Page 95 of Bound

But what about blatant fake-outs?

Brickham executed his so smoothly, Jayd was now the jumpy one. She was not conscious of Trystan doing the same thing, though surely that must have been the plan. In his moment of distraction, Brickham found the important chink to expose. In a pair of astonishing seconds, she was hauled off her feet, out of his grip, and clean out of the way—

Just in time to watch Brickham crack the top of his skull to the center of Trystan’s brow.

“Yeeeoowww!” Trystan bellowed.

“Imbezak!” Jayd yelled at the same time. “Creator’s balls, Brickham. What do you think—”

A swoop of dizziness consumed her for too long a moment. ’Twas her own fault, a result of trying to scramble free from the fray. But in the process, she had forgotten Brick’s real size. Her successful effort meant a significant tumble from his massive arms. Thank the saints, a second man was on hand to grab her by the waist.

“Easy, Highness,” said that soldier in a very American baritone. She flashed back a fast glare, withholding her curiosity for the more necessary message of the moment.

“You see the handcuffs he is wearing, do you not?”

The guy returned an intense, ocean blue scrutiny. “He knows what he’s doing, okay?”

“And if he doesn’t, he’s got a bit of backup.” His comrade, the giant with the tree-thick arms, issued that while deftly cracking his knuckles. His neck. His knuckles again.

“And when, exactly, do you two make that call?”

She seethed out enough of it that they knew she was serious. Yes, despite the jaw-dropping number of hits Brickham had already landed on Trystan. She had retained enough from Syn’s fight-like-a-boy lectures to know a combat like this could flip its fortune any second.

Just like it did, before the ink was dry on the thought in her head.

“Brickham!” she screamed. But the awful writing was on the bloody wall.

Literally.

Clearly, Brickham knew more on a tactical level than Trystan could hope to understand. But sometimes tactics mattered not. As soon as Trystan saw an opening for a side-sweep, he took it.

Once Brickham was toppled to his back, the Pura bonsun moved in with a ferocious war cry. Brickham’s two-handed blows were not as effective without gravity’s help. After debilitating Brickham with a well-placed kick to the vulnerable shoulder wound, he knelt on Brickham’s chest and scored a solid jaw punch. Then two. Then three.

He had to be stopped.

He had to be stopped right now.

“Holy shit.” Brickham’s American pals spat it together as she pushed them back and raced across the cavern.

They repeated it, louder and harder, as she launched herself onto Trystan’s back.

She had no preplanned thought. No logical plan. So much for remembering the tactical parts of Syn’s lessons—though something must have stuck, because she dug her teeth into the crook of the bonsun’s neck with a great deal of determined purpose. And savage satisfaction. Oh, especially that.

“Yeeeoowww!”

It occurred to her, while feeling like a she-knight being bucked by a smelly dragon, that Trystan actually had the battle cry of a castrated crocodile.

The thought made it easier to hang on while he writhed again. She kept the cling even when he twisted from side to side, clipping her on each thigh bone with backward-elbow drives. Jayd fought back with her knees, ramming the neighborhood of his kidneys as hard as she could. Since Trystan’s growls were more labored this time, she took heart that she was getting something right—

Until a dozen daggers drove into the right side of her rib cage.

A scream blasted through her mind first. But when it craved an explosion on her lips, no sound cooperated. Her lungs were downed by the blades too.

Her lungs…

What in the name of the Creator…

She dropped a hand from Trystan’s shoulder to investigate. There was not a single knife hilt in her side. So why did every breath feeling like a dissection?