“But they are not your maimanne and paipanne?” Jayd queried.
“Not according to the woman to whom I was finally introduced.” She stuck out her arm and swiped at the digital watch on her wrist. After two determined taps, a photo took up the screen. One swipe later, the device blasted the image onto the cave’s wall.
The photo of a semi-smiling Luna, her arms draped around a woman who could nearly be her sister.
“Damn.” Ethan and Brick muttered it together.
“What the hell do they put into the water around here?” Zeke added.
Luna rocked back, emulating her expression from the photo. “My maimanne is pretty awesome.”
“And…familiar.” Though a stitch in Jayd’s side broke up her voice, she was confident about the assertion. After an unsuccessful attempt to push to her feet, she stated, “She seems so familiar to me…but I cannot recall… Oh!”
The burst spilled from her as soon as Luna swiped her watch again.
There was another image of the dark-haired beauty who’d just been smiling in her daughter’s arms.
The woman was younger in the second shot. She was also standing by the side of an elegantly attired royal. After a few moments, Brick recognized the woman in the ornate clothes and sparkling tiara.
Queen Xaria.
With a somber look, Luna tapped her watch to kill the picture on the wall. With the same demeanor, she turned to fully face Jayd. “My mother, Elarah Lawke, was your mother’s closest confidante for years.”
At once, Jayd compressed her lips. Darkened her gaze. Dropped her hands into taut balls. “And the bitch who sold those tapes to Fortin and Trystan.”
Luna hiked up her chin. “No. The woman who was blackmailed into giving the tapes over—on top of other palais secrets those cocksuckers ordered her to fetch for them over the years.”
Jayd spurted a sound that started as a bitter laugh but ended as an agonized grimace. Again, Brick winced along with her. All of her actions and reactions were evidence of at least one cracked rib, but her pain billowed from deeper places right now. Places reflected in every new clutch in her throat and hitch of her shallow breaths.
“Why do I find it impossible to believe a word of that?” she finally spat.
“And why do I believe every last syllable?” Ethan said.
“Yeah,” Zeke uttered. “Me too.”
As they rendered the conclusions, Brick carefully watched Jayd.
She wasn’t happy, that much was clear. But her composure, regal and guarded, gave him hope that his tongue wouldn’t be ripped out when he offered his own take.
“She was blackmailed,” he reiterated. “And it worked—because you were the assholes’ bargaining chip.” He knew he’d hit the truth gong before watching it reverberate across Luna’s face. “They were likely watching you for years, probably as far back as your romps with dickwads like King and Mua—”
Z’s low snarl signaled his takeover on the narrative. “You mean until their slave girl candy store got shut down when they superchipped the wrong soldier? Yeah, sorry not sorry, kids.”
Ethan expelled a snort as proxy for a nod. He looked at Luna, whose complexion rivalled Jayd’s for drained color. “Those bastards had probably already collected a down payment from the Pura for you.”
“So I figured.” Luna emulated his rough sound. “But nothing like an indie contract with the FBI to fuck with a few well-laid bad guys’ plans for a while.”
“Just a little thing like that.” Ethan huffed out a smirk. “By the way, just to make it official from me, thank you. Everything you did that day was—”
“Uh-uh.” Luna swept up a firm hand. “We’re not going there right now, okay? You all don’t have the time for mush breaks.”
“She’s right,” Brick inserted. “We all need to beat feet before consciousness knocks again for Sleeping Shithead.”
As if his head jog toward Carris extended an actual bonking stick, the bastard grumbled, moaned, and fluttered his eyes.
“Hrmmm. Fuckkk meee. Whaaa…”
As if a grenade had been chucked into the cave, everyone moved at once.
Zeke, already pounding up the tunnel to run a safety recon for them.
Jayd, using her feet to scuffle farther away from Carris.
Brick, lunging over to scoop her up as best as he could in spite of the damn shackles.
Ethan, pushing the other direction to reach for Luna’s hand.
But Luna, already circling back to gather up the crossbow again.
“Go,” she ordered, already reloading a bolt and pointing it down at Carris. “Do. It. Now!”
“What the hell?” Ethan gritted.
“Goddammit, Luna!” Brick spat.
“No.” But his pixie got the award for the best version. “By your nipples and mine, Luna Lawrence. No!”
Yeah, that part pretty much cinched it.
If only Luna was that attached to her nipples too.
But everything about her return glare at Jayd, with lips parted and violet eyes ignited, said she was ready to give up even more than that.
Why? Brick barely held back from bellowing it aloud at the woman. There was a difference between stubborn and stupid. Fuck him six kinds of sideways, why was she opting for the latter?
The same question was painted across Jayd’s features as she turned back to Luna. It developed into a pleading wince, which Luna mirrored. Brick looked on, stunned by seeing so much vulnerability across the woman’s features. Though Luna had been through hell and back, the last three years had actually tenderized her in some ways. Many more than in all her sessions in the dungeon combined.
But when her take-no-shit mask returned, it did so with unforgiving vengeance.
“Get out of here, damn it,” she ordered, specifically to Jayd this time. “I’m sorry. I really am, okay? But I can’t go with you now, girlfriend.” She cocked her head back, as if willing tears to the back of her skull. “It was stupid to think I ever could.”
“No.” The word was a renewal of vehemence from Jayd. She clutched at her ribs with one hand while beseeching toward Luna with the other. “Please!” she begged fissuring Brick’s heart in new places. “We cannot just leave you here!”
“You can,” the woman asserted. “You have to, okay?”
“But I believe you now. I do. Truly!”
“I know, Your Highness.” Another head shake, though slower this time. It was a motion of deep decision. Of firm resolve. “I know.”
“Then why—”
“Pixie.” Brick issued it as an order more than anything, attempting to wrap her in a weird but comforting hold. But the whole time, his gaze stayed locked with Luna’s. He saw everything about her, right in those brilliant violets. Her strict mission. Her grim purpose. Her soul-deep commitment. “We need to go now, Jayd. I’m not asking.”
He tugged on her harder, giving her form some momentum so he could fully pick her up. Jayd let out a sharp yelp, abandoning her royal control in favor of trying to punch out his ear drums with her fierce frustration. She already drove in the point by socking a fist to the middle of his chest.
“I already said I’m not asking,” he growled while turning for the exit. “Now don’t make me throw you over my shoulder too.”