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Damn it, he’d lost the weapon she’d given him when he’d gone after that guard. There had been no time to look for it, though. At least she had more in her backpack, going by the metallic shifting it always made.
When they came up to the prison cell with the closed mesh panels, he couldn’t stop himself from glancing inside—
Nyx’s shout brought him back to attention.
Shit, he thought as he skidded to a halt. Four guards were lined up in front of them, a uniformed wall of thou-shall-not-pass with plenty of gunmetal in their hands.
The Jackal considered a turn-and-bolt, but there was nowhere to go. Worse, the Command would be returning to these quarters soon, either because the review of the work area was over, or, more likely, because an alarm had been sounded. More backups for these guards were also surely on the way, and Nyx did not have the strength for another protracted battle.
“Gun to the temple,” he whispered. As Nyx’s eyes flared, he bared his fangs. “Put your gun on my temple. Now.”
As she did what he told her to, he addressed the guards. “I want you all to throw your weapons at my feet and go facedown or she’ll shoot me. She’ll fucking do it, and then you’re going to have to explain how you let me get killed right in front of you. Do you want to be the bearers of that news?”
To prove his point, the muzzle of Nyx’s gun, which was still warm and smelling distinctly of discharge, pressed into the side of his skull, right by the corner of his eye.
“No, no,” he warned as the fair-haired guard on the left bent his mouth down to his shoulder, where his communicator was mounted by his epaulet. “None of that. Facedown, right now. Or this is going to get very, very ugly—and not just because my brains are blown out all over the wall.”
As the guards tossed their weapons and lowered themselves, a figure entered the corridor from the fissure that led to the Hive. Whoever it was was draped in black folds from head to foot, and their face was hidden under a hood. They had covered their scent well, too, masking their identity with smells from the prison’s kitchen. Bread. And garlic.
Thank the Virgin Scribe, the Jackal thought as he motioned the wraith down with the hand that was under Nyx’s knees. Kane came quickly.
What a wise, wise male to hide his identity. And as always, the wellbred was on time.
“Hands behind your backs,” the Jackal ordered the guards.
There was shifting on the floor, wrists presented at the small of backs, and Kane moved with the kind of grace only the aristocracy possessed, his lithe body under those folds smooth of stride and stretch— and yet he had a soldier’s practicality and efficiency. Picking up one of the discarded guns from where they’d been thrown, he handcuffed each of the guards with their own equipment in the work of a moment. And in the course of his confining duties, the male also stripped them of their ammo and communicators, as well as a number of knives, creating a pile of equipment by their feet.
When Kane nodded, the Jackal took off once more, holding his precious load as gingerly as he could while he ripped past his dear friend as well as all the incapacitated guards.
“I had the safety on the whole time,” Nyx said as they rushed forth. “Just so you know.”
The Jackal could only shake his head. His emotions were too chaotic to put into proper order, but he suspected, even if he could have parceled them out, he wouldn’t want her to know how much or of what he was feeling.
The fact that he couldn’t have asked for a better partner seemed like something best kept to himself.
As did the reality that he was going to relive her getting shot for the rest of his life.
When Jack brought them up to the fissure, Nyx was ready to get down and hustle on her own. Good thing, because there was no way he could carry her through the tight squeeze. There was barely room for one person to fit through, much less an on-the-chest carry of a gunshot victim.
Not that she was a victim.
Pushing against his shoulder, she peeled herself free of his hold, and she could tell by the way his hands lingered on her waist that he didn’t want to let her go even as her legs accepted her weight. No time to talk. She went directly into the darkness, pressing her body into the narrow, earthen embrace of the fissure—and she did not look back. No reason to. Jack would be behind her. He would back her up. And as she shuffled along, the damp rock scraping over her backpack under the tunic, she was curiously unafraid.
