“Leave Brickham out of this,” she charged. “Far, far out.”
“My complete pleasure.”
He emphasized it by raising his arms like a super preacher committing to a hallelujah. He brought them back down to brace his hands on the sides of her little indent in the stone wall. When he added a defined lean, there went her personal space. She had no place to turn now, forced to accept the hot brush of his breath as he pushed even closer.
“But believe me, beautiful girl”—his murmur dipped into a register that reminded her of cockroaches on a butter stick—“fucking me is going to be so much better than your sacrificial duty.”
“Fucking you is what she’ll do over my dead carcass.”
Jayd gasped. At first, the sound vibrated with nothing but jubilant shock. It was the same jolt, connective and explosive, no matter where she was when Brickham re-entered her atmosphere. The power surged down her body and stormed across her mind, even as she struggled to process that the man was actually here. Never had he sounded like this. So violent and vehement. So ready to destroy something. Or someone.
At once, Trystan focused on retaliation. By reaching in and releasing his butter-coated bugs on her.
Before she could let out half a scream of protest, the bonsun pinned her in with brutal grabs at her arms. When she fought to maneuver her legs and kick him back, he drove his booted foot into both her shins.
Her matching yelps were like the double-click on Brickham’s rage button.
He was an earthquake, noiseless but devastating.
He was a volcano, potent and daunting.
He was a tsunami, unwavering and unstoppable.
He took away every molecule of her breath.
Especially when Trystan altered his hold, pulling her out and around in front of him—and she realized there was something worse than being used as the monster’s new hostage.
Something like realizing that earthquake-volcano-tsunamis thought it completely okay to rush their enemies with no weapons but handcuffs.
Giant, dungeon-sized handcuffs.
Which they happened to still be wearing.
The same handcuffs that were turning Brick’s wrists to hamburger as he moved into a deep crouch. As he swung his arms in an insane pseudo-battle stance. As he glared like his curled hands were wielding a battle ax.
Until it became an imaginary scimitar.
The cuffs chinked loudly as Brickham adjusted his pose for the new “weapon.” Jayd could not help her disbelieving shriek. The man’s lagoon swim must have infected him with the go-crazy-or-go-home bacteria. She tried telling him as much, screaming even louder. She had no idea what she looked like. Before now, she had only used this condemning gawk on Samsyn during his stupider stunts.
But Brickham focused solely on Trystan. He was daunting. No longer a force of nature. More like a natural disaster.
Except with the storm doors already locked into place.
No way was he getting out of those shackles soon. The bonds that had started to bloody him. That definitely, certainly limited him.
The sooner she recognized that, the better.
Her mind was cooperative, drinking down the cold grief, but her heart screamed and fought the defeat. It pumped wildly and violently, until her whole body bucked once more at her filthy captor.
“Ohhh my, my, my goodness!” Trystan exclaimed. “Little princess palooza! I never knew you had all this in you. What a fascinating thing to discover about one’s future fuck doll.”
The words were not Jayd’s downfall.
Brickham’s cascade of flammable reactions were.
Screaming his name was no use, even as he barreled straight for them. Balling up her hands and trying to pummel him back was an equal trip to the futility zone, as Brickham swung around and sidestepped to the right.
But Trystan was just as swift on the mark, seeing the headbutt attempt before Brickham could even start it. Jayd was already forced to spin in tandem with him, her feet twisting and her shins throbbing, before they locked down in their new position.
Back to square one. In so many more ways than that.
Like his name pouring off her lips, a pointless attempt to stop him from sweeping to the side. To halt him from prepping for the headbutt that really only worked for guys named Bond, Bourne, and Neo.
But what about blatant fake-outs?
Brickham executed his so smoothly, Jayd was now the jumpy one. She was not conscious of Trystan doing the same thing, though surely that must have been the plan. In his moment of distraction, Brickham found the important chink to expose. In a pair of astonishing seconds, she was hauled off her feet, out of his grip, and clean out of the way—
Just in time to watch Brickham crack the top of his skull to the center of Trystan’s brow.
“Yeeeoowww!” Trystan bellowed.
“Imbezak!” Jayd yelled at the same time. “Creator’s balls, Brickham. What do you think—”
A swoop of dizziness consumed her for too long a moment. ’Twas her own fault, a result of trying to scramble free from the fray. But in the process, she had forgotten Brick’s real size. Her successful effort meant a significant tumble from his massive arms. Thank the saints, a second man was on hand to grab her by the waist.
“Easy, Highness,” said that soldier in a very American baritone. She flashed back a fast glare, withholding her curiosity for the more necessary message of the moment.
“You see the handcuffs he is wearing, do you not?”
The guy returned an intense, ocean blue scrutiny. “He knows what he’s doing, okay?”
“And if he doesn’t, he’s got a bit of backup.” His comrade, the giant with the tree-thick arms, issued that while deftly cracking his knuckles. His neck. His knuckles again.
“And when, exactly, do you two make that call?”
She seethed out enough of it that they knew she was serious. Yes, despite the jaw-dropping number of hits Brickham had already landed on Trystan. She had retained enough from Syn’s fight-like-a-boy lectures to know a combat like this could flip its fortune any second.
Just like it did, before the ink was dry on the thought in her head.
“Brickham!” she screamed. But the awful writing was on the bloody wall.
Literally.
Clearly, Brickham knew more on a tactical level than Trystan could hope to understand. But sometimes tactics mattered not. As soon as Trystan saw an opening for a side-sweep, he took it.
Once Brickham was toppled to his back, the Pura bonsun moved in with a ferocious war cry. Brickham’s two-handed blows were not as effective without gravity’s help. After debilitating Brickham with a well-placed kick to the vulnerable shoulder wound, he knelt on Brickham’s chest and scored a solid jaw punch. Then two. Then three.
He had to be stopped.
He had to be stopped right now.
“Holy shit.” Brickham’s American pals spat it together as she pushed them back and raced across the cavern.
They repeated it, louder and harder, as she launched herself onto Trystan’s back.
She had no preplanned thought. No logical plan. So much for remembering the tactical parts of Syn’s lessons—though something must have stuck, because she dug her teeth into the crook of the bonsun’s neck with a great deal of determined purpose. And savage satisfaction. Oh, especially that.
“Yeeeoowww!”
It occurred to her, while feeling like a she-knight being bucked by a smelly dragon, that Trystan actually had the battle cry of a castrated crocodile.