The thought made it easier to hang on while he writhed again. She kept the cling even when he twisted from side to side, clipping her on each thigh bone with backward-elbow drives. Jayd fought back with her knees, ramming the neighborhood of his kidneys as hard as she could. Since Trystan’s growls were more labored this time, she took heart that she was getting something right—
Until a dozen daggers drove into the right side of her rib cage.
A scream blasted through her mind first. But when it craved an explosion on her lips, no sound cooperated. Her lungs were downed by the blades too.
Her lungs…
What in the name of the Creator…
She dropped a hand from Trystan’s shoulder to investigate. There was not a single knife hilt in her side. So why did every breath feeling like a dissection?
The pain consumed her. Drained her strength until she crumpled to the ground.
“Jayd!”
Brickham’s shout, full of more raw wrath she had ever heard from him, blew up the cavern.
“Fuck. Fuck. Jayd!”
“No, damn it. Stay down!” The second yell had her peering around, struggling to connect logic to confusion again. It was beyond difficult with her body still drowning in this bucket of pain, especially because the order did not belong to either of the formidable Americans behind her. Unless one of them had suddenly switched genders…
Wait. She remembered now.
Power Ranger.
The woman had not run away!
The realization brought new stings to Jayd’s eyes—this time in unbridled joy—even as the air over her head became a whirl of frightening zings and metallic tang. But she was certain, had a gun really been fired, they would all be deaf from the awareness.
She had definitely not gone deaf.
Because she heard, with clarity that made her gut clench, the double thwunks of steel driving into firm flesh.
Into Trystan’s body.
Rahmié Creacu, so close to one of the kidneys she had been after.
As she shoved up onto her elbows, she repeated the oath in a stunned whisper. Trystan did the same, nearly at the same time and with the same inflection, until the cruel interruption from his convulsing throat. His groan was naught but ugly harmony and choking resistance. His face was covered in sheer disbelief.
The look persisted even as his knees gave way and blood seeped from the bases of the two crossbow bolts in his side. Soon, the thick red drops were loud splats against the hard clay.
Trystan saw none of it. He shook his head slowly, as if adjusting it to the proper angle would somehow click everything back into focus. Though it was clearly not helping, he persisted. He kept up the effort even while collapsing onto his side. Not once did he rip his dazed condemnation from the woman who stood a good twelve feet away, an old but functional crossbow still secure in her grip.
Trystan reached a trembling hand toward her. She moved not an inch.
He moaned but decided better of it, as a suffering crocodile wheeze took over his breathing rhythms.
She still moved no muscle in her stance.
He opened his mouth, working his jaw as if to form words, but only one long syllable emerged. “Llllluuuuu…”
“Holy. Shit.”
Brickham’s interjection rode nearly the same decibel level. His rasp delayed Jayd’s double-take by several seconds. Moments that proved how seconds sometimes truly counted. The force of nature had already sprung back to his feet and now advanced their way, his prominent features etched in shock.
A lot of it.
“Holy shit,” he repeated, sounding like he had been socked in the stomach with a cannon ball.
As if forcing sound around the edges of that ordnance, he grated, “Luna? Luna fucking Lawrence?”
This time, the Power Ranger did move.
Chapter Fifteen
“What in the living—”
“The living? You sure about that, man?”
Z’s and Ethan’s mutterings were comforting but disconcerting. Brick admitted the first while pulling in a long breath and then fought to dispel the second while whooshing everything back out.
It wasn’t working.
Because he wasn’t going crazy.
On the other hand, he wasn’t going crazy. And yeah, in this moment, that was really as scary as it sounded.
“Christ had crackers.”
“In bed. With cheese squirts on top.”
Or maybe the crazy was so deep in here, those two dorks had joined him in wading through it.
Few other things could explain him wanting to hug them and smack them down at the same time. He ordered those bickering instincts to join the other demons that were already skirmishing in his psyche.
Carris was down, which meant he could get to his Pixie. But that meant garnering the goodwill of the woman still cuddling with the old crossbow, still looking like she was going to aim a bolt for him next.
The woman he still gawked at like a ghost had materialized from thin air.
Because visual backup from his boys or not, that had to be the case.
In his life, he’d trained for a lot of batshit circumstances. That included walking through actual bat guano. But his instincts had nothing for him now.
“Fuck me to Christmas.”
Dollars to donuts, that wasn’t the right thing to say either. But no way was he yanking out an apology. He stood behind every stupefied syllable of it. Yeah, and the flash-banged expression that likely tagged along.
“Brickham?”
But Jayd’s query, soft and shivering, was more jarring than a dozen flash grenades. Even with a loaded weapon still pointed his direction, he was compelled to swing his gaze down, checking on her.
Shit.
His pixie princess looked more like a stomped fairy. Her complexion was wan. Her breaths were ragged. Despite how Carris still snoozed, she was in some real pain. He could already tell that.
“Brickham?” she prodded again. “What is going—”
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
Zeke to the rescue, voicing the charge that couldn’t make its way to anyone else’s mouth. No surprise there, though. In another time and place, the guy had been Luna’s dream date in the Bastille dungeon. But he’d never taken things so far as to add sex to the dynamic, despite every vibe Luna had broadcast to the contrary.
Brick had joined many others in secretly thanking the guy for not going there—in plentiful amounts back then but a thousand times more right now. Talk about a factor that would’ve made this jolt even messier. Not that it wasn’t a giant ball of what-the-fuck already.
“Holy. Shit.” At least Luna relaxed her grip on the weapon. Not to the point of lowering it completely, but at least Brick wasn’t stressing about a rusty bolt through one of his aortas. “Of all the dank caves in all the tiny islands in the world, you clowns decide to walk into mine?”
Zeke matched the woman well in the scowl department. “Not the main issue right now, girl.”
“Depends on where you’re standing, doesn’t it?”
Thankfully, Luna didn’t add a cute twirl of the crossbow as emphasis—though Brick wondered if she was even conscious of the weapon anymore. Distinct emotions now sharded her eyes. Just like her days of hanging out in Bastille, desperately looking for the Dom who would take her away from the world, those violet depths gave away the pain beneath her sarcastic veneer. Wounds that never really seemed to heal, no matter how many times she tried, with so many of the club’s Doms.