Page 97 of Bound

It wasn’t working.

Because he wasn’t going crazy.

On the other hand, he wasn’t going crazy. And yeah, in this moment, that was really as scary as it sounded.

“Christ had crackers.”

“In bed. With cheese squirts on top.”

Or maybe the crazy was so deep in here, those two dorks had joined him in wading through it.

Few other things could explain him wanting to hug them and smack them down at the same time. He ordered those bickering instincts to join the other demons that were already skirmishing in his psyche.

Carris was down, which meant he could get to his Pixie. But that meant garnering the goodwill of the woman still cuddling with the old crossbow, still looking like she was going to aim a bolt for him next.

The woman he still gawked at like a ghost had materialized from thin air.

Because visual backup from his boys or not, that had to be the case.

In his life, he’d trained for a lot of batshit circumstances. That included walking through actual bat guano. But his instincts had nothing for him now.

“Fuck me to Christmas.”

Dollars to donuts, that wasn’t the right thing to say either. But no way was he yanking out an apology. He stood behind every stupefied syllable of it. Yeah, and the flash-banged expression that likely tagged along.

“Brickham?”

But Jayd’s query, soft and shivering, was more jarring than a dozen flash grenades. Even with a loaded weapon still pointed his direction, he was compelled to swing his gaze down, checking on her.

Shit.

His pixie princess looked more like a stomped fairy. Her complexion was wan. Her breaths were ragged. Despite how Carris still snoozed, she was in some real pain. He could already tell that.

“Brickham?” she prodded again. “What is going—”

“You’re supposed to be dead.”

Zeke to the rescue, voicing the charge that couldn’t make its way to anyone else’s mouth. No surprise there, though. In another time and place, the guy had been Luna’s dream date in the Bastille dungeon. But he’d never taken things so far as to add sex to the dynamic, despite every vibe Luna had broadcast to the contrary.

Brick had joined many others in secretly thanking the guy for not going there—in plentiful amounts back then but a thousand times more right now. Talk about a factor that would’ve made this jolt even messier. Not that it wasn’t a giant ball of what-the-fuck already.

“Holy. Shit.” At least Luna relaxed her grip on the weapon. Not to the point of lowering it completely, but at least Brick wasn’t stressing about a rusty bolt through one of his aortas. “Of all the dank caves in all the tiny islands in the world, you clowns decide to walk into mine?”

Zeke matched the woman well in the scowl department. “Not the main issue right now, girl.”

“Depends on where you’re standing, doesn’t it?”

Thankfully, Luna didn’t add a cute twirl of the crossbow as emphasis—though Brick wondered if she was even conscious of the weapon anymore. Distinct emotions now sharded her eyes. Just like her days of hanging out in Bastille, desperately looking for the Dom who would take her away from the world, those violet depths gave away the pain beneath her sarcastic veneer. Wounds that never really seemed to heal, no matter how many times she tried, with so many of the club’s Doms.

Only one guy seemed to be making any headway with the woman—but just as Tait Bommer had made that connection, his team undertook a rogue mission that went horrifically sideways. Everyone got out alive, but only because of a surprise operative in the mix. Luna. In the end, the woman gave the ultimate sacrifice for that effort.

Or so they’d thought.

“So did you bring the whole Scooby Gang this time, or just these two dorks?”

Clearly, they’d thought wrong.

The woman’s fresh ignition of her signature snark wagon gave more glaring proof than if she’d whipped out a giant-sized photo ID. But there was more that gave her away. The scrutiny she tried to disguise with her words. The way she studied every tiny move they made, as if one of them were about to reveal they were hiding more men in their nonexistent coattails.