Page 89 of Bound

Because of the way those feet halted in the center of this miniature armory, purposefully pivoting until their owner completed a rotation back to his original spot?

“Your Highness Jayd?”

Creator’s sweet toes. Back to her original spot.

“Damn it. You’ve got to be in here! If so, then I really need to know.” Ohhh, yes. The underground interloper was female, speaking in a smooth feline alto. “I mean no harm. I promise you, I’m here to help you. I swear it on my maimanne’s memory, may she have ease in the everlasting.”

Jayd had already sworn not to trust this stranger with her pinky finger, let alone the emergence of her whole self from the nook behind the armor, but then the woman husked out the last of her pledge. The answering pangs of Jayd’s heart provided the courage to slip all the way back out.

“I…am sorry about your maimanne.”

The woman turned with grace that matched the purring undertones of her voice. Though the overall action was dancer sleek, her gaze was the exact opposite. She studied Jayd like a creature nearly possessed, her irises swirling with psychedelic shades of purple. Jayd was so fascinated in return, she forgot to be uncomfortable. It was not a wise call. Logic said as much, but she could not stop her innate curiosity.

Who was she?

Instinct supplied key details. If the woman was Arcadian, that would be the shock of the night. Her accent and black battle gear seemed distinctly American, down to the daggers and pistol in custom sheaths at her waist, but her feline movements evoked a European model about to walk a Paris runway.

Complicated. She seemed very complicated—and most unique.

Thoughts that vanished as soon as Jayd spotted the distinct tattoo beneath the stranger’s left ear.

It depicted an eagle in flight, though the bird’s wings transformed into lotus leaves.

It shot instant, enduring pains through her chest.

Horrific nausea through her gut.

Most of all, a thousand layers of disgust at her all-too-trusting heart.

She had been played—by a witch’s awful spell. By a bald, blatant play for her sympathy. Swearing on her mother’s ease in eternity? Who did that?

Monsters who had the Pura emblem tattooed on their necks, of course.

“Yaleur,” she spat, stumbling back. “Liar. Get away from me, Pura scum!”

The woman moaned. The emission sounded…frustrated.

Frustrated?

“Shit.” She smacked a hand over the side of her neck as if merely punishing a mosquito. “Okay, listen to me. This isn’t what you may th—”

“Damn right it is not,” Jayd spewed back. “Nor will it ever be!”

“Your Highness. Jayd. Will you let me expl—”

“I said stay away from me!”

Too late. Sweet Creator, she was too pitifully slow by half, unable to flinch back as Miss Pura Power Ranger caught her by a wrist and held tight, forcing her to stay put. And likely, after this was all over, to relinquish her rights to Ripley in Jagger’s nickname catalogue.

If the Pura would ever let her see Jag again.

“Boopsy girl, we don’t have a lot of time here. You’ve got to grab some chill and let me talk.”

Jayd’s arm went slack. She blink-blinked at the stranger, battling a new and bizarre thought. The woman was being…sarcastic. Puras were allergic to humor. She also used vernacular that Jayd had never heard from a Pura. For that matter, from any Arcadian.

That anomaly explained nothing. The woman still bore the mark of the bonsuns who wanted to rip Arcadia apart. She was still armed and on the loose, sneaking around in tunnels beneath the palais.

And for how long now?