Samsyn Cimarron had a lot of friends in some damn high places.
Brick wished he could write off the conclusion as a trite quip of his brain, but this shit was on the level. The Cimarron prince had called in some big favors to get them cleared to drive onto the tarmac at Bourget. They’d barely gotten a sneeze from the guard at the security gate, let alone been stopped or searched.
Once they were rolling on the runway proper, their destination was glaringly obvious. Only one jet waited on any of the three airstrips, its nav lights glowing through the light mist. The sleek, white corporate jet wasn’t an overly small thing, nor was it a C-130. Still, the sight was impressive. He kept waiting for some dramatic movie soundtrack to start, though it was best that it didn’t. The quieter they handled this party, the better. Less importantly, his gut’s churn of apprehension and desolation didn’t need any more muses.
The former started edging out the latter as soon as Fox brought the SQ7 to a stop near the aircraft. Brick got out as soon as the Arcadian did, exiting from his spot behind the driver’s seat. Jayd began sliding over, but he gave her a quick hand command to wait. Requiemme, stretched out on the third seat behind his Pixie, would also have to stay put.
For the moment, that was a good thing. The hairs on the back of his neck weren’t reaching for their downtime beers yet.
Ozias made short work of jogging around to his boyfriend’s side and shorter work of narrowing an impatient stare. “Pardon the mongrel on your moment, mate, but we’ve got a very specific time window for getting this bird off the ground.”
“Acknowledged,” Brick returned, lifting his hands in a pseudosurrender. “But also questioned.”
“Because we are the only ones here?” Fox offered.
He slanted a grateful smirk. “It’d crossed my mind.”
“Bourget has a pretty gnarly noise abatement rule thingy,” Oz asserted. “Air quality for the locals and all that.”
“Understandable.” He swept a brief but thorough scrutiny of the terminals. Nothing but basic security lighting as far as the eye could see. “And in this case, advantageous.”
Oz chuffed. “I love it when you invent fancy words for breaking the law.”
“That makes one of us.” Brick shifted his weight, still unable to shake his weird skittishness. The gray area between his instinct and paranoia was wider than the Puget at hide tide—not a surprise after enduring a DEFCON 1 panic attack in the middle of a Paris cemetery. “But I’m just here for the car keys, mate.” He extended a hand, accepting the fob from Jag. “I’ll make sure this beauty gets returned right.” Just get my beauty back to safety too.
He held on to the thought far longer than he should. But it was the last time he’d be able to call Jayd his, so technically, hours wouldn’t be enough.
“Ah. Merderim mahaleur.” Fox brought him back to reality fast enough. “My many thanks to you, Brickham, on behalf of the kingdom of Arcadia—for everything.”
“Uh…sure.” He ran his gaze back over at the terminals, certain the guy would detect the new trajectory of his thoughts. That he owed Arcadia for so much more than everything.
Fortunately, his cover worked. “Just call Gerard. His number is adhered to the inside of the spare tire well,” Fox explained with his usual efficiency. “He will retrieve the car from wherever you finally park it.”
“Well, damn.” Brick was glad for the open opportunity at a deadpan. “You guys do take full service seriously.”
“Actually…” Oz stepped forward again, jabbing a thumb at the waiting pilot and copilot. “They do too. And if I’m rightly calling the game on those scowls, they wanted to be wheels up five minutes ago.”
“Yeah, yeah, Penelope Promptitude,” Brick joked. “I got your wheels up in my jockstrap.”
“Which has clearly been in places I don’t want to know about tonight,” the Aussie volleyed.
Shit.
The word jangled in his senses with every step he retraced to the Audi. All right, more than his senses. His mind borrowed a more stringent version of it too—especially as he swung a leg under the car’s back end to swing open the tailgate. Once the door had risen and he’d helped Requiemme out, he circled around to where Jayd now waited, leaning against the hood with folded arms.
Despite the semistiff stance, she was going for a breezy beach vibe—or something like that. She had her ankles casually crossed and her chin held high. Her gaze was fixed toward a seemingly fascinating horizon. The mist was making it rough to see anything beyond a couple of hundred yards, so that part of her bluff was already up.
Her bluff.
Wasn’t that a really rich case of the pot and the kettle?
Because damn it, he was just as pathetic. Who the hell was he kidding with fingers hooked in his belt loops and feet kicking stones like he was the perfect surfer boy for her beach bunny?
They were never going to be that matched set.
They both knew that. Had both accepted it as part of their decadent deal, so many hours ago.
Goddammit. A lifetime ago.
The lifetime that glittered, so bright and tortured, in the gaze she lifted as he approached.
In the memories held by each of her tears.
In the connection they refueled every time she blinked those lush lashes.
In the myriad ways she could touch him without laying a finger on him.
It all started with her eyes. And despite his vow to conclude it there, his self-control was dust as soon as he was near enough to haul her close. Within seconds, he embraced her as tightly as he dared. Her soft, spiky locks tickled his nose. Her honey-and-amber scent suffused his senses. Her lithe curves filled his grip.
She felt so damn good.
She felt so damn right.
And for the next wordless minute, she was.
The last minute he’d ever embrace her like this.
So selfishly, he took another. And, despite the way Oz pointedly cleared his throat, another.
From over Jayd’s head, he speared a glare at Demos. While his friend was coming from a decent place, the guy would have to exercise a little Aussie-style chill. It wasn’t like Brick planned on holding her forever.
Christ, how he wished they had forever.
He braced himself for the mental alarms that’d be clanging any second. Then the flinches in all his limbs, spurring the gentle step back that he needed. That they both needed.
Didn’t happen.
Not even as Oz gave a hand signal to the pilot, and the officer moved inside to start his flight precheck.
Especially not as Jayd moved against him—but only to wriggle herself closer. Tighter. Warmer.
“Brickham.” Her rasp on his neck was thick with emotion. “Sir…” Her lips were dotted with tears. She still dragged in a shaky breath, as if battling for more syllables but not finding them. Her exhalation was a slice of frustration, thickening the lump in Brick’s throat.
“I know, Pixie,” he grated. “I know.”
Holy shit. That was it? That was all he could muster for her?
But summoning anything more to his mind… Again, not happening. But also not fucking acceptable. He’d talked children across war zones. Watched six on ordnance specialists as they’d worked on fields of live lego devices. Even delivered a few babies in hovels beneath skies lit up like Satan’s birthday party. Never, through all those crazy fuck fests, had he been at a loss for the right words. Only one mission had rendered him that pathetically useless, and he’d completely bowed out of the game because of it.
He didn’t want to bow out now.
God help him, he wanted to stay all-in on this one. But once more, not happening. Not now. Not ever. The classic eighties song was right. God did have a sick sense of humor.
And the next moment, he swore he heard the bastard laughing.
As the rest of the world decided it was Satan’s birthday again.
One moment, he was stroking Jayd’s back as her soft tears fell with the silver mist. The next, a flash charge turned the tarmac into blinding gold. Then another. Behind them, like Imperial stormtroopers with wasps up their asses, a dozen new visitors charged the soggy pavement.
“Maximillian Brickham! Stop where you are, by the authority of the Gendarmerie Nationale.”
And there was D’artagnan Vader, right on cue.
“Brickham?” Jayd burrowed closer while throwing her arms all the way around his neck. Damn good thing, because she saved him from commanding her to do it. “Wh-What is happening?”
“It’s all right, Pixie.” It was good to know he could still pull off the I’m-terrified-but-you-don’t-know-it trick. Because nothing about this was all right. A new glance to Oz proved as much. His friend, blinking to fight the effects of the flash bangs, was still reeling but fuming.
“Bugger me to Christmas. Our juice is spilled, mate!”
At least that was what the words sounded like. For all Brick knew, they could’ve been bugs are shitless; our poop is swill, mate. His ears were ringing like Quasimodo was riffing a solo between them. His balance was off. His vision was distorted. But it was inconsequential to the main object of his focus.
That plane.
And getting Jayd onto it.
Fast.
“Brickham!”
“I hear you!” He dialed back from the bellow at Oz once he tucked his mouth next to Jayd’s ear. “And you need to hear me, sweetheart. This ride’s about to get bumpy but don’t you dare let go until I get you to the plane. You got that, Pixie? Do. Not. Let. Go!”
He waited for her brave yes, Sir. Instead, he got a couple of urgent nods. Good enough for now. It had to be. Neither of them had any choice about how this had to go down.
Or more accurately, what had to surge ahead.
His two legs.
Holy fuck, it was hard. His muscles, at the mercy of his brainwaves, fought to process the Mach 10 adrenaline spike. He force-fed the impulses to them, homing his attention on everything from his ass down. Everything north of that was on automatic do-or-die mode, desperately holding Jayd close. He added to the protection as much as he could, hunching over her while bolting forward.
Fuck. This had to go right the first time.
The only chance he’d have.
Mentally, he charted a course to the plane’s waiting stairs. Yeah, it was a giant middle finger at fate, as well as his own mortality. But this wasn’t a luxury buffet of opportunity. In the next few seconds, the Audi would be shot up like Butch Cassidy’s poor mule.
Every choice mattered now. They needed to be the right ones.
But the last time he’d been in hot water this deep, he’d trusted all his eggs to the right choices. They’d ended in disaster.
Apparently, dysfunction loved company.
He even smiled about that one, as he got within two bounds of the stairway.
Then smiled even wider, looking up to see Requiemme ducking into the aircraft with Fox’s help.
Oz was positioned halfway down the stairway, now brandishing—and using—a handgun. Brick almost tapped into some valuable lung power to swear at the guy. Was he really trying to give them cover fire with a pistol? There was no custom barrel or sighting system on his piece, so he couldn’t be thinking of hitting anything at this long range.
Unless it wasn’t such a long range anymore.
Fuuuckkk.
The word billowed in his brain as the air crackled and roared around him. And while the violence pushed him forward, it wasn’t what compelled him to keep going, carrying Jayd up the daunting steel stairs.
The drive for that belonged to the whisper beneath it all.
The fervent words, in sweet strands of Arcadian, beseeching her creator with all the force of her soul. A force he could feel now too. A pull belonging to a bigger entity than him—or even her. A belief that overrode every screaming muscle in his body, wrapping him in powerful purpose, lifting his steps and filling him with determined fire…
Until the fire flared too hot.
And then too cold.
So. Fucking. Cold.
Every move he could still make. Every thought he could still form. Every awareness he could still acknowledge—though they were dwindling by the moment.
Until there was only one.
Jayd.
His perfect pixie.
Her ocean-and-earth scent. Her soft but strong arms. Her amazing aqua eyes.
Wait. Her eyes.
What was going on with them? Why were they so red and grieving and wet? And yeah, he knew that for a fact, because all those saltwater drops were now raining on him. But how?
How had she suddenly swung around to be leaning over him?
How had he gotten here, sprawled beneath her?
And how was his head now consumed by noise of a different kind? A revving hum, followed by the whine of high-powered engines.
Jet engines.
Shit. Wait. I’m not on this flight manifest, gang. This isn’t the plan!
He struggled to transform the words from protests in his head to sounds on his lips. He had to. He had to get the hell off this flying VIP lounge, not on. It was the smart move. It was his only choice.
The right choice…
He opened his mouth to say just that. But again, it was as far as he got. The fuses between his brain and his mouth were severed. He could only lie here and silently panic while Jayd sobbed harder and the engines screeched louder.
But then, even the panic was gone.
As a black blanket got draped across his consciousness.
Before he fully succumbed to the night, Jayd’s desperate rasp was once more a haven for his senses. And his soul. And his heart. But her entreaty wasn’t for her Creator anymore. She was pleading to him—with a message that pierced a thousand holes into his aching soul.
“Brickham! Brickham! It is your turn to hang on, okay? Are you listening to me, damn it? Do not even think of letting go, Brickham. Stay with me, Brickham. Please. Please stay with me!”
Can’t…stay. Have to…keep you safe. You’re…the most important thing now…
More things he had to say. So many things he had to tell her. All the important things in his heart and soul. All the ways she’d captured both of them, possibly forever. Probably forever. But again, none of it connected to his lips.
Tell her. You have to tell her, damn it!
“P-P-Pixie…”
It was all he could manage before the blanket rose up again, thicker and darker than before. Unconsciousness wasn’t fucking around this time. It wanted him—and it was damn well going to claim him.
“Creator’s blessed mercy!”
Emme’s gasp barely dented Jayd’s awareness. She could spare no extra energy on it, too consumed with threading coherent thoughts past the chaos consuming her every nerve ending.
“Mother of God.”
Oz’s low growl was no help either. His taut dismay was like a psychic butter knife, slathering thick dismay through her psyche. It weakened the fingers she still had twisted around Brickham’s. Her other hand, attached to the arm that cradled his head against her lap, was clamped to the ledge of his shoulder—
Where a splotch of red had become a full bloom.
She pulled him closer, hating herself for causing his sharp groan. But letting go was not an option. When she had even thought about doing that, outside on the tarmac, fate had punished her by letting hell break loose.
No.
That was not hell. Not even close.
This was.
The rush of the tarmac outside the plane’s windows. The abrupt climb of the sleek machine, threatening to separate her from where Brickham had fallen near the galley. His darker bellow, stabbed by profanities she did not even recognize.
But even worse, his sudden silence.
His formidable face was too damn still, illuminated in orange-and-amber shadows that chased them from the explosions below. Jayd pushed past the temptation to scream, funneling her attention in. Poring her focus over the most important thing in her existence right now. The downed warrior in her arms, so terrifyingly still. The leech of color from the rugged planes of his face. The shallow rises and falls across his mighty chest. The awkward sprawl of his timber log legs, stretching into the main cabin—where another dark-red pool gained traction across the light-cream carpeting.
“Creator’s damnation.” As the rasp spilled from her, unbearable heat gathered behind her eyes. But raw fear eclipsed her tears. She could only take that energy and push it all at the first person who would listen. That human should have been Brickham. She stifled a scream—barely—that it was not.
“Oz,” she demanded of the man “lucky” enough to stand in for him. “Tell me,” she stammered. “Ozias? Talk to me, damn it.” Air clutched in her throat as she followed every move the Australian made, his cautious assessment interjected by barely audible grunts. “Is he all right? It—it is not that bad, is it?”
But the new pang of bile in her belly made her see those words for what they were. Stabs at the truth she was battling to mold. A reality in which a man was not limp, unconscious, and bleeding in her lap.
No. Not just a man. This was the hero who, in less than twenty-four hours, had broken past her defenses to uncover her, discover her, fulfill her. Who, in some ways, knew her better than most people who had known her for twenty-four years. Who had defeated predator bonsuns for her. Who had even confronted the demons of his own mind for her. Now she owed him the same bravery.
No. She owed him more.
Even as she watched Oz’s scowl intensify as his assessment continued. Yes, even as the man scooted back up to look at the crimson deluge from the corner of Brickham’s temple. The terrifying stuff flowed down through the rough chaff on that side of Brick’s head, forming a gory topographical map she could barely look at.
Still, she forced herself to demand, “Oz? Please talk to me!”
Only when Emme dropped to her side, soothing her with sounds and touches, did she realize how deep she had fallen into the shrill shrew bucket. Jayd gulped hard and forced herself to breathe. That brought back a little clarity, though total victory there felt as distant as the ground below—and yes, even the island homeland that was so far away. Too damn far.
At last, Ozias sat up. Her attention whipped back to him. After a decisive breath, he stated, “The nick in his forehead is long and elliptically shaped—and bleeding like a damn dingo with the runs.”
“Which means what?” she pressed.
“That it’s likely just a graze.” He hauled in more air while settling his hands atop his thighs. “So that’s the good news.”
“The good news?” Jayd spat.
“Rahmie Creacu,” Emme whispered, sweeping both hands in the air over Brickham’s body. In other cultures, the motions were compared to witchcraft spells, but on Arcadia, they were a call for the Almighty to harness natural forces for physical and spiritual healing.
Jayd was grateful for the move due to other reasons. She needed a second to regather her strength.
“All right,” she finally blurted, nodding at Oz. “The bad news?”
The Aussie nodded as Jagger dropped down next to him, bearing a half-meter stack of cloth hand towels. “As you can likely tell, he’s also been hit in his shoulder and thigh. Best as I can tell, the bullets have hit solid meat instead of bone, but there’s no way of assessing the damage until we can get the rounds out. And no way in hell can we do that here.”
Jayd ground her teeth to avoid screaming. From the midst of that agony, she charged, “So where do we do it? Should we tell the pilot to land?”
“No.” The denial was immediate, emphatic, and in stereo. After Jagger joined Oz to issue it, he determinedly went on. “The Gendarmerie has likely gotten some alerts out already. If we put down anywhere in France, Italy, or Greece, they’ll arrest Brickham first and ask questions later.”
Oz backed it up with a somber nod. She copied the motion but not the attitude. With every authoritative tone she had ever been taught, she decreed, “So we push on to Arcadia.”
Oz grimaced. “It’s our best option.”
Jagger shoulder-butted him. “My love, it is our only option.” At the same time, he reached over and wrapped a hand around her wrist—but the reassurance only succeeded in stamping her skin with the blood on his fingers.
Brickham’s blood.
Damn it, damn it, damn it.
She gave in to the inner rant again. Then again. It was her only thread of control in this surreal situation. They were helpless until the touchdown at Sancti, with naught but the droning engines and minor air turbulence to inform them progress was being made toward the airstrip on her island.
Where she would disembark this flying trap—before having to walk into another.
She harbored no illusions about machinations that were happening as they flew south. Most notably, the ones in Carris’s control. Even with a shot-apart knee, the bonsun would be demanding a phone audience with Evrest so he could lay out every detail of the evening’s insanity for her brother. Correction. All three of her brothers. She envisioned each of their unique reactions to Carris’s caterwauling. None of them were pretty.
But none of them panged worse than continuing to watch as Brickham slept on.
Slept?
Her impression was presumptuous. She knew that more clearly, and grotesquely, than the bright-red stains that seemed everywhere, especially as Oz and Jag labored without stopping to help their friend. Emme served as their runner, tireless in hauling as many supplies as she could from the galley. Her friends’ efforts touched the deepest places in Jayd’s heart but elucidated all her fears about her awful impotence. She felt like a wet tree monkey scrabbling on a massive oak. No purchase to be had. No advantage to be gained. The man in her arms was still so ominously quiet.
What if she was not doing enough for him?
What if she was not helping enough? Praying hard enough? Believing strongly enough? Holding him tightly enough?
What if, because of all that, Brickham died before they got to Arcadia?
“No.”
She rasped it from dry lips and a parched throat, but refused to pause for water, air, or a respite from her exhaustion. If her suffering counted for the smallest credit in providence’s bank, she could use it for Brickham’s benefit.
He was worth it. So worth it.
Her incredible force of nature…
Forces of nature are not meant to die!
But this one remained horrifyingly dormant. So still. So quiet. So…vacant.
An anguished moan, swirling deep in her belly, finally tornadoed its way into her chest. She welcomed it. She needed the focus, dragging her away from the temptation of tears. She would not give them power right now. She would not give them her voice. There was still too much to say with her words.
“Brickham.” Maybe the third time was the proverbial charm. She enforced her hail with a twisted fist in his shirt and a desperate bite into one of his pecs. “Are you listening now? Because I can do this the whole flight, you know. Do you really want that? Do you really want me to hurt you for the next two hours? Because I guarantee, even then, you will not be in as much agony as me.”
As she dropped her forehead back to the plane over his heart, she swore there was a skip of the beats in the organ just beneath.
“You want to debate the point?” she challenged. “Then do it. Wake up and do it with me, Max Brickham. Open your eyes. Give me your arguments. Fight with me! Damn it…” Her conflicted choke finally cracked the dyke of her composure. “Damn it, Brickham. Fight for me!”
Unless…
She was not worth it anymore.
Unless he had finally decided he had paid all the necessary tolls for her. For the mission of her. In the end, was that not the raw truth of all she was to him? An asset he had been contracted to find and protect, period? So there was probably an understood job definition to it, along with the acceptable extras list of job risks.
Things like rescuing her from a raping soldask like Gervais.
Then hiding her in a kink dungeon by disguising her as his submissive.
Then fulfilling her as his real submissive, giving her the most unforgettable pleasure of her life.
Then escorting her to meet her father—who became the drug addict he was framed for murdering.
Then rescuing her from another predatorial lunatic.
Then hiding in a crypt with her and enduring a full panic attack because of it.
Then continuing to protect her, even into a skirmish that had gotten him shot in the head.
Just the basic ticks on the list had her exhausted—and weeping harder.
Because maybe he really was done with paying all the prices for her. And maybe she could not fault him for that.
Maybe she really was not worth the ultimate fight.
As the surety sank deeper into her logic, sorrow clawed deeper into her heart.
Her hopelessness saved itself for her soul.
It seeped in, drenching her worse than the bloodstains on her skin and clothes. In equal measure, sadness welled from her gut and poured from her eyes. She was a mass of surrender, a wide wound past all hope of avoiding despairing infection.
This man was bleeding because of her.
And soon, he was going to die because of her.
And somehow, at some point, she had to be okay with that.
No.
She would never be okay with that.
Max Brickham had done more than just find her, rescue her, and protect her. He had opened her. Shown her parts of herself that she knew not were even missing. Perhaps the parts she had left Arcadia to search for in the first place. The woman she thought she could find by talking to her real father.
Wrong.
She had been so wrong about that.
But that was not why she sobbed now.
She cried because she could not stanch the pain. Because she could not avoid the truth. The pain was excruciating, but she made her soul take it. Forced herself to remain that way for the Creator to see, bared and broken…and willing to trade it all for the life of the man she had come to care for—to terrifying depths of her heart and soul.