The Steel Rogue: A Valor of Vinehill Novel Page 21

  No, what worried her was the green white pus that continued to leak out of his leg. An infection set so deep to his bone, it was sucking the life out of him minute by minute, second by second. The fever that raged from it, never letting the sweat on his brow ease, never ceasing the delirium that had seized him.

  Sometimes his words were here, in their time. Sometimes they were from his youth, when it was he and Logan and Sienna.

  She was never sure from where or when his words would mutter.

  The ship pitched to the side and she lurched over him, grasping onto the wooden rails of the bed to hold both her and Roe in place.

  He roused under her and she waited until the ship regained equilibrium before she pulled up, settling back into the spot on the side of the bed where she’d worn an indentation into it during the last seven days.

  They’d left the Port of Bilbao that same night, the glowing wreckage of the warehouse a distant speck she could see for the longest time through the stern windows in the captain’s quarters. It was one of the few times she’d looked up from this bed in the last week.

  Roe’s body moved, jerking, and she grabbed his hand, clutching it between her palms. “Shhh, Roe. Shhhh. ‘Tis nothing. Just a storm tossing the ship about.” She doubted he knew they were on a ship—the Soteria, part of a fleet owned by Reiner—but she was also convinced Roe was going to come back to her, so she was only talking to him as she normally would.

  He stilled for a moment and she held her breath, wondering if her words were enough to ease him back to sleep or if he would wake up in the current time or in the past.

  “Tor?” His lips parted, his words croaking through his raw throat. His eyes opened, his look blank, unfocused. “Where—where are you? I can’t see you.”

  She swallowed a gasp. He could see her hours ago—he wasn’t lucid, but he could still see her, recognize her.

  Her fingers tightened around his hand. “Roe, I’m here. I’m here, next to you.”

  His head shook slightly, his eyes seeing nothing. “Where are you? Why can’t I see you?”

  She choked back a sob, silencing the wail that threatened behind it. He wouldn’t hear it. Wouldn’t hear the horror in her breath, in her voice.

  He would only hear strength. He would only hear her unyielding belief in him.

  Her left hand reached up and she smoothed strands of his dark hair away from his temple. “I’m here, but you can’t see me right now because you’re not supposed to. You’re supposed to be fighting, not searching for me.”

  His eyes closed and he stilled. For a moment that lasted an eternity, he looked to stop breathing. His next breath came in a quivering gasp. “Fighting what?”

  “Fighting for the next breath.” She suffocated another gasp in her throat. “I need you to do that—it’s the only thing I need you to do. Just keep breathing. Breath after breath after breath.” Her hand went flat along his forehead, his skin burning her palm. She held it in place, trying to take the heat from him. Her hands were always so damn cold, so why did they fail her now?

  She leaned in, her voice next to his ear. “I know you can do that for me, Roe. Keep breathing. Do that, and I will take care of the rest.”

  “Tor?” A question, as though he hadn’t heard her.

  “I’m here. Right here, Roe. Feel my hand on your forehead. My hand grasping yours. Feel it.”

  His head shook, his eyes opening, wild. “It’s not there, Tor. Where are you? Where—don’t let me go. Stay with me. Stay with me, Tor. Stay.”

  She squeezed hard on his hand, so hard he would have to feel it through the pain of the fever. “I’m not leaving. I’m here. I’m always here. I believe in you. You can do this. Just keep breathing, Roe. Keep breathing.”

  His eyes closed, his body exhausted, and he sank into the blessed relief that only came with unconsciousness.

  His hand went limp in hers, the last link to him holding on. Holding onto her. Holding onto life.

  ~~~

  Roe cracked his eyes open.

  Mauve. A mauve canopy above him. Mauve chintz fabric with black lace trim running in a diamond pattern along the outer edges of it.

  Vague snippets flashed in his mind. The wood ceiling of a ship. The black of a carriage roof. A bright yellow concoction draped over a four-post bed. And now this. Mauve.

  His eyes opened further, hoping to take in the room, get his bearings. But the pain filtered in with consciousness, and his eyes closed, his breaths seething between gritted teeth. Agony radiating up from his left leg.

  What in the hell?

  His eyelids parted and he looked down his body. A white sheet draped over his middle. His left leg propped up, wrapped from his thigh to his foot in thick bandages.

  What the Zeus?

  It took him moments, the pain of his leg washing over him in torturous waves, sending his eyes closed before he remembered.

  His leg cracking in half. Torrie appearing steps away from him. Torrie lunging. A gun in his hand firing. Torrie in front of fire.

  His eyes flew open, his look frantic on the room around him. Chairs. Desk. Fireplace. Doors. Windows.

  Torrie.

  Torrie standing at the window, her arms wrapping her middle, her gaze on the outside world.

  Hell.

  Even from her profile, she looked like she hadn’t slept in days—weeks—the dark circles under her eyes so deep it was as if death haunted her.

  How blasted long had he been out? Incoherent?

  Was she not well? Had she been burned? Vague snippets of a fire flashed in his mind.

  Fire around her head.

  Panic set so deep into his chest it started to choke the air out of him.

  He had to look away from her, setting his eyes on the mess of mauve above him.

  Three deep breaths into his lungs and he managed to rein in the panic. Torrie was standing. That was a good sign. Not so grievously injured she was lying in bed, taunting death.

  Not like him.

  He cleared his throat and realized his mouth was so dry, sand could have lined his tongue and he wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.

  He coughed slightly.

  It was enough.

  Torrie’s head instantly spun to him, her eyes widening as she saw his face. Saw his open eyes.

  “Roe?” His name came hesitantly from her lips, almost as though she wasn’t sure it was him.

  “Tor—what—” The two words were all he could afford through the desert of his mouth.

  Her eyes closed and her body started swaying. She collapsed backward onto the window sill, her fingers searching for stability.

  Blast it—she was injured.

  Her eyes flew open and she ran across the room to him, her hands gripping the sides of his head, her green eyes searching his face.

  “You know where you are?” Her frantic words rushed out at him, too fast for his muddled brain to process.

  He shook his head. “Wa—water.”

  Her head snapped back. “Oh—oh, of course.” She scooted up along the edge of the bed, grabbing a glass from the bedside table. She pressed the edge of the glass to his lips, letting the water trickle into his mouth. Her eyes on him like a hawk circling above its prey.

  “More?”

  He nodded.

  Heaven. The tiniest bit of water and he felt like he could function again. Focus on Torrie above him.

  She pulled the glass away from his lips and set it on the table, her eyes never veering from him. Leaning over his face again, her look centered desperately on him. “Tell me you’re here. Tell me you see me.”

  His hand lifted from the bed through no small effort and he set it along her neck, resting the weight of it on her shoulder. “I’ve always seen you, Tor. Always.”

  She heaved a choked sob, falling forward onto him, her face buried into his bare chest. Her shoulders shook, sob after sob racking her body. Her tears soaking his skin.

  His hand that had been on her shoulder slid onto
her back, his palm flattening across her spine, making sure she was moving and well. Not injured. Not burned.

  It took minutes before she lifted her head to him, and with it, anger like he’d never seen in her green eyes skewered him.

  “Logan said you stopped breathing.” Her hand slammed into the pillow next to his head with the shriek. “How could you do that to me—stop breathing? How could you leave me like that? You were dead. Dead.”

  For the slightest second he was afraid of her, truly afraid, but then he realized she was in a rage over him. Because he had thought to leave this earth for a moment.

  He smiled, or what he hoped was a smile—he wasn’t sure his body was listening to the directions in his mind just yet. “A minor inconvenience.”

  “Inconvenience?” Her voice went shrill, her fist pounding into the pillow again. “Dying is an inconvenience? Do you ken how long you’ve been delirious? Teetering on the line of death?”

  He shook his head.

  “Five weeks. Five bloody weeks, Roe, you’ve put me through this torture.”

  He tried the smile again. “What—what happened?”

  “Logan and Reiner fished you out of the harbor. You went deep—so very deep.”

  “How did I sink?”

  Her eyes narrowed at him. “You don’t remember the fire?”

  His eyes closed, the word fire conjuring up the image of Torrie looking at him, petrified and not moving, flames behind her, licking at her, hungry to consume her. It had been all around them.

  Not a dream. Reality.

  He exhaled a sigh. “The fire. Bockton. The window.” His eyes opened to her. “But I’m alive? This isn’t heaven?”

  “This would be hell.”

  His hand that had fallen to rest on her lap twitched and he grabbed the top of her thigh. “Heaven for me. You’re here.”

  Her lips drew into a tight line, but her green eyes softened ever so subtly. “You’re just lucky you drew that breath on the dock. You died, but then you kept breathing. Logan and Reiner got the water out of your lungs.”

  His eyebrows drew together. “Were you injured? Tell me the fire did not get you.”

  She shook her head, her right hand going to his bare arm. Her touch cool, as always, against the fire of his skin. “A few minor burns from embers, that is all. You wrapped me so completely, I wasn’t injured by the fire or the glass or hitting the water.”

  He nodded to himself, his mouth in a grim line. Of everything he’d done wrong in his life, he’d done one thing right.

  But wait—she wasn’t supposed to even be there. She was supposed to be safely ensconced in Culland Hall.

  “What in the hell were you doing there, Tor?” He started to push himself upright. “Dammit, I need to kill my brother—what was he thinking?”

  She shoved him back down onto the bed. “You’re not going to kill anyone. He took every care possible to keep me safe—I was the one that ran from the safety of the ship when I saw you being dragged into the warehouse.”

  “The ass brought you across the sea to me—that wasn’t keeping you safe.”

  “Sienna and I teamed up on him. Logan knew he couldn’t lock the both of us into a tower until you found Bockton, so he did an admirable job of keeping the both of us safe in the situation.”

  “Hell—Sienna came to?”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes closed for a breath, his head shaking. “And I saw the Wolf Duke. He was by Logan—and huge Scotsmen behind them.” His eyes opened to her. “Or am I imaging that?”

  “No. Reiner was there, and a slew of Scots from Vinehill. My cousin sent them.”

  He nodded, his gaze drifting off of her. A second and then his look snapped to her. “My men? Are they—”

  “All accounted for. Some injuries, but all survived. You bore the brunt of it.”

  “Good. As it should be.”

  “No, not as it should be.” She took a deep breath, her chest rising high. “None of this should have happened.”

  “All of it needed to happen.” His gaze left her, going to the hideous mauve fabric above him. “Where are we?”

  “London. Logan and Sienna wanted us to stay at their townhouse, but I wanted you here and they relented. They both come every day. They should be here in an hour, as it is still early in the day. And Logan has rounded up the best surgeons and physicians in the city to tend to you.”

  Roe nodded. “Where is here?”

  “My house in London—correction—your house in London.”

  “My house in London?”

  Her look skewered him. “The one you purchased for me when my husband died.”

  His head angled back on the pillow, his eyes on the canopy above. That explained the ugly mauve. He’d purchased the house for her furnished, having only seen the outside of it. He should have taken more care and at least toured the interior. “Sienna told you?”

  “Yes.”

  His head shook. “I knew I shouldn’t have told her. I should have sworn Logan to secrecy on all of it.” He looked to her. “It is your house, Torrie. Not mine. It’s in your name—yours always.”

  “What if I don’t want that?”

  “Tor, I don’t have the strength to fight you on this—not now. Maybe in another week. Not now.” He heaved a sigh and it shook his leg, sending shocks of pain into his belly. He ignored it. “What I set into your life, I set there freely, of my own damn will. Take it as that.”

  “I still don’t want it.”

  “Torrie—”

  “I don’t want it.” She leaned over him, her hands going to the pillow on either side of his head. Then she lifted her fingers, and for a long moment, she ran them along his face, scraping through the longer than usual scruff along his jaw line. “Not unless you have it with me.”

  ~~~

  She looked down at him.

  At this man that had managed to shift from a hated enemy to become her very world. For all she had held back—for all she could never admit to herself how very much she needed him, wanted him—she could now.

  She loved him.

  Heart and body and soul and scars.

  She loved him.

  And he was breathing, watching her with lucidity in his eyes, the grin playing on the corners of his lips that she only saw on his face when he looked at her. She had believed in him and he had come back to her.

  Just as Sienna had said. Believe in him.

  Yet there was still hesitancy in his eyes, the part he held back because he didn’t think he was worthy of her.

  She recognized that in him now. Saw it so easily, it may as well be the sun against the sky.

  His mouth opened, ready to say something, but she jumped in front of his words. “Roe, you died. You died in that water. Dead when they pulled you into the air. And I need you to understand what a gift that was.”

  His forehead wrinkled. “I died, and it’s a gift?”

  She nodded. “You died, and with it, you need to bury everything in you that has been asking for death—taunting death since you were eight. You always wanted it and now you’ve had it.”

  His look narrowed on her. “Since I was eight?”

  “Sienna told me. She told me of your childhood. What you were forced to do just to survive the world you lived in. All of it happened and it will always be a part of you.” Her right fingers went to his temple, smoothing back his dark hair. “But I need you to bury that. Bury that past with your death, so that you can live now. Live with me. Want me. Love me. Don’t want death.”

  The steel grey in his eyes went rigid, so strained he might snap. “I do want you, Tor. I do love you.”

  “Then accept the fact that you are worthy of it—of me—of my love for you. That it was worth risking my own death to keep you alive—and that was my choice, not yours. I decided you were worth it and now you have all of me.”

  Her other hand lifted and she clasped his face between her palms. “Tell me that you will fight with every fiber of your being to stay
alive for me—always. Because I need you. I need you like nothing else in this world. You are the heart-pounding destiny that I always dreamed of, but never thought I could have.”

  Her hands left him, curling around each other as she clutched them to her belly, holding tight onto every emotion that was welling, rumbling in the core of her—the fire, what he did to save her, watching him for weeks on end near death, only to see him finally open his eyes to her and see her for real.

  Her lips parted, her words cracking. “And whatever darkness we have suffered—both of us—that darkness is our light. It is what we suffered to be in this moment, in this place, together. And I don’t intend to throw that away. I intend to leave the in-between and walk in the light with you. But I need you there with me. In the light. In the life.”

  Tears crested on his dark lower lashes, spilling over as they slipped down his cheeks.

  Her breath lodged in her chest as she stared at his dark grey eyes. Those eyes that were the key to everything.

  She couldn’t read them. Couldn’t tell if his tears were because he was going to break her into nothingness, or if he was grasping, reaching out for what the future held for them.

  His hand lifted, his knuckles going to her left cheek, lifting away tears that were streaming down her own face. “If you’re leaving the in-between, Torrie, then I will follow you. I will follow you, anywhere. Always. I die with you, I live with you.”

  Her breath stolen, she stilled in time. Stilled in the moment that the rest of her life began. The life she’d always wanted. The life she deserved.

  The life he deserved.

  { Epilogue }

  “You are ready?” Torrie looked across the coach to Roe, her eyebrows lifted.

  “I think the question is, are you?” Roe’s steel grey eyes met her gaze.

  He was trying to read her, but was having difficulty. Probably because she was more conflicted than she had let him know. She didn’t know what she wanted, but it was too late now to change their course of action.

  “We are here, so I have to be,” she said, worrying her lower lip as she looked out the window of the coach and it came to a stop.