Page 86 of Diamond Kisses

“You’ve lost a lot of blood.” He swallowed hard, doing his best to hide his fear but drowning in it anyway. “I’ve tried to staunch it. We need to get you to Dr Belford. If she’s even still alive.”

“No. No. No.” I sat up. “I’m fine.”

The room spun around me.

Drunk.

I felt drunk and light and spacey.

Had my food been spiked?

What food?

Ah, so that was the problem.

“I’m just hungry, Paavak. I haven’t eaten in…I can’t remember when.”

“Me too. But I’m not the one who just passed out in my arms.”

“Passed out?” I shook my head. “No, I didn’t. I—”

“It was only for a second. I caught you. You’re okay. Just…stay behind me, alright? Don’t overexert yourself. No running. No murdering. I’ll get you upstairs to the doc somehow. If it’s not on fire. Actually, I should probably get you out of here instead. We’ll find Belford some other way. Shit, that doesn’t matter.” He shook away his scattered thoughts. “What does matter is, whatever direction we take, I’m going to have to fight, and I can’t be worrying about you.” He pinched my chin with shaking fingers. “Promise me you’ll do what I say and don’t get in the way, alright?”

I smirked. “You’re sounding more and more like Henri every day.”

He smiled sadly. “Yes, well…I know who I am, and I’m not him. But…I vow to you if you do what I say, I’ll take you to him. Just keep breathing for me. Keep that cloth tight around your throat, and don’t remove it. I have no idea if it will stop your bleeding, but it might buy us a bit more time.”

“More time?” I struggled to sit up. “I know Victor cut me, but it’s not that deep. Whoever fired that first shot saved my life.”

“That was Stewart. Ben followed. Then the guards they’ve been getting friendly with opened fire.”

“And the explosions that have been going off? Is that really Rachel and Mollie’s handiwork?”

“Carlos got me free when all hell broke loose. He’s the engineer who’s been helping them. He said they gave up on the bleach and household detonations after Victor tortured all those involved and forbade them from ever stepping foot out of the slave quarters unless with a Master.”

“Then how…?”

“The guards have apparently been very generous with their bullets.” He grinned. “Jin, Sadie, Tanya, and Devi—the new girls who didn’t get punished because they weren’t involved in the first rebellion—took up the fight without telling anyone. They made explosives out of gunpowder thanks to Jin’s older brother being a bit of a pyro in his youth and rather good at delayed fuses.”

Another teeth-rattlingboom.

Peter threw himself over me, sheltering me as the chandelier swung wildly and dust rained from above.

The entire citadel of Joyero groaned and shuddered. Almost as if it agreed with Peter that gunpowder was far more effective than flower fertilizer and chlorine. The sprinklers cut off as if the latest explosion had either damaged their plumbing or they’d reached the end of their water reserves.

Someone screamed in the distance.

“We have to help them.” I shoved Peter’s bulk. “Let me up.”

Rolling off me, he clambered to his feet. Holding the handle of the sword as a walking stick, he gave me his hand to help me up.

The moment I slipped my fingers into his, everything I’d been ignoring pounced on me in horrible detail.

I wasn’t just lightheaded from hunger or clumsy from exhaustion.

I was ice,icecold.

Nothing worked quite right.

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