“The way you see him, then?” she flung. “Because—what?—you are wiser, worldlier? Because your experiences make you an expert about all men now?”
He jerked his hands out of his pockets. “I am not a seer, sister. Of course I know not everything in the way of men. But I have spent time around more of them than you—and I know what it looks like when a male does not merely desire a woman. I recognize it when he wants to…”
“What?” Jayd demanded when he trailed off for too long. Once more, her air was tight in her chest and her limbs felt slammed into high-voltage chargers. “When he wants to what, damn it?”
“Eviscerate her.” He winced as if hating himself for spewing it. But he did not back off. If anything, the spill emboldened his commitment to the comparison. “’Tis an ugly verity, but a truth all the same. Men like Brickham—”
“You mean Dominants?”
So she could throw him off his game. But not for long.
He quickly recovered from his clutched choke before offering, “You are aware of more than I assumed.”
“Well.” She kept it smooth, cautious about overplaying the preen. “You know what they say about assumptions.”
“Excellent point,” he returned. “Especially because my point has nothing to do with a disposition for the lifestyle.”
Thankfully, he did not go for the obvious gloat either. But Jayd could not summon any demonstrable gratitude. “So your point is about what?”
“Men—destroyers—like Brickham are everywhere.”
Her spine, already a ramrod, stiffened more. Her temples throbbed, but this time she let them. Perhaps they would lend to the intensity of the glare she whipped at his watchful face.
“I am not destroyed, brother.”
Could he not see that it was just the opposite? That because of Maximillian Brickham, she was a woman more aware of her power than she had ever been? More aware of what she could endure and be stronger for it? Braver about the risks she could dream of, the fears she could face—and overcome?
“Not yet, sister.”
No. He did not see that at all. To the point that he did not pause before donning his boardroom scowl while maintaining his soldier stance. That he barreled on, breaking out the words she had not asked for and never wanted.
“You do not see it in him, Jayd—and by the Creator’s scepter, I hope you never have to. I hope that the man has chosen to put your happiness above his hunger, and to leave you with only good memories of all that you have shared.”
And there went her spine again. She was certain her discs were now dust. “His…hunger? For what?”
A similar chill seemed to take over Shiraz’s spine. It was not comforting to witness. “I wish I could say it is a rarity, to witness this kind of thing—but the reason I speak of it so boldly is because I have seen it too frequently.” He filled his lungs with even more weighted air. “There are men who fulfill their military service in darker places than the rest of us. Much darker. In shades of pitch black.”
As he uttered that part, Jayd gulped hard. In her mind, she also saw darkness. The shadows inside a Montmartre Cemetery crypt. In those black depths, she saw Brickham’s terror-stricken face. The place his mind had gone to, so far away from her…
“Go on,” she rasped at last.
“Those men have been to places, and done certain things, that have taken things from them,” he continued. “Stripped out certain parts of their souls. And when they return from those kinds of things…”
“They start looking for those things again,” she filled in.
“Not looking,” ’Raz countered. “Hunting. And then, when finding them, taking. Stripping like they were stripped. Obliterating, just as they were—”
“No.” Jayd flung up a hand. “Not taking,” she asserted. “Not if it is freely given.”
“But to what point?” Though he bit out every word, a strange sheen entered her brother’s eyes. He reached out to fervently cup her shoulder. “When you are depleted, will he stop taking? Will he be able to?”
Jayd breathed hard, not issuing an answer to that. Not because she had none. Because she had too many.
He will never take too much.
He will never deplete me.
Because he will never stop filling me up too.
Unlike anyone will again…
The certainty of it crashed in, sinking her like a cannonball in the sea. She stepped back from Shiraz, but her steps were clumsy and heavy…and flooded with dread.
“Jayd. Please, tupulai. We are just trying to make sure you do not get hurt from all this.”
Too late.
It was absolutely, definitely too damn late for that.
Because he had absolutely, definitely just confirmed the contents of Ev and Brickham’s chat.
Her stomach confirmed that by panging one awful message to her mind.
You need to get out of here. Right now.
But not overtly. Not if she did not want ’Raz ordering a full security detail for her.
“All right…fine,” she stammered out. “I—I understand.”
Thankfully, her brother bought the performance. “Good. Merderim.” He dipped an assuring nod, and even smiled a little. “I know it might not be so easy to do in the next few weeks, but if you need—”
“To use the facilities.”
She was unsure if his hiked brows were due to her rush or her randomness, but it was still the best option she had for an easy escape. She stubbornly stuck to it.
“Fine,” Shiraz said. “I will escort you.”
And why did she not see that from several miles back?
“I know where they are, rerda. Besides, I might be a while. It’s that time of the month.”
“I can wait.”
And why did she also not realize that her brother was the only male on earth not bolting because of that subject?
Damn it.
Fifteen minutes later, ’Raz was proving as good as his word.
Creator have mercy.
Jayd said it, interspersed with some saltier language, as she paced the bathroom’s lounge area to give him the illusion of her continued bonding time with Mother Nature.
At last, she gave in and plunked down on the velvet chaise in the pretty sitting area. Maybe, in this case, doing nothing was doing something. Maybe the bonsun would get equally bored and finally go away. Better yet, maybe someone would call him on the radio, wondering why he was not at his assigned security station.
But there he was still, just outside the door, whistling a really bad version of “Bad Blood.” When he started to insert all the song’s heys too, she curled her knees to her chest and screamed into them.
“Sometimes, brother, it is an act of mercy to leave Taylor Swift alone.”
Shiraz kept whistling. And heying.
She followed her screech with a groan. She was no longer in the restroom. She was trapped in hell. The only missing things were brimstone and darkness.
She jabbed her chin up. Then straightened higher. Then murmured beneath her breath, “Darkness.”
A huge grin bloomed across her lips.
Just before she dragged aside one of the velvet curtains behind the chaise.
At first, it looked like nothing more than the plain wall. But if she knew better…and had remembered some things right…