Ha! In your face!

Daisy doesn't need to look at Gabriel to know he won. The crowd gathered behind him clap and hoot as he slips his arms around her waist to give her a back hug and whisper ever so sweetly into her ears, "Loser."

Vexed by her unnecessary slip up, she turns around in his arms. "Let's play another game. I'll pick," she says with a tight smile, pushing him away. The crowd has dispersed to do whatever they were doing before they decided to get nosy.

"Uh," he pauses, following after her. "That's not how it's done." He stops when she halts at another game where there's a line up of shot glasses in three rows. Each row is higher than the other. "The winner picks," he touches his chest with his index finger, "and the loser," he doesn't bother touching her because of the 'fuck around and find out' glare on her face, "has to follow."

"We'll just take turns," she says, swiping her bracelet under the sensor. The net covering the bucket of small balls of different colours is lifted. Holding her bucket to her abdomen, she looks to her right to find that her mate has done the same. That idiot only won that last game because of a silly slip up. This time, she refuses to be distracted by anything. Having bragging rights is more important than an asshole who refuses to pick her call.

Daisy doesn't throw the balls like Gabriel does immediately the buzzer signals the start of the game. She takes her time to calm down. She smirks when Gabriel misses his first shot glass and then she starts bouncing her balls…

Okay, that sounds weird.

Daisy relaxes her wrist with each throw. She starts from the highest row, filling all ten shot glasses. When she's halfway through her second row of glasses, Gabriel has missed a second glass. His groan of frustration uplifts her spirit and confidence as she reaches the last row. By now, Gabriel is done with his game. His score is twenty eight out of thirty which is a new high record for the game but it doesn't matter now because she has just hit the same score. The last two glasses are the tie breakers.

"You can't pull it off. You were just lucky," Gabriel tries to talk down her confidence.

Lucky huh? All twenty eight times?

With a smirk on her face, she makes the twenty ninth glass. Just to make a point, she closes her eyes and throws the last one.

"There is no way that- fuck."

Daisy grins, knowing it went in. Throwing her hands up as the machine sprays confetti on screen and declares the new high score, she waves the empty basket in her mate's face. "Ha! In your face!"

He's already frowning. "Don't even-"

"Loser!" She yells, not bothering to be subtle with her celebration the way he was.

"Say that again when I beat your ass at racing," he huffs, stomping away to the stationary car at their far right.

Daisy snickers, going after him. She does a double take at a trivia game five people are standing in front of. She wonders if they'd have cartoon trivia. Getting into the car, she holds the steering wheel as they both start the game. It's your usual racing game, except they award points for perfect drifts, swift turns, minimal car damage, coins collected and distance covered before the timer goes off.

"Ha!"

Daisy can see Gabriel's car on her screen passing hers but she doesn't fret. She merely focuses on making as much drifts as possible and preventing the car from crashing into anything because those give higher points than others. When the timer goes off, their controls stop working. Her smile grows when she sees the results.

"What?!" Gabriel exclaims in shock, his left eye twitching as he stares at his two hundred and ninety four and her four hundred and eighty six. "That's impossible."

Even though he covered longer distance than she did, he was reckless with his car. He wasn't observant of how his scores changed. All he wanted to do was beat her but instead he set himself up for failure.

"This is bullshit!" He huffs when the breakdown of the results tells him the same thing.

"Says the two times in a row loser," she snorts, getting out of the car before he could speak. She makes a beeline for the trivia game and starts it up with her bracelet. Scrolling through the different categories, she squeals when she sees Cartoon amongst them.

"I did not lose. You must have cheated-"

"They have cartoons, Gabriel!" She jumps excitedly like a child.

Forgetting what he was saying, he blinks at the screen of the machine in confusion. "Cartoon trivia. You cannot be serious."

"Oh I am." She sets the game for two players and picks Disney and DreamWorks. "Dead serious," she smiles at him, pushing the start button. The first question that pops up is from How To Train Your Dragon. "How many Alphas appeared in the part two?" She scoffs. "That's easy. It's two." She taps the second option and gasps when she gets it wrong. "What? Three?" She blinks at the answer. "How is it- oh, Toothless became an Alpha! Fuck, I should have known that!"

The next question is for Gabriel and it's from Snow White.

"How many dwarves sheltered Snow White?" She huffs, crossing her hands. "This is so unfair."

"Snow White...I remember some girl talking about some feminist shit during our blind date using this thing as a case study," Gabriel says, scratching the back of his neck. Frowning at the numbers on the screen, he taps the third option.

Daisy face palms herself when she sees what he picks. It's not a surprise that he's wrong. "Twelve? Really? What are they, the twelve dancing princesses?!"

"I haven't watched any of these things you're talking about. I just guessed, goddamn it!"

The third question is from Hercules. "What's the name of the god who makes Zeus's thunder bolts?" Daisy blinks. This just got tough. "Jesus. Did they even mention his name?" She rubs her chin. It's been what, seven years since she watched Hercules? She constantly listens to the songs but the last time she truly sat down to watch it has been so long. She couldn't possibly begin to recall the name. Getting ready to fail again, she taps Hephaestus. "Oh, it's right?" She chuckles in surprise. The hell?

The fourth question is from Peter Pan. The moment Gabriel sees the question, he shakes his head. "I don't watch kids stuff. How am I supposed to know these things?"

"Excuses upon excuses," Daisy drawls, pretending to pick on her nails for dramatic effect.

"You win. Okay?" Gabriel doesn't let her respond. He steers her away from the trivia game by her shoulders.

"Wha- wait-"

"Now, let's play something that's actually fun," he says happily, pushing her all the way to another shooting game.

What a surprise.

This one involves using a paint gun to shoot at the number cards on the rack. Whatever prize has the card number that gets shot down will be given to them. Daisy can see how this will easily become a competition of who can get more prizes in less time.

"I bet I can hit twenty prizes before you do," Gabriel boasts, just as she predicted.

Rolling her eyes, she loads her ten paint ball bullets. Without saying a word, she shoots a number card. A bell rings and she gets a small teddy bear key chain. "One," she picks it up and waves the prize in his face with a cheeky smile on her face.

Narrowing his eyes and flaring his nose, he shoots a number card without looking at it. The bell rings again. "You're not the only one who can do that trick," he taunts, picking up a small glass swan statue. "What am I supposed to use this to do?" He frowns. "Are all the prizes this small?"

While he's busy contemplating, Daisy shoots five cards in a row.

"Hey! No fair! We're supposed to shoot at the same time!"

The constant ringing of the bell drowns out his words at successive intervals. Daisy merely smirks as she continues shooting until she's exhausted her ammunition. Nine prizes have piled up in front of her but she doesn't bother collecting them because Gabriel has already shot eight number cards. She quickly reloads her gun and makes seven shots. When she tries to make the eighth one, she discovers that the cards have started moving around. Scoffing, she adds one bullet to replace the one she missed and wastes no time in adjusting.

"It's that couple again."

"Wow. They're really good. I wish I was that good."

"Are they really going to take all those cute things home?"

"Of course they are. They won it."

Daisy hears some people chattering around her. Zoning out their voices, she focuses on making the last shot to complete her twentieth prize. Just as she is about to pull the trigger, a hand tilts the underside of her gun. "No!" She gasps as the bullet completely misses the target.

Before she can return the favour, the culprit has already shot his last number card.

Smirking, Gabriel rests the gun on his shoulder. "Guess who won."

"You cheater!"

"All-"

"I swear to God, if you say all is fair in love and war, I'll buy another round just to shoot you," she practically growls, feeling the strong urge to strangle her mate right now.

"I was going to say all's well that ends well but yeah that could work too," he shrugs, having the audacity to smile at her.

Her blood boils when he wiggles his brows at her. "You're annoying."

"You're just now finding that out?"

Daisy grips her gun tightly. "Is there a game where we can shoot each other?"

He smirks. "Do you really want to go there?"

"Yes." She's going to shoot that stupid hand he used to ruin her chances first.

"I won't go easy on you."

"Bring it, asshole.”

⏺️⏺️⏺️⏺️⏺️⏺️

UPDATE: THE THREE - MATED LUNA ON PAUSE

Dear Readers,

I hope this message finds you well and in good spirits.

First, I want to take a moment to thank each and every one of you for the incredible support and encouragement you’ve shown for my book "The Three Mated Luna" on this platform . Your enthusiasm and love for the story have meant the world to me and kept me going even on the toughest days. Despite hearing mixed reviews about the platform, my experience has been nothing but positive, and that’s largely because of you.

Unfortunately, I have some difficult news to share. I’ve been dealing with some serious health issues and am currently hospitalized. Because of this, I’ve come to the hard decision that I can’t continue writing "The Three Mated Luna" for now. I really didn’t want to leave you all hanging without any closure, so I’ve asked my editor if I can write a final chapter to explain the situation to you directly. I got the go-ahead on that yesterday .

I’ve thought about having a friend take over the writing while I’m out of commission, but I’m worried that the change in writing style might be too noticeable and disrupt your experience of the story. I hope you can understand my hesitation and forgive any inconvenience this causes.

On a more hopeful note, before my health took a turn for the worse, I was working on an exciting new story idea. Even though I’m facing these challenges, I’m determined to keep writing during my recovery. I plan to dive into this new project as soon as I’m back on my feet. I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback on this plan—it means a lot to me to know what you think.

Thank you again for all your support and patience during this time. Your messages, comments, and overall presence have been a bright spot in a very difficult period. I’ll keep you posted on any updates and hope to be back to writing for you soon.

Take care and stay awesome,

Mairee