Page 102 of Bound

The seconds in which a gob of strange fears filled Brick as well. Shit that almost brought on the next-level crap. The lungs that refused to work. The mind that switched off. The attack from his own damn nervous system…

But then she opened her eyes, refocused her gaze, and really saw him. And smiled because of it.

And the world was right again.

“Well, hello there, Sir.”

He lifted her hand to his lips again. “Hello there yourself, beautiful.”

Her smile sobered when she glanced to the window, observing the moon and stars reflected by the calm ocean waters. “Damn it,” she whispered. “I did it again?”

Brick bent over, this time to tenderly take her lips. “You’re only one week post trauma, Pixie, with two significantly bruised ribs on top of it. It’ll take time for things to heal.”

A labored breath escaped her lips. It was just as much effort for her to swallow, as he saw when she rolled her head to the side. “But we are running out of time. You know it as well as I do. This is borrowed time, Maximillian. A wonderful dream for us…but a dream nonetheless.”

Brick scowled. He was beyond tempted to add a snarl, ordering her back from the fascinated fixation with the star-covered sky and the moonlight-drenched ocean. But damn it, he was as mesmerized by his view now. Or maybe that was a lame-ass excuse for his actual truth. For the straight-up he knew she’d just spoken, in so many words.

Still, he dipped over her a bit more and whispered, “What are you talking about, sweet girl?”

She flung her head back to center, which caused her thick black spikes to spread against the pillow. From his perspective, in the dim light of the room, the points looked like the tines of an elegant black crown.

They looked absolutely perfect.

She was the queen of the shadows.

Of his shadows.

She lifted a strangely quixotic smile. “Have you ever heard the story about the secret prince of France?”

Huh?

That one was easy enough to stow away before he replied, “Ermmm…no.” Not so easy to quell was the urge to stretch out next to her and then tuck in for some cozy spoonage as she relayed her royal tale.

“I thought perhaps you might have, since his name was also Maximillian,” she began. “He was born in the middle of the eighteenth century, supposably a bastard of King Louis the Fifteenth. But all of that was kept a secret from him at the order of Louis the Sixteenth, until the breakout of the Revolution in seventeen eighty-nine.”

“When the mob seized the records and went after him with the axes?”

His pathetic attempt at levity changed nothing about her faraway gaze. “Well, that was just the thing…”

“What? The mob or the axes?”

“Both,” she supplied. “But neither.”

He arched a brow. “Am I going to need a Schmoop study page for this?”

Again, she went on as if his jibe didn’t exist. “The peasants found his parents and brother with no problems. There are clear records of their executions.”

Well, there was a cue to sober things the hell up. “And the secret prince himself?” he asked quietly. “Where is he in all the records?”

“He…is not.”

She coupled that declaration by raising her gaze back to his. While Brick was eager to accept her offering, he felt like an alcoholic given an empty wine bottle. Her gaze was just as bleak, a shadow queen with no court, her aquas subdued to the shade of turquoise in the rain.

“There are many stories about what happened to him. That he was burned to total ash by a rogue faction of the rioters. That he dressed up as a servant and somehow escaped. That a servant helped him another way, by invoking a gypsy spell that made him vanish from time altogether.”

Brick hiked both his brows. “Well, there’s some originality.”

“Except that it could be just as true as the other theories.” Jayd underlined her point by sliding a hand beneath his with matching emphasis. She curled her fingers up, meshing their fingers with force that made him double-take. The extra squeeze was already causing her grip to quiver. “The thing everyone does agree on is the ending. He disappeared that day and was never to be heard from again—not even when Napoleon restored the château back to the family’s name.” She paused, concentrating on pulling in a stuttering breath. “He simply never came back.”