16 #2
After going up a level in a lift, we end up on floor two of three and in the huge right arm of the ‘T’ that makes this building, opposite to where our accommodations have been for the past week.
Moving to the end of the miles-long hallway we’ve found ourselves in that was labelled ‘14’ and which makes it feel like we’re in the middle of nowhere with how little else we’ve seen along the way, we stop at a taalk door with the same numerals on it.
“Once again, scan your thumbs to get in,” the Neutral tells us blandly.
“Just like the washroom, you are the only ones who can open the door.” A brief pause.
“Inside your bedrooms, you’ll find the wardrobes and drawers already stocked with all your belongings, and you may use the screen on the wall beside the dumbwaiter in the dining room to order any food you would like.
Keep in mind, however, that it is limited to options based on your meal plans from your training schools. ”
I purse my lips, not happy about that. I’m fine with my own plan, great even, but Alby’s is just ridiculous. He wouldn’t struggle half as much with everything we have to do for the Games if he was actually eating the right foods for his body to be strong enough for them.
Glancing over at him, I take in his dejected features, and my frown deepens.
I open my mouth, ready to demand my bestie’s meal plan be changed—
But the man’s gone, already turning the corner of the hallway and vanishing completely when I swivel around.
I blow out a short, harsh breath. “How rude.”
I’m quickly distracted when the woosh of the Bonded chamber’s door glides smoothly through the air, Tate’s thumb just leaving the scanner when my intrigued gaze finds it.
I perk up.
We all trickle into the room, the slab of taalk lowering back to the ground on its own when the last of us is inside, and we space out, each of us absorbing the first gigantic space we find ourselves in.
There’s a large black leather couch centre stage that I bounce over to, plonking my ass down and wriggling into the plush cushions.
Taking off my alien head to free my poor, flattened hair, I shake the thick locks out and dump the helmet on the seat beside me.
“This is so cool!” I say enthusiastically, roaming my eyes around the high-ceilinged room, taking in the red and green Avri accenting every corner, the length of the room big enough to do fifteen back handsprings in a row—not that I can, but whatever—the high-end furniture everywhere .
. . the massive TV on the wall that I already know will hardly be used because I’m betting its access is limited to The Bonding Games show and carefully selected movies or TV series that will bore me to death.
My attention flicks over to Cooper as I catch him heading through the open doorway into the dining room, where I can just make out the corner of an obsidian table. He’s probably going to check out the dumbwaiter the Neutral mentioned.
“Hey, can you order my dinner while you’re in there, Coops? I’m starved!” I yell out to him.
“No.”
Oof.
“And don’t ever call me Coops again.”
I deflate. Then pop back again. “Coupon?” I snicker at my own joke.
He moves back to the doorway to deliver a scowl.
“Alright, let’s go have a look at the bedrooms,” Scotty suggests before I can say something else that will have Cooper deciding physical harm is the best course of action rather than just silent visual threats. “Tate, how are they?”
The brute replies with a grunt.
This is going so well.
Springing to my feet, I wrap an arm around an unsuspecting Alby, who squeaks like a baby mouse, and steer him with me after my brother as he walks down a hallway with six doors embedded in the walls either side of him.
There’s three on the left and three on the right, and each has a name on it, thank god, because I don’t think I could sleep in a room labelling me as just a number for another seven weeks.
I mean, how dare they try to reduce me to numerals. I’m far too interesting for that.
Letting my arm fall from around my bestie’s slight shoulders, I allow him space to go look at his own room while I scan my thumb on the panel beside mine, where it gracefully swishes open and invites me inside.
I tut the moment I see my bedroom and the connected bathroom.
Black, black, and more black.
Don’t get me wrong, the way Techta is designed is pretty awesome, but sometimes I wish there was a little more colour. Evots don’t get to wear anything but black and green, and I’m someone who’d like to try all the colours out. Especially red. I’d look so hot in red.
Would Ezla think so too?
A bolt of energy shoots through me.
Ezla . . . my Bonded. My Bonded . . . Ezla.
I’M BONDED TO EZLA ZEFRON!
WHOOOOOO!
That’s such bragging rights. Plus, I really wanna see her again. She’s a tad scary, but, as I’ve said, I’m definitely interested after my interactions with her in Game 1. Like, very interested.
Maybe we could go find her?
My entire being lights up. Yes! And we could all do, like, twenty-one questions or something to get to know each other!
Tossing my bonding cube on the bed in the centre of my new room to deal with later, I scurry back out the minimalistic but luxurious space with my marvellous plan on hand. I enter the hallway—
And stop short.
My jaw crashes to the floor.
“Oh, my . . .” Then a slow smirk takes over. “Oh, my, my, my . . .”
I creep closer.
At the end wall of the hallway, a seventh door I’d first overlooked has been left open where Tate has gone inside to have a look around. And if the way he adjusts himself is any indication, I’d say he likes what he sees . . . or more like whatever his imagination is conjuring up.
A strangled noise from behind me draws my attention to Alby, whose face has turned into a tomato.
Surprisingly—or not too surprisingly, if I recall the way my brother reacted to my earlier suggestion of romance with our Bonded correctly—Scotty’s cheeks aren’t faring much better from where he stands at his side.
Cooper’s head pops out from the last door on the wall on my right, brows lowered—as I’ve quickly realised is his norm—until they rocket to his hairline at the sight before us all. “Is that . . . ?”
“Uh-huh!” My grin stretches wide.
“Fucking hell,” my brother mutters under his breath, even as he moves towards the room with purpose as if drawn by an invisible string. My bestie gulps and drifts after him, me and Cooper doing the same, the latter much more cautiously than my buoyant gait.
“That bed is huge,” Alby whispers, bugged-out eyes absorbing the unnaturally massive mattress covered in silky onyx pillows and sheets.
My own fascinated gaze tries to take everything in at once, from the expected luminous Avri strips—some white, some red, some green—to the huge wardrobe, a comfy-looking chair in the left corner, a large adjoining bathroom on the right-hand side that doesn’t have a door because privacy is an unknown concept in this room, drawers filled with . . . is that lube?
“Can’t wait to pound into your hot little ass, Havoc, baby,” Tate murmurs as he fixes obsessed eyes on the bottle he’s picked up like it’s the Champion herself, running the tips of his gloved fingers over the top of the small chest of drawers acting as a bedside table as if it’s her skin with his other hand.
Yes. Yes, it is.
I’m not even sure he’s noticed us yet, too lost in fantasy world, but I’m a little scared to be here when he does; this room is clearly meant for our Bonded group as a whole, and we all know how the big fella feels about sharing who he views as his girl.
“Bloody hell, is this a sex dungeon?” That’s my guy Coops as he rummages through the drawers on the opposite side of the bed, incredulously checking out a handful of black ropes.
Alby covers his face with his hands.
“Looks like it,” my brother mumbles, on the edge of losing what little composure he has left.
“What do you—”
My question never makes it out, gasps torn from all our throats as unfeasible rage pounds down the bond and through every inch of our bodies.