs protection from Joseph and care, and I’m clearly not as equipped as I thought I was to give her either of those.
When they’re able to without hidden cameras about, her other four Bonds can give her what she needs; they can give her all of themselves where I can’t.
I’m not dumping my baggage on her and giving her half a man.
Air is pulled harshly between my teeth when I press too hard on my aching stomach.
Taking my hand away, I blow out a breath before bending down to open the cupboard under the sink. My eyes land on the Avritabs up front and pause there as I debate with myself.
I’ve also been given some pills to speed up my healing, but I admittedly haven’t been taking them. Both containers have remained untouched since the dose I took in the infirmary, even after I promised Tiger I’d take some.
I realise it’s incredibly foolish when I’m trying to do better for my Bonded and brothers, even more so when Game 4 is right around the corner.
But I need to feel it—the pain. I need to feel the agony my failure has caused in those closest to me.
I need it simply because I know I deserve it, and it’s only fair.
Shaking my head, I close the cupboard before leaving the bathroom. Scrubbing a palm over my face, I look up—
And freeze in place.
“I am very unhappy with you, my sensible one.”
My pulse jumps and kicks into overdrive for a handful of different reasons, and the panic in there has me darting a quick glance to the door as if I might find Joseph standing right there.
Thank fuck the taalk slab is securely in place now—I’d left it open so that I would be able to hear if any of my brothers needed me, and clearly, Ezla’s walked right through it and also added her fingerprint to the panel inside if the way she’s managed to close the door without mine is any indication.
And I’m not complaining at all as I take her in where she’s sat on the end of my bed, one long leg crossed over the other as she leans back on her palms, her head helmetless, allowing me to appreciate the full intensity of her mismatched eyes searing into me.
But I am fucking apprehensive as hell, and my own eyes flit all over her body, cataloguing every inch, making sure she’s completely intact, unharmed.
I start forwards with purposeful strides before I can stop myself.
I’ve been forbidding myself from touching her like every part of my being begs to, but I don’t give a shit about that if she’s hurt, if something’s happened.
And why else would she be here two nights before Air Battles after another excruciating day of me pretending she disgusts me if not for something that sick sperm donor of hers has done?
She wouldn’t risk it otherwise. She needs me, and I’m sure as hell going to step up.
“Love, what’s wrong? What do you need? Are you okay?” I fire out rapidly, working to keep my voice as calm and serene as possible in attempt to soothe her. My hands are reaching out to cup her face in them when she seizes my wrists in an unshakable grasp.
The pounding organ in my chest sinks to the bottom of my stomach.
But I understand. After all my failures, I understand if she doesn’t want me so close to her.
“Stop it,” she hisses, rising to her feet with hardly concealed ire written all over her. “This has nothing to do with my father and everything to do with you.” My brows dip low, and I open my mouth, but she carries on before I can get any words out. “You are not treating yourself well.”
“You . . . you’re here for me? For that?
” Warmth expands through my chest before it’s replaced by alarm.
“Ezla, Love.” She releases my wrists as my hands grip onto her upper arms. “That’s nothing.
I’m perfectly fine. And as much as I fucking adore you with all I am, as much as I want to spend time with you and am so goddamn happy to be with you right now, you have to go.
You said it yourself: Joseph’s watching your every move. He’ll know you’re in here—”
“He is away,” she cuts me off, tone brutally harsh.
“I am not so stupid as to come here when he is watching. I have an hour’s reprieve while he is in one of his meetings about the Games.
He did not force me to attend this one as some information I am still not privy to.
” She looks furious, more angry than I’ve ever seen her.
“And how dare you lie to me so blatantly? Do you think I am so oblivious?”
“I—”
“You are not allowed to hurt yourself. I forbid you.”
“Love, please. How do you know this is safe enough? What if this is some sort of trick? An hour is a long time for him to be okay with having his eyes off you—”
“Get on the bed.”
Her tone is lethal, and I still.
“What?”
“Sit. Down,” she grits out. “Now.”
Sighing, I obey, taking the place she was sat in.
I’m exhausted, and I really don’t want to argue with her outside of the time I already have to for the cameras, so I’ll have to push Joseph from my mind for now, even if anxiety keeps niggling at me.
My Bonded is ridiculously intelligent, and I need to trust her judgment here as I do in all other situations.
It’s just far more difficult to do that when it concerns the only person who can hurt her.
Cautiously, I watch as Ezla moves over to my bedside table, where a small white pill and a glass of water I hadn’t notice before sit. Picking them up, she calmly walks back over. My throat works as she steps into me, forcing my thighs to spread so she can stand between them.
She’s wearing her Avri suit like always, but her hands are ungloved, so her smooth skin is on mine as she takes my chin in her hand and guides my head back. “Open up,” she instructs, and I do as she says without question, lips parting.
Hands twitching, I hesitate only a moment before they come to rest a little tentatively on the backs of her thighs. Just for this moment, because my chest is spasming in more acute pain the harder I try to resist her proximity.
Ezla places the tablet on my tongue, then lifts the glass of water to my mouth. “Swallow.”
The cool glass resting on my lower lip, I do. Keeping my gaze fixed on hers while she tips the glass up slowly, I gulp down the pill that could be a miniature explosive for all I know.
But somehow, despite knowing exactly who she is, I’m not the slightest bit worried. In fact, I feel my concerns gradually draining away, bit by bit, as my ruthless Bonded, this vicious and deadly woman who doesn’t understand care . . . takes care of me.
If I hadn’t already been in love with her, this would have thrown me right into it headfirst.
Once I’m finished, Ezla steps out of my reach, and my fingers curl into fists before unclenching again as I bring a hand up to wipe the back of it across my mouth.
Fuck, that was intimate.
Clearing my throat, I ask, “What was that?”
Setting the glass back on the bedside table, she replies evenly, “It will heal you.”
As if on cue, an odd tingling builds up within me, largely in the areas I know are purpled all over me. It’s pretty much the same as the sensation I’d felt during Game 1 after Ezla cut my arm off, and like then, I grimace slightly at the feeling.
Relief works through me slower than it did during The Bondings, but I can feel the pill taking effect as the stunning woman I claimed as mine those short weeks ago makes her way back over to me. “Completely?”
“Yes. It is similar to the serum used during Games 1 and 2. However, it cannot heal wounds that are too bad, such as the one I gifted you on our meeting.” She appears to recall the memory almost fondly.
Hopefully more because it’s when she met one of the men she’s come to feel something for, whatever that may be, rather than because she’s lovingly remembering the way she’d smoothly sliced through my suit, bone, and tissue, but I doubt it.
She might not want to cut me up now, but she’s still The Bonding Games Champion, and she definitely didn’t care one bit about me back then, so she’d have no reason to dislike anything about the memory.
“Where did you get this?” I ask next, then suck in a breath, lashes fluttering as she finds her place before me once more and her thumb so gently rubs over my swollen under-eye.
Her tone is unchanging, sticking to her norm as she reveals, “It is what my father makes me take after he has beaten me.”
A pained sound gets caught in my throat, and I draw her into me.
Jesus Christ . . . This isn’t surprising, the confirmation that he fucking beats her on the regular on top of the shit he already does. But hearing it from her lips so bluntly and seeing the proof in the fact that she has special pills to cover up his crimes . . .