Page 25 of A Guard and a Gardener

I stopped breathing.

Jiron gave the faintest of sighs as if he found this all very tedious, carefully adjusting his shirt over my hips to ensure I was covered and hidden from the rest of the men. The fussing calmed me; a soothing balm that coaxed my lungs back into life and eased the death grip I had around his neck. He offered a smile and then took a more secure hold on me with his left arm so he could free up his right.

I realised why a moment later when one of Macario’s pet bullies swung a wild punch in our direction. Jiron stepped smartly to the side, caught his wrist with a single hand, and snapped it. The man howled and instantly went down to the floor, cradling his wrist to his chest.

With a yell, his companion threw himself at us, swerving to our left to keep me between him and Jiron’s ability to defend himself. There was something in the man’s hand, metal but dull like the handle of a frying pan or an unforged piece of steel, and I felt the reverberation when the edge of it clipped Jiron’s bicep as he turned into the blow to protect me from being hit.

My giant barely made a sound, even though it had to have hurt.

Glancing up, all I found was a steely determination in Jiron’s gaze. He caught my eye, winked, and then I was jostled slightly as he lifted his leg to kick the man back into the wall. A flurry of movement; two strikes, maybe three, and the man was on the floor, disarmed, and whimpering.

“Jiron!” I cried, spotting Mac looming over his shoulder with the sword drawn from its sheath. My arms tightened around his neck, fearing my warning had come too late. But Jiron was already moving, spinning towards where the hall gave way to the stairs so he had room to correct his footing.

Macario followed, swinging the sword at us with a furious growl and a flash of steel – only for his arm to be effortlessly batted away by my man.

There was a clatter as the blade landed on the tiles, and the two men shared equally pissed off glares before Jiron’s hand shot out and wrapped around Mac’s neck.

Competence is fucking sexy. I’ll not have anyone tell me otherwise. And the sheer sexiness that Jiron exuded as he swungMac out over the stairwell’s edge and held him there by the throat...all while still carrying me? I almost swooned.

I was also terribly glad that I was not the kind of man who could get worked up while scared, because otherwise I might have come right then and there.

Macario’s fingernails scratched desperately at Jiron’s hand, his legs kicking uselessly in the air. How had I ever thought to compare them? My ex-lover hadnothingon Jiron: not his size, not his talent, not his generosity of spirit that had made him put himself between me and my dangerous problems without an ounce of hesitation.

The other men got to their feet slowly, assessing the scene. One cracked his neck.

“Mac has no money to pay you,” I told them from Jiron’s arms. When they scoffed, I shook my head. “Why would he need it so desperately from me if he did?”

They eyed each other uncertainly before glancing at Macario, who was still hanging from my giant’s grip. And then they disappeared down the stairs without another word.

“You would dare hurt Wyatt?” Jiron growled at the man he held. “Rest assured, I will do worse to you in turn, Aiza.”

His fingers must have loosened, for Mac’s desperate noises turned from heaving attempts to breathe to garbled pleas for mercy, and his hands were now clutching Jiron’s wrist to avoid being dropped onto the stone floor a dozen feet below.

“Please, Wyatt! Please, I didn’t mean...just tell him to put me down, please!”

I reached up to touch the muscle flexing in Jiron’s jaw. “Don’t kill him,” I said softly.

“I should,” he responded with another of those deliciously feral snarls, but before I could beg him for Macario’s life, he’d already stepped us all backwards. He let go and Mac fell to his knees on the tiled floor, panting and massaging his throat.

“I wasn’t...” Mac gasped, “wasn’t actually going to...”

Jiron shifted me in his arms and Macario flinched at the movement, his arms coming up to shield his head as if from a blow. Looking somewhat amused, Jiron pressed a kiss to my hair and toed the other man’s thigh with his bare foot.

Mac whimpered. “Don’t worry about the money you owe me,” he muttered quickly.

“Wyatt owes younothing,” Jiron said, his voice sharp and commanding. “But now, you owe him your life. Come near him again and you’ll lose even that.”

Macario nodded and shook his head all at once in a frantic discord of movement, pushing to his feet and scurrying away down the stairs.

I pressed my face to Jiron’s chest and felt his heart thrum reassuringly against my cheek. It was impossibly fast, at odds with the calmness in his stance and the steadiness of his arms as he cradled me close.

“Would you have actually killed him?” I whispered, needing to know.

Jiron glanced down at me. I wondered if he’d lie to spare my feelings, if he thought me as emotionally weak as others did just because I avoided conflict and tried to see the good in the world when they’d long given up.

But he nodded. “Yes,” he said simply. “For threatening you? Absolutelyyes.”

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