Thankfully, Brooke chuckled on behalf of them all. “Yo mister…you mean an ant, right?”
“Ants?” Samsyn jolted as if she told him a velociraptor had landed behind him. “What? Where? Are they the big red fuckers? Damn it, Brooke. Where?”
As Brooke gave her husband a calming hug and a full explanation of his misquoted song, Jayd yearned to indulge the same laughs as everyone else. Instead, her belly twisted tighter and her head ached worse. She hated this. Hated how her damning secret was reducing her big, bold brother into a stress ball who freaked about ants.
It was not fair. Nor acceptable.
Conclusions that lent new boldness to her tongue.
“All right. What if we took discretion out of the picture? I mean it,” she insisted, knocking back at Syn’s incredulous glower. “What if we just stopped all this silly secrecy and beat the Pura at their own game? Right now?”
Amazing, how her brother could narrow his stare but pack a harder wallop with it. “By doing exactly what?”
“You know what,” she countered. “By breaking the news ourselves.”
His expression got darker. Struck back harder. “Are you fucking fougin?”
“Seriously?” Brooke’s new stance was just as stubborn. “She might be the only one who isn’t. Just lock down the frown, Cimarron, and listen to her for a second. Is it that crazy to think about taking back the control on this from the Pura without flying bullets? I mean, do you think those assholes aren’t already expecting you to storm their bunkers? So that means they’ve already stowed the originals of their documents in other places. So guess where that lands everyone after you’re all done taking target practice at each other?”
“Sounds like square one to me.” Ozias offered the sanction, though he embellished it with a deferential shrug. “Not that I don’t enjoy a good brass-up from time to time. But in this case, seems the dirty laundry on open hangers is better than leaving it in the closet to grow mold.”
Syn scrubbed a hand down his face. “And if that dirt strips my sister of her title? What about her standing in the palais? In the hearts of the whole kingdom?”
Jagger weighed in with his own rough grunt. “And I thought the Palais Players were the only melodramatic ones.” His sanguine smirk took over fast enough. “With all due respect, Highness, Jayd’s place in her people’s heart is secure.”
“And you know this fact?” Samsyn challenged. “Had time to do a casual poll while you were out and about in Paris these last few days?”
“I simply know that your citizens are not fools. None of this was Jayd’s direct fault, and surely the Arcadian people would understand that. They would listen if you explain things and are transparent about the story. Creator’s toes, she has been as blindsided by this as you, Ev, and ’Raz. As for her rightful place in the palais, or even as a legitimate Cimarron princess anymore, I cannot say. There are likely some official policies about all that…”
“There are,” Syn inserted. “In dusty old books, as fragile as the dead bones of their creators.”
“More outdated rules than the Pura is fighting to uphold,” Jagger groused.
Samsyn tilted his stare back at Jayd. “Right now, if we went public about this, you would have to move out of the palais. Your crown, and all its privileges, could not go with you. You would become a commoner.”
“Albeit a well-loved one,” Jag reiterated.
Jayd emulated her brother’s pose, without his growly tone. “Actually, that sounds quite lovely.”
“Fuck,” her brother spat. “Creator help me.”
And there went her concerted effort to be nice. “I think the Creator needs your breath for assistance on better matters,” she volleyed. “In case it has missed your attention, I got all the way to Paris and survived there without you for more than a day. Without Ev, ’Raz, or a hundred keepers, either. ”
“And have returned with a criminal within an inch of INTERPOL’s watch list.”
“His name is Maximillian Brickham.” Now she was done trying to be civil, as well. “And if you call him a criminal one more time, I shall remind you of the truth by carving it across your testicles.”
She could have declared she was piloting the plane back to Paris and get a less stunned stare from Samsyn. Though he had always been more demonstrative than Ev or ’Raz, the reaction was more than she expected and doubly satisfying to savor.
Good thing she did, since the moment was over as soon as Brooke interceded again. “As a high-stakes interest holder in the future of those gonads, I’m calling recess on you both.” She clamped a hand over the ball of Syn’s shoulder. “Big Cimarron, it’s time for some rest.” And then over Jayd’s. “Little Cimarron, same for you.” Her gaze swung to Jag, Oz, and Requiemme. “And you three, as well—but Emme, only after the infirmary rechecks your knee. What the hell happened, anyway?”
Requiemme Farre, the lady’s maid brave enough to accompany Jayd on her quest to Paris, gave Brooke a jittery smile. “A long tale, Your Highness.”
A very long tale.
Four quick words that stood for eons of events and a thousand different meanings. Not even a week had passed since her life had been upended, but Jayd felt years older. Like she had returned home as a new person.
In many ways, she was.
In one important way, she definitely was.
But for now, that was her secret alone. No matter how badly she wanted to sit down with Emme or Jag, or maybe both, and confess about every beautiful, passionate moment she had shared with Brickham, her life was still perched on shifting sands. The man who had taken her to the stars was now riddled with bullets. He had followed her into a trap, yet her own brother was ready to lock him in the palais dungeons. He had saved her life, only to have his hunted by half the world.
And the bonsun responsible for all of it was still roaming free.
She had to fix this.
She would fix it.
She had no idea how, but she was positive about one place to start. Certainly not arguing with her brother in the middle of the Sancti tarmac. Wrong place, wrong time.
And in so many ways, the wrong brother.
After faking acquiescence with Brooke’s demand for detente with Syn, she waited until Emme was loaded into a non-emergency medical vehicle and then climbed into a smaller van with Jag and Oz.
Only then, alone in the car’s back row, did she finally slip out her phone. The battery indicator was reading red, but she prayed the power held out long enough for her text to reach Evrest.
Can we please talk? As soon as possible?
Chapter Two
Max Brickham rarely remembered his dreams. That was probably by choice, since most of them wound up being nightmares. As a result, he’d trained his mind to ditch its subconscious adventures the second he woke up.
But this slumber sojourn wasn’t going to go gently into the good night. Not by a fucking longshot.
He was holding Jayd Cimarron. The woman who, in the space of one night, had etched herself deeper into his psyche than any female with whom he’d tiptoed into more extended arrangements. By extended, he meant longer than a month. And arrangements were in the form of paper contracts with club submissives who understood he’d focus on them inside Bastille’s walls only. Seattle was a major city, but the kink world was a smaller universe inside it. Bleeding boundaries weren’t his thing.