The Soul of a Rogue (Box of Draupnir #3) - K.J. Jackson Page 0,2
a stop.
And then it did.
She poked her head out the window once more.
“Lady Raplan—open the door—get out to the edge of the carriage.” Just ahead of the team of horses, Rune had twisted on his mount back toward her, screaming, waving his arm to the side. “Now! Open it and be ready.”
Ready? Ready for what?
Her look flickered off of him and she saw it. Three men on horseback set along the roadway in a wall blocking their path. All with pistols drawn. Two aimed at Rune. One aimed at her driver.
She looked behind them. Not another soul on the road, no one to help them.
The carriage shifted to the side, then bounced, her footman jumping off the back of the carriage.
The Box of Draupnir.
Her hand flew down to the deep pocket in her dress, feeling the hard corners of the box under her skirts.
She wasn’t but a day away from Seahorn. The box couldn’t have possibly cursed her so soon—curses didn’t work like that, did they?
Who was it that Des had said was after the box? A man named Hoppler that had sent his thugs after Des’s friends, Weston and Laney—almost killing them—when they had brought the box to Seahorn.
That man couldn’t possibly have been following them the entire day without Rune realizing it, could he? Maybe Rune wasn’t as strong and smart as Des thought he was.
More shouting. So slurred she couldn’t make out a word. The low rumble of Rune’s voice. Vicious wrapped in a veneer of calm.
Crack.
The boom of a pistol cut into her ear, slicing across her brain and spinning, whirring inside her skull. Splintering the world around her. Dragging her down.
No.
Not again. Not another bullet. Not more blood.
A scream—she guessed of the driver—echoed in her ears. Fading. Fading far away.
Fading until she couldn’t hear it anymore.
She was losing it. Losing space. Time. The world slowing. Turning to black.
She had the vague sensation of falling to the floor of the carriage, of her limbs pulling inward.
And then nothing. Nothing around her. Nothing in her mind.
Nothing.
{ Chapter 2 }
Blast the woman.
He’d yelled at her to get ready and instead she’d shrunken into the bowels of the carriage. Not ready.
Not ready by far.
He could have already turned and yanked her onto the horse and been riding far away from this scene by now.
One simple order and the chit couldn’t follow it.
Rune never should have volunteered for this mission. Not when he saw exactly what Lady Raplan was. Nothing more than a coddled lady of the ton, tickled by the thought of a grand adventure.
She hadn’t understood for a second the possibility that she would be teetering between life and death by holding onto that box.
Yanking free the two loaded pistols from under his coat, he trained one on the cur to his right and the other one on the thug to the far left. The one in the middle had his arm raised, his pistol still aimed at the coachman he’d just shot.
Curse it. He’d warned the three thugs to turn around and run. Fair enough. Rune hadn’t wanted it to come to this, but the idiot in the middle had just panicked and shot.
Ignoring the screams of the driver, Rune’s right finger squeezed the trigger, sending a bullet into the shoulder of the scoundrel on the right. The man fell from his horse, hitting the ground hard. His weapon discharged, sending a shot into the woods and his horse scurrying, running free.
Rune afforded a glance to the screaming driver behind him, doubled over and holding his arm. The man wouldn’t die unless the wound became infected. Small favor.
The footman’s heavy footsteps clomped to a stop next to Rune’s horse, his eyes skittish on the band of men, a pistol in his hand.
“Train your barrel on the middle one,” Rune barked. “I have the left.”
The footman extended his arm, a quiver shaking through his hand.
Devil take it—the last thing he needed was a trembling footman.
He eyed the man on the left, his unspent pistol still aimed at him, and his voice dipped into controlled rage. “Collect your man and go. You’ll not win this.”
The man sneered. “I will when the rest of my riders are here.”
Shit. True or not, Rune wasn’t taking that chance.
Without a second glance, he pulled the trigger, sending a bullet into the man’s shoulder. Unnecessary, maybe. But the ass had just irked him.
The man didn’t fall from his horse, but jerked backward, halfway off his mount, his feet caught in the stirrups with his