The Blood of a Baron - K.J. Jackson Page 0,75
they are in order of publication and series):
Hold Your Breath
Stone Devil Duke, currently free!
Unmasking the Marquess
My Captain, My Earl
Lords of Fate
Worth of a Duke
Earl of Destiny
Marquess of Fortune
Lords of Action
Vow
Promise
Oath
Revelry’s Tempest
Of Valor & Vice
Of Sin & Sanctuary
Of Risk & Redemption
To Capture a Rogue, A Logan’s Legends Novella
To Capture a Warrior, A Logan’s Legends Novella
The Devil in the Duke
Valor of Vinehill
The Iron Earl
The Wolf Duke
The Steel Rogue
Box of Draupnir
The Heart of an Earl
The Blood of a Baron
The Soul of a Rogue
Paranormal Romance
Flame Moon #1, currently free!
Triple Infinity, Flame Moon #2
Flux Flame, Flame Moon #3
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The sneak peek of The Soul of a Rogue, A Box of Draupnir Novel…
{ Chapter 1 }
June 1826, Somerset, England
The carriage hit a sharp bump in the road and Elle’s hand dropped to the side of her thigh for the hundredth time that day to finger the small wooden box hidden in the skirts of her deep blue carriage dress.
The Box of Draupnir.
Discover its origins. Break the curse of it.
It’d seemed like such a silly, simple task the previous day when she’d committed to doing it. The promise was easy from her lips partly because the adventure of a cursed box sounded like a wonderful distraction, but mostly because she would do anything for her niece, Jules. Anything for Jules and her husband, Des, the Earl of Troubant, and their newborn babe, only a day old.
The only family she had. The only people she could unequivocally count upon.
It was her turn to return the favor.
They needed the cursed box out of their lives and she could help with that. So she would.
Her look jerked up as the wheels of the carriage suddenly slowed, the constant clitter-clatter of the left wheel and its loose steel tire slowing into a dull thud.
Elle scooted forward on the rear cushion as the carriage slowed. Unusual. Sheep on the road? A deep rut from yesterday’s rain?
The carriage had been slowed several times in the last eight hours since she’d left Jules and her family at Seahorn Castle on the northern Somerset coast. Eight dreadfully long, silent hours. Rune Smith, the man Jules had asked to keep Elle safe on the journey home to the Isle of Wight had chosen to ride outside the carriage on horseback.
Which was completely fine. Elle didn’t need the man to entertain her. Except for the fact that she was terribly bored and too much time in her own head was never good.
But from the first moment she saw Rune at Seahorn Castle a day ago, she recognized exactly what the man was.
A hundred layers of sin.
One after another, wrapped in the most ridiculously handsome man she’d ever set eyes upon. His odd copper-green eyes had looked her up and down and she had gaped for a too-long moment at his perfectly molded cheekbones and jawline. His light brown hair held streaks of almost blond and was longer than fashionable, but not so long it was out of control, the tips of it curling about his neck. The whole of him was lean—smooth—but powerful, almost like a panther she’d seen in a menagerie once.
Sin like that had its place, but not at the moment. Complications with a man that the devil had surely set onto this earth were the last thing she needed. She’d promised Jules and Des that she would do her best to discover the genesis of the Box of Draupnir and return the cursed thing to its origin.
She meant to deliver on that promise. For their safety, for their new babe’s safety. Those three people were her family—her only family—and she wasn’t about to let a stupid box threaten their lives.
It didn’t matter that she didn’t believe in the curse of the box. They did—others did—and the threat the box created was very real. Too many evil men were determined to possess the box for the power it supposedly carried—the promise of untold riches and power. Men who would stop at nothing to make the box their own.
Which made the threat very real for all who possessed it. Curse or not.
So Elle hadn’t even suggested that Rune ride in the carriage with her. He was a complication she wasn’t about to entertain—no matter how bored she was. No matter how many hours of silence she had to endure.
The hiccups along the roadway had been her only excitement that day. The muck at the bottom of a hill they’d had to push the carriage through. A farmer and his slow mule. A flock of ducks that had decided that waddling along the middle of the road was convenient.
Elle leaned slightly out the open window into the summer air, looking ahead. Hopefully this delay would be more exciting than the squawking ducks.
A whoosh shot by her head, close to decapitating her if she’d had leaned out a smidge farther. The muscle and sweat of a brown horse buzzed past her face, flicking flecks of dirt and wet droplets onto her cheek.
She jerked back into the carriage, rubbing her cheek. Blast the man. Rune had no manners. None. Nearly killing her like that.
Shouts cut through the air—she couldn’t make out what was said, but the carriage slowed even further, almost to 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 flicked 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 the driver.
She looked behind them. Not another soul on the road, no one to help them.
The carriage shifted to the side and then bounced, her footman jumping off the back of the coach and running past her to join the driver and Rune.
The Box of Draupnir.
Her hand flew down to the deep pocket in her dress, feeling the hard corners of the cursed box under her skirts.
She wasn’t but a day away from Seahorn. The box couldn’t have possibly have cursed her so soon—curses didn’t work like that, did they?
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. 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.
Available on preorder now: The Soul of a Rogue, A Box of Draupnir Novel…
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Lastly…
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~ K.J. Jackson