He’d bled a lot for Jayd already. Outside and in.
And holy fuck, how he craved another hemorrhage.
So in his dream world, he clutched her too damn tight and too damn close. He kept doing it, even knowing they were about to say goodbye for once and for all. The wind was warm but sharp across Bourget’s tarmac, making her huddle closer against him. He gripped back, inhaling the mist and myrrh of her hair, the honey and amber of her skin.
Fuck.
He had to fight the pull of her. Needed to keep his shit together. He’d already been through this a thousand times. This was no different than muting his growling stomach while hiding from the Seattle truancy teams or pretending he didn’t care about sleeping outside when Cashmere and Zelda had clients for the night. Like then, he forced himself to remember the same ancient adage.
It could be worse.
Except now, with his pixie’s whisper at his neck. With her little body in his arms. With her arms latched so desperately around him.
Worse didn’t feel so far away anymore. It was right the hell here, in the heaviness of his heart and the pain of each breath.
That was before the dream became a nightmare.
With the lights and the noise, the shouts and the blasts. And then—
Oz?
It was Demos all right, yelling something about Christmas. And juice.
Things were muddled after that. Jayd disappeared. He heard her voice, but that was it. He was lost. No. Worse. He was lost and lachrymose. And shit, did his head hurt. But that pain wasn’t as awful as the anguish. It was overwhelming…
Until the next bizarre cameo in his head.
Asha was there.
What the hell?
The girl didn’t look anything like he remembered. She was no longer lying in the Afghanistan cave in which they’d been imprisoned. Her big brown eyes were happy, not fading from the wound she’d gouged into her own chest.
He reached for her but couldn’t seem to get near. That didn’t seem to upset her, so he chilled out too. Suddenly, they were above ground in Bamiyan, and they were going over the plan for how he’d smuggle her out of the shithole. She was thanking him for the hundredth time, and he was telling her to save it until they got to the other side.
She replied with words that made no sense.
But Brickham… I am on the other side.
He shook his head, baffled by what she meant.
I am here and I am happy, all right? And you do not have to worry about me anymore.
But he did exactly that. Still consumed by confusion, he lunged for her again. She’d already disappeared. The chaos and noise were back again. And the pain. Holy fuck, the pain.
Bourget. He was on the tarmac at—
But he wasn’t.
He was in a plane, but then not. He was on a stretcher, but then not. There was on a tarmac at some point, but Paris was no longer on the horizon. There were palm trees and flowers and an ocean…
What the hell?
What the hell?
What the—
“Hell?”
He jolted as if someone had dunked him in ice water. He jerked his eyes open, only to slam them shut just as fast.
“Shit!”
Light. Once more, way too much of it. But it was accompanied by a breeze that smelled like a trip to Fantasy Island. Palm trees and freesia, ocean salt and cloves. Damn. If Asha had really been walking him up to heaven, the place smelled better than he’d anticipated.
It looked different too. A lot different.
After several heavy blinks, attempting to moisten the three-ton potato chips doing service as his eyelids, he was able to focus on his surroundings.
Not a tarmac.
He was in a bedroom. A damn fancy one. Not the-sheik-on-steroids kind of fancy. More like old money meeting new but not needing to broadcast that fact. None of it matched the medical monitoring equipment to which he was tethered in several places. But he didn’t linger long on the anomaly. There was still a hell of a lot to figure out here. Or so he’d try.
He was resting against a dozen downy pillows in a bed that could easily accommodate a Hummer. Maybe two. The thing’s four posts were wrapped in flowy white fabric that matched the drapes in front of the massive windows, waving gently with the crisp wind off the water. To his left, a wide stone archway led to a stone balcony with bougainvillea-wrapped columns. Beyond the balustrades was an endless ocean, looking like blue satin encrusted with a million diamonds. As if on cue, a pod of dolphins cavorted by.
At once, an important recognition hit.
He’d been asking the wrong question. No way could this be hell.
Then where exactly was he?
“Ah. You are awake. Thank fuck for small miracles.”
Maybe he’d tossed off that hell theory too fast.
Between the mountain of a human who stalked into the room and the take-no-prisoners look across the guy’s formidable features, that much was adding up just as quickly. And much too accurately.
“Define awake.”
He felt safe enough about rasping the jibe, which was only half a joke. He’d been beat to a pulp on many occasions, for reasons both noble and nasty, and felt only slightly worse than this. He was fairly certain that wasn’t the case this time, though the exact details were fuzzy. Logic wasn’t giving him any hints. He was housed like a sultan but being glared down like a convict.
Shit…
“Fair question,” the giant muttered, bypassing a couple of nearby chairs to reposition himself at the foot of the bed. Of course. Establishing more control by maintaining his elevation. “Since my surgeon dug three bullets out of you just as many days ago.”
“Three bullets? Just as many d—” He choked, reaching for a cup of water on the plastic tray nearby. After glugging the liquid, he managed, “Okay, what the actual fuck?”
The hulk barely flinched either brow. “What is the last thing you remember?”
Brick ignored him with matching intention. “Three days,” he muttered. “Shit.”
“What do you remember?”
“Okay, okay. I heard you.” But could he trust the stranger? The inquisition certainly wasn’t small talk. Then again, he wasn’t even cuffed to the bed. Maybe the guy already knew that moving more than an inch was like inviting a thousand knife throwers to take target practice through his gut. And his left arm. And his head. Damn it, his head.
But he had to try the whole remembering thing. For both their sakes.
“Paris,” he stammered. “Yeah. I was there…helping a friend out.”
“Ozias Demos.”
He took a chance on lifting his gaze, grimacing against the ruthless glint off the sea. “That’s right.” No harm in declaring what the guy obviously knew.
“He asked for your assistance in locating Princess Jayd Cimarron.”
Jayd.
It killed him, physically and mentally, to keep his reaction sheathed this time. So help him God, if this dickhead was in cahoots with Trystan Carris and had handed her into that asshole’s hands…
“You care about her.”
He didn’t waste more seconds playing dumb. It’d only piss off the not-so-jolly giant, and he still had no idea who the fucker was. Worse, who he was working with or for.
“She was the asset. I found her. That’s it.”
“Bullshit.”
Brick chuckled. Good Christ, it hurt. “Oh, goodness me. Thank God I don’t have any state secrets to spill. Ooo, you’re so big and frightening, I might just tell you everything.”