The Jackal (Black Dagger Brotherhood: Prison Camp #1)(85)

In a loud, clear voice, she spoke over the choking sounds and the thrashing of the robes. “I will fucking kill her. I will snap her fucking neck right now if any of you move.”





As Jack saw Nyx jump forward, he would have yelled at her to stop, but there was no time. One moment, she was standing behind the Command, the next she had her handcuffs around the female’s throat and was hauling back as if her life depended on the Command’s losing hers.

Which was the truth of the situation they were all in.

His female was in a magnificent fury, her eyes glowing with retribution, her body strung like a bow as she strangled her prey. And when she ordered the guards, her voice was like something that had come from on high, from a deity of war. Meanwhile, the Command’s hands clawed at the constriction, her face flushing, her eyes bulging—

Jack’s awareness instantly bifurcated. Part of his brain stayed on the situation before him, his female ahvenging his honor like the warrior she was. The other part was looking at the two faces side by side, Nyx’s right behind the Command’s.

He refused to believe the conclusion he was coming to. But if one disregarded the difference in hair color . . . there was a shocking similarity between the shapes of their faces, the arches of their brows, the tilt of their eyes. They were even the same height, tall for females, and . . .

“No,” he whispered as Nyx continued to bark orders. “It cannot be.”

That was the last thing that came out of his mouth, the last conscious thought he had as everything went to senses and reaction rather than logic and reason: In a strange, slow-motion kind of dreamscape, he noticed from the corner of his eye that Kane was getting to his feet in a wobbly manner.

Kane looked at Jack. Then his eyes went to Nyx.

At that moment, a fresh phalanx of guards jogged onto the platform from the shadows off to the side. As they drew their guns, Nyx’s forehead glowed ruby red from all the laser sights trained on her frontal lobe, but none of the males discharged their weapons.

They couldn’t. The Command was too close, and the two females were moving around.

And that was when Kane, who had been badly beaten about the face and head, stumbled back toward the guards, both those lined up and frozen at attention, and the new ones who were getting up to speed on the unprecedented situation. None of the males paid any attention to him. They were all focused on Nyx and the Command—

So when Kane lifted his hands to the back of his neck, none of them noticed.

Jack opened his mouth. But there was nothing to say. He knew what the aristocrat was going to do—

There was a final moment as their stares met. The sadness in Kane’s eyes was palpable, all that he had lost, all that he had had to endure, coming out of his soul. Then he nodded once, in deference and commiseration—

“No!” Jack yelled.

—as he unclipped the monitor collar.

The instant the contacts were separated, there was a shrill beeping noise that was so loud, it cut through everything. The guards with those laser sights wheeled to the sound and so did the ones standing in formation.

Their shouts of alarm were immediate, and they tried to run, but it was too late.

Jack was looking right at his dear, dear friend as the detonation occurred.

The flash of light was blinding and the energy released so great that it banged Jack against the post. And blew the guards off their boots. And blasted Nyx and the Command off the dais, into thin air. The deafening sound echoed around the Hive, and the shockwaves were so strong that there was a smoky aftermath that lasted either a split second or an entire year, Jack couldn’t tell.

Then the groaning began.

At first, he thought it was the guards closest to where Kane had been, mortally wounded and begging for help. Except a fine mist floated down—no, not mist. It was dust. Dust from the—

The roof collapse started directly over Jack’s head, chunks of the ceiling falling down and landing with thunder, shattering into pieces. He tried to duck—but then he was being lifted up, his feet popping free of the ground, his body falling back as the post he was on lost its verticality. As his vision swung accordingly, he knew the wood trunk was heavy as a car and capable of crushing him—or at the very least mauling his arms and hands, which were chained to its verso—when it landed.

All he could do was brace himself for broken bones—

The ten-foot-tall, three-foot-wide post landed at an angle, his upper limbs surviving, his back cracking like a bat. He had a momentary paralysis—nothing working, not his heart, his lungs, his eyelids— but then he came back to his senses, his vision clearing.

So he got to watch a boulder the size of a fully grown male break loose from the ceiling and head directly for him.

With a holler, he wrenched to the side, rolling the post out of the way—and then he planted his feet and pushed upward, lifting the heavy weight. As more debris fell, he shucked himself off the beam, pulling the chains with him down the stained expanse until they fell free off the bottom. The pile of metal was weighty, and the shackles persistent, but it was a hell of a lot better than the whole tree trunk.

Dragging the links with him, he sought cover by leaping off the stage—

Another great groan from up on the dais announced the collapse of the post Mayhem had been chained to. But there was no helping him. No helping anyone.

Total chaos.

Where was Nyx?