The Blood of a Baron - K.J. Jackson Page 0,48
be done.”
“Except it can’t be.”
She groaned into his chest. “Why not? Why can’t we just toss the box out the window and be done with it?”
“Because it’s not safe. It’s always better to know where the devil is than where the devil is not. And we have to get the devil box somewhere where it can no longer touch us. No longer make innocents suffer. Until then, you’re not safe—especially if you leave me.” His head dipped down, his lips brushing against her hairline. “And beyond that, I need you.”
Her head popped up and she looked at him. “Need me for what?”
“To carry the box—to hold it. I cannot do it.”
She pushed away from his chest, her brow furrowing. “You what? It’s just a box, Wes.”
“Except it’s not.” He shook his head. “I know you don’t believe me about its power, about its curse. But the blasted thing has a power—a power I succumbed to once.”
Her eyebrows pulled together, her hand splaying on his chest. “What happened?”
“I had to retrieve the box from someone that stole it from Captain Folback—the captain that brought me aboard the Firehawk. A good man.”
“It wasn’t easy to get back?”
He shrugged. “I got the box, but in holding the blasted thing, it changed me. I went someplace dark—the box took me over from the inside out. If it wasn’t for my crewmate, Des, the Earl of Troubant, taking it from me, I never would have recovered. Some people are immune to the box—don’t feel the power of it. Des, his wife—you. You are the only people that I have seen that do not sway when they are near the box. Your eyes don’t gloss over. Mine do. For the rest of us—for the cursed rest of us—the Box of Draupnir is evil and it will rip our lives apart with the promise of riches and power.”
“That is silly.”
His hands clasped onto the sides of her face, his eyes so serious it stole her breath. “No. Not silly. Real. Real and terrifying.”
As much as she wanted to dismiss this—dismiss this whole supposedly cursed box as lore manifested by the twisted imaginations of a group of sailors stuck in windless waters—what she saw deep in Wes’s dark eyes scared her.
Scared her into nodding.
She would have to believe it. Believe in him, if not in the box.
And the box scared him.
“That’s where we are travelling to—to Des and his wife, Jules, at their estate in Somerset.”
“We’re going to the man that set the blasted box onto Morty?”
“We are. He never intended your brother any harm, Laney. He never could have predicted what was to happen.”
“But he did know—he knew because he was the one that sent you to protect Morty.”
“Aye.” Wes paused, his eyes closing for a long breath as his hands fell from the sides of her face. “And he should have chosen another for the job. I never should have offered. Never should have gotten you involved.”
He gave a slight shake of his head. “But I did and now I need to fix it. Des and Jules will know what to do with the box, where it should go to next. But first we have to get the box to them in order for us to be free of it. Only I cannot do it alone. You can hold the box. I cannot for what it will do to me—how it will change me.” His right hand slid around her waist, pressing her body into his. “I need you for this. I need you to stop me from falling into its trap—into the curse of it. You can handle it, I cannot.”
Laney inhaled, her brow still wrinkled, puzzled.
But Wes needed this. Needed her.
And to be needed was something she hadn’t felt in forever.
She nodded.
He needed her, so she was his for as long as it took.
{ Chapter 20 }
His eyes wary about the main road through the town of Basingstoke, Wes walked into the stable that held their horses. The stable boy was supposed to deliver them a half an hour ago.
He’d left Laney at the front of the coaching inn with Rune. Better to have Rune rush her inside the inn if necessary, than to have her vulnerable on the street or by the stable.
The stable master had reported the three horses were already saddled and ready to depart and Wes spied them at the far end of the barn. He was halfway through the stable when a head popped up from in between the