Well, that made it official. If there’d have been a sword or ax in Evrest’s grip, Brick’s head would be rolling toward the corner.
Weirdly but awesomely, the adrenaline from that thought was…
Invigorating.
Shit. Was this actually him using a jolt of anxiety as a positive? Was this his brain thriving on the spur instead of descending toward dread? Fuck right it was. And while he wasn’t close to being full primeval against Evrest’s Godzilla, there was a symbolic katana in his armory now. He wielded it because he had to. Because if he didn’t, Evrest Cimarron would start twisting facts into his own sordid version of the truth.
“I didn’t force her,” he said with the full force of his conviction. “I did nothing of the sort, damn it. I know Carris made his point about that with some razzle-dazzle credibility, but—”
“Fahrmay,” the man all but snarled. “Silence your insolence.” Another gash of Evrest’s hand through the air. “What kind of an imbezak do you think I am?”
“Okay, chill out.” Brick stiffened. “I didn’t say that at—”
“I would believe my infant son’s babbling before a single syllable from Trystan Carris.”
“Got it. Loud and clear.” But he held his position, needing only a second of study on the man’s terse profile, before demanding, “Unless…I haven’t? Come on, man. Will you just unload it already?”
Evrest glanced over. His scowl was blistering but bolstering, likely a look he’d perfected through the years when needing to throw adversaries off his scent. At last, he pulled in a breath and spoke again.
“Razzle dazzle.” He dug into the new idiom with blatant curiosity, despite how his gaze revealed a decent comprehension of the context. “’Twould seem to me that Arcadian bonsuns do not have the market cornered on the stuff these days.”
And that was the end of the adrenaline gravy train. It wasn’t a great place to disembark.
There were prickles all over his skin. His heartbeat decided to do a four-hundred-meter sprint. A matching throb began in his head. It beat harder and harder until coalescing into the cannonball of his rebuttal.
“Fine. You want to go there again, man? I already told you I didn’t force her. Ever. No alcohol, drugs, hypnotism, magic wands, or singing woodland creatures. What your sister has shared with me was because she wanted it. Because she clearly, freely asked for it.”
Since that was enough about that, because the guy was right about only so many biblical details being necessary, he slowly and steadily stepped back. Evrest acknowledged the gesture, subtle as it was, by dropping his hands.
“I…believe you.” Despite the man’s short pause, his tone was sincere. He backed it with a firm nod.
“Thank you.” Though Brick mirrored the nod, he pulled in a steady breath. “Maybe it’s time you also believe that your sister is a grown woman, capable of making a lot of decisions on her own.” He took his turn for inserting a meaningful pause. “I meant what I said earlier. Jayd is an extraordinary person. She’s got a spirit of fire and a mind that can scale mountains.”
“But a heart that can be crushed by pebbles.”
Well, shit.
He kept the grumble to himself, though was too late from veiling it across his face. That was clear as soon as he beheld the I-told-you-so on the king’s features.
“I have heard you, Brickham,” he said with welcome commiseration. “And I also acknowledge the veracity of your testament. All of it. But now I request the same from you.”
While finishing, he turned and strolled toward another part of the suite. The smaller sitting room had a wide window seat, a pair of cushy couches, and a small nook with a mini microwave and a tea preparation area.
Already, Brick figured this was one of Jayd’s favorite spaces. He had all the proof he needed from the small stacks of paperback books at the corners of the seat provided his proof. They looked like a combination of motivational tomes, biographies, and Victorian classics—but all those categories were eclipsed by the number of vibrantly covered paperbacks featuring women in battle leathers, brandishing jewel-encrusted daggers, swords, and crossbows.
Sure enough, after lowering to the cushion and picking up one of the books, Brick scanned a blurb that evoked secret gorgons, a guarded curse, and a girl who battled them beside the enchanted prince of their hidden dark realm. At the same time, Evrest pulled a couple of bottled waters out of the small refrigerator beneath the tea accessories.
“As you have aptly stated, Jayd is very much a woman now,” the king said, offering one of the bottles. “But as you can also see, right in your hand, there are parts of her that remain a girl.”
Brick gave a defined shrug. “I still read Doc Savage novels. And comic books.”
“And often pay triple digits for collector’s items of them.”
Half a profanity spurted beneath his breath before he muttered, “You have done your homework.”
“To the degree that Shiraz has turned a few shades of green over your Venom collection,” the man filled in.
“So are you saying that because my entertainment is expensive, it’s more—what?—grown-up than your sister’s?”
Though the monarch’s beard was well-trimmed, it became a seamless field of black from the taut compression of his lips. “Of course not,” he bit out. “I am only asserting that she has had a quite…tethered…existence.” Swiftly he defended, “Not through anyone’s fault, least of all hers. It simply is what it is, for security and necessity, and has been despite her overseas schooling and extensive traveling.”
Brick didn’t respond. Besides having nothing to add, he caught a new glint in the gaze that contained all the greener shades of Jayd’s opalescent hue. A light that told him Evrest wasn’t actually done.
“While Jayd has indeed chafed at the locks through the years, the fact remains that her…locks…have not been ever been popped off.”
Ohhh, definitely not done.
Brick sputtered on the glug of water he’d finally taken. “Thanks,” he croaked. “Fascinating point.”
Evrest went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “It did not surprise any of us to learn she had likely gravitated back toward…familiar situations. Toward the safety of…constraints.”
Brick barely resisted the temptation to choke.
Thankfully, he thwarted the urge once more. “What happened to certain details getting left off the sibling chat loop?” he challenged.
“As I have already stated—”
“Yeah. Got it. Research. Shit.”
“You had to know everything we would look into, Mr. Brickham, before your plane was cleared to land here. And then again, to greater depths, once Jayd’s…affections…became apparent.”
Brick widened his nostrils, once more hauling in as much air as he could. “Okay,” he muttered. “Fair enough, all the tethering considered. And then once you snapped it together with a rundown of my hobbies…”
“Which are not simply hobbies,” the man countered. “Correct or not?”
Through some twisted miracle, Brick flowed into a new shrug. It felt damn good because he meant it. “It’s nothing Jayd doesn’t know already.”