29 #2
Alien head in one hand, tucked against his side like the rest of us, Scotty scratches the back of his head with the other as if feeling where the cut that Avri healed once was; his brow had also been split, but there’s zero evidence of that either.
We’re not really meant be treated with Avri for minor injuries like that, but Ez asked very, very politely that the doctor fix him up with it because “it is embarrassing that one of the men she has trained was bested by a shard of glass”.
She also made it clear there could be no evidence of what happened, that she wanted any and all records abolished, threatening him with major bodily harm if he disagreed.
He was so scared he obeyed without question.
I knew Deadly Nightshade was warming up to us.
“It’s five minutes.” I pout and bat my lashes, knowing I’m so adorable she simply won’t be able to resist going easy on us today.
All her attention falls on me.
Uh-oh. I can already tell my plan failed.
“Get on the ropes.”
I suck in a horrified lungful of air. “Why?!” I wail in despair. They’re my least favourite and she knows it!
“For talking back and for your first words to me not being an apology.”
“I’m sorry, Havoc, baby. I can lick your pussy to make it up to you,” Tate purrs, wetting his lips and looking our Bonded up and down lasciviously while my pout deepens.
“On the ropes. Now.” She points a gloved finger at the climbing ropes that reach another universe they’re so high up, and I whimper. “Up and down ten times.”
“Ten?!” I cry, palm flying to my chest. “I almost died last night!”
“Yes—last night. You are perfectly fine now.”
“Please, Ezzy!” I drop to my knees, uncaring when snickers sound from around the Training Centre as my display draws the attention of the other Evots and Exots here.
“Eleven.”
“No!” I shoot to my feet. “I’m sorry, DN! I’ll go!”
I start to rush away like a bat out of hell—but every inch of me stalls when Ez’s hand wraps around the back of my neck, yanking me backwards and drawing a shriek from me that sounds more excited than anything.
I just got manhandled by Wifey! Woohoo!
“No so fast, Player.”
I scrunch my face up. I hate that as much as Tate does, and I’m sure all the others do, too.
“I have looked over your Scores.”
I straighten along with the rest of the men in our happy little family as my Bonded plops me back in place with them.
“17, yours has risen to 86.”
Coops folds his arms across his chest, looking neither disappointed nor proud. He only bores his gaze into Ezla intently with a short nod while my brother tells him, “Well done.”
“Player 4, yours is 90.”
“Thought my Avri seemed a little darker this morning,” Tate says smugly, though he narrows his eyes to slits at being called “Player 4” again.
“38, yours is 87.”
A dip of Scotty’s chin while I lean closer, just waiting for the revelation that I’ve bested my big bro.
“35—”
I do a drumroll on my thighs, and I can feel how unimpressed Ezzy is.
“87.”
I blink. Then—
“Whooohoooo!” I throw my arms in the air and dance around my Bonded group, twirling myself about.
“Brother, I’m as good as you now! After all this time!
Little me isn’t so little anymore!” I launch myself onto Scotty’s back, who stumbles with a grunt before righting himself, instinctively trying to keep me stable.
“I mean,” I continue as I tighten my arms around his neck, and he coughs, slapping my arm with a, “You’re fucking strangling me,” which I completely ignore, “I’d hoped to get higher, but now I realise this is even better! ”
Ez dismisses me, disappointingly, but unsurprisingly, not joining in on my parade. Our girl’s just cold like that. Always gives me the best kind of goosebumps, though.
“And 29 . . .”
We all hold our breaths, mutually agreeing this one’s the most important.
“72.”
Alby gasps, and tears immediately well in his eyes.
“OH MY GOD! BESTIE!” Leaping off my brother’s back, almost knocking him off his feet in the process, I jump on Alby instead, tackling him to the ground in a bear hug and smacking a kiss on his cheek, making the red there stretch across every patch of visible skin.
He’s so stunned to find himself on the floor that he just lays there with his mouth open—before he eventually bursts out laughing, and I beam. “I’m so proud of you!”
“We all are.” Scotty’s voice draws my gaze up to see him with a proud-dad look on his face, and when I move it to Cooper and Tate, even they give nods, the former going so far as to give my bestie his own “well done”.
“I am proud.”
The room is plunged into a deathly silence.
No one moves a muscle, afraid this is some sort of dream we’ll be hauled out of if we so much as twitch an eyelash.
Then Alby’s tiny voice whispers through the air, “You . . . you’re proud of me?”
“I am,” Ezla confirms stoically, but no one cares about the tone of it when there’s a miracle happening right before our eyes.
Helping my bestie to his feet, I stare at our Bonded in open-mouthed wonder.
“Th-thank you . . .”
She nods sharply.
And then Tater Tot ruins the moment.
“Will you be proud of me when I fuck you so good you’ll want to stay speared on my fat cock forever?”
Cooper drags his hands down his face with a help-me groan. “Not everything has to be about your cock.”
“You’re right. It has to be about my Havoc,” he replies seriously.
There’s no one who refutes that.
Tate barrels on, stepping closer to Ez, and my drama-meter blares its alarm, my gaze sharpening as I watch the show. “I do have a surprise for you on my very impressive dick, though, baby. I can’t wait to show you.”
Scotty’s brows dart upwards.
“Come any closer, and you will no longer have that appendage to show anyone.”
Rawr. That was kind of . . . adorable.
Her head whips my way like a missile locking onto its target.
Oopsies . . .
“Would you like to repeat that out loud, 35?
Tate’s pupils blow out, almost consuming the grey ringing them. “You’re reading his thoughts? Fuck, do me, my Havoc—I’ve got so much in there for you.”
Coops looks between me and Ezla curiously. “What was he thinking, Vengeance—”
He stops short at the same moment all the attention glues to him.
“Ah . . .” For the first time I think ever, I see Cooper blush as he rubs the back of his neck and drops his eyes to the ground.
Awwwww, he’s so smitten.
Just like the rest of us. He just doesn’t show it as well or as often.
He clears his throat, but it doesn’t help him get many words out. “I mean . . .”
“Why ‘Vengeance’?” Scotty asks like the little honey pie he is before anyone can tease him on it.
Cooper’s lips seal shut.
“Don’t worry about it.” My brother waves a dismissive hand when he sees it’s clearly a touchy subject, despite the burning desire we all have to know what this secret . . . thing going on with Ezla and Cooper is.
This is another thing I love about Scotty: he always knows when to back off and how to defuse a situation.
Tate is less polite about his feelings on the matter.
“What’ve you got going on with my Havoc?” he demands menacingly, large fists balling up like he’s imagining using them to mush up Cooper’s body for the filling of a pie.
“Bloody hell, it’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like—”
“All of you! Ropes! Now! You can all ring the bell. Twelve times.”
Skin leaches of colour all around as we stare at our Bonded in horror.
“B-but—but I didn’t do anything!” Alby squeaks, his anxiety overridden by his horror as he pleads for mercy.
“That is why you will be with me.”
“What?” Tate spits, turning his scathing glower of death and destruction on my bestie.
“Do not look at him like that.”
My brain malfunctions for the second time today in the span of minutes when I process the fact that those words did not come from my mouth like they were supposed to.
But Ezla’s.
Or her helmet, I guess.
Potato, potahto.
She doesn’t give us much time to bathe in our shock, however, before she barks, “Ropes! Right now! Or I will make it fifteen!”
A cry of pure horror flees from my mouth and whacks into every ear in the room, no doubt, as I throw myself into action, legs pumping faster than a cheetah’s as I hurry to obey our Bonded.
“Wait, but shouldn’t we talk about the assailants from—”
“Fifteen for you, 38! None of you will speak of that!” Her voice is low, and something about the way she says the words in a hushed hiss has discomfort squirming through me, but, determined not to up my punishment, I toss myself at the bottom of one of the thick ropes hanging from the ceiling, my new family’s footsteps sounding behind me as they hurry over to their own.
I don’t know what happened at the club, why on earth those Exots killed everyone in there before attempting to kill us too. But I think Ezla may know a lot more than she’s letting on.