“Well, it was good.” Nothing missed the scrutiny of his sweeping glower, from the dings in the plane’s bulkhead to the dirt and blood splotches across the floor. “Creator’s filthy balls, Jayd.”
She rocked back with her arms folded. “Well, mince no words on my account.”
Her snark, which usually had her brother smirking, brought her only his darker grimace. “No time for mincing at the moment, since you have deemed it necessary to bring chaos to our front door.”
Nothing sealed the deal on a girl’s messy morning more than even more mess, especially when brought on by her own brother. No. Not her brother anymore. That was the absolute truth now, was it not? The revelation that had made her flee Arcadia in the first place. That has sent her on the wild quest to find the man who had truly sired her.
The mission that had brought them to this painful mess.
And turned Samsyn into a stranger.
It mattered not that Evrest, their eldest sibling, had assured her nothing would ever change as far as he, Shiraz, and Samsyn were concerned. Because it seemingly had. Maybe Syn really gazed upon her now and saw not his little sister, but a half-blood pretender.
She shook her head, refusing to believe it. Samsyn was a warrior who led warriors, not an imbezak who led fools. More than anyone, he should understand that truths were not always what they appeared, even when security camera footage and global headlines declared otherwise.
“He has a name, and it is not Chaos.” She accessed the dredges of her strength to plant hands on her hips. If Syn was in the mood for a brawl, she would be happy to give him at least a verbal version. “This is Maximillian Brickh—”
“I know who he is, damn it,” he growled. “Just like everyone else who has seen the European news feeds for the last hour, wondering why one of their most beloved princesses has made off with a man who stalked her across Paris and then murdered a poor old man before her eyes.”
“None of that is true!”
He grimaced, dropping his nose between two fingers. “I am not the enemy here, Jayd.”
“Really? Could have fooled me.” But her confident fire fizzled fast. “Samsyn? Rerda? Do you not remember talking to me last night? You do not believe any of those allegations for a second, do you?”
As he raised his head, she already knew he had barely slept in the last couple of days. Perhaps the last week. “I know you believe differently, sister. And yes, I also know that you were there for all of it. But the camera footage they have released everywhere…is damning at best, fembla.”
“And at worst?” she retorted. “Samsyn?”
He pushed out heavy air through his nose. “I just need to understand. Why has no one else from the scene come forward and—”
“Perhaps you’d be getting some of those answers for yourself, mister—if you’d cut the ogre act for a minute or two.”
The comeback, flung with feminine snark that Jayd unabashedly envied, was accompanied by a sight she welcomed with as much gratitude.
Brooke Valen-Cimarron made a lithe leap into the cabin, her leggy physique clad in battle gear that nearly matched her husband’s. Jayd wanted to hug the woman but had to rely on an indebted glance toward Brooke. The woman could temper Syn in ways no one else could.
“Damn it, woman. I told you to stay outside and supervise things on the ground.”
Then again, maybe not.
“You mean the near-nothing that’s going on down there?” Brooke gestured to the calm that had taken over the tarmac now that Brickham was on his way to the palais. “Not the way I roll and you know it. But what does fire up my blaster bank? Knowing you were likely in here chapping your sister’s hide before totally hearing her out.” She stepped over, driving a knuckle into Syn’s bicep with wince-wielding precision. “So do it, damn it.”
“A very good idea.”
The endorsement was brandished by Jagger, who had been notably quiet since Samsyn came on board. Syn eyed his lieutenant with eyes turned to slits, resurrecting the competitive energy that sometimes rose between them. Jayd had wondered about that stuff for a while, even exploiting it back in the day when she toyed with a few flirtations with Jagger.
But needling Samsyn had been less important than supporting Jag after she learned his deeper secrets, which were not so subterfuge now. As Jagger stepped forward, he kept one hand firmly clasped with that of Ozias Demos, the obvious center of his world.
“I will stand for Maximillian Brickham on the weight of my honor in Your Highness’s service,” he declared.
“Bloody oath, that,” Oz inserted. “He’s giving it to you straight, mate—ermmm, Highness.” As soon as Syn scowled, the Aussie persisted, “Come on, man. You and I have dined on a lot of dirt in a lot of trenches together. You know this isn’t my sunshine up your anus, Samsyn.”
Her brother growled. “I want nothing from you up my anus, Demos—sunshine or otherwise.”
“Fuck me,” Jayd muttered.
“Creator help us all,” Brooke said at the same time. As soon as she bopped Syn again, he pushed out a heavy sigh.
“Fine,” he gritted. “Set me right, then. I seem to be missing some important details here.” His stare stayed glued on Oz. “You had a safe house secured in Paris, right?”
Oz pulled in a breath through flared nostrils. “Since you were paying the tab on it, you likely already know that answer.”
“So Brickham had one job after he delivered Jayd to that door. To help you keep my sister secure until you were able to arrange a smooth exit out of the city.”
Poor Oz. He was all but squirming in place. “I believe we’re all on that same page, yes,” he said cautiously.
“So why the hell was he dragging her into a bar in Pigalle, well past midnight—”
Jayd stomped forward. “You mean why was he letting me drag him in there?”
“Not a detail that helps his case, fembla. The man was supposed to be sheltering you, not following you to some seedy tavane, where you were fully exposed to every manner of gutter flotsam in the city—”
“You mean like Trystan Carris?”
“Also not helping his case, sister.”
She gritted her jaw. “You know what else would have been bad for his case, rerda? Allowing me to go out to that meeting by myself—because in that moment, I was stupid and desperate enough to believe Louis LaBarre had actually sent that message himself and meant every one of those sweet words. I would have gotten on the train and met that drug-addled lizard in the ghetto, if that is what he asked.”
Oz resolidified his own stance. “Brick made the same call I would have picked. He could’ve tried tying down the princess, along with chaining every window in the apartment, or going with her on the hope that she’d get what she actually came to Paris for.”
For the first time, Jayd was grateful for her brother’s fume. As Syn wound up a comeback, she seized the chance to drop her head and hide every pore that broke out in a furious blush. Okay, Brickham had not officially tied her down, but the reference was still too close for comfort.
And Creator’s toes, how she missed all her lover’s deliberate discomforts…
“Fine,” Syn finally muttered. “The tactical logic makes sense. And there was no way of knowing, given the short notice, how far Carris was willing to slither for this win.”