Page 29 of Once Charmed, Twice Cursed
An instant later, Jack is on his feet. He grips me by the arms and levers me up. “Stay here,” he orders. “Don’t move an inch.”
Fear ices my veins. Fortuna, I shouldn’t have asked him to linger. I shouldn’t have risked discovery, even for a moment. Now I’ve endangered both of us.
But there’s no accusation in Jack’s eyes, only fear armored by determination. “I won’t let them take you.” He spins away, fists curling at his sides.
My hand flutters to the base of my throat. He intends to face them, then. To take on Alverton’s men. Alone. With his cursed luck.
“Wait,” I hiss, but he’s already at the door. He shoots me a look over his shoulder, his eyes twin flames in the dark.
Stay put, they say.
Then he’s gone, the door snicking shut behind him.
My pulse beats a staccato drum in my ears. Voices filter in from outside, sharp and excited.
I should probably do as Jack says. Stay put, where my luckcan save me. He might already be far enough away for it to work.
But...
Dread claws up my throat. If I’m alone with my luck, then so is he, and his Mark could be his undoing. He could be killed out there, trying to protect me. At the very least, he’ll be captured and turned over to the law.
Before I can complete the thought, I’m moving, my feet carrying me to the door. I yank it open. Outside, the night is moonless, the only light coming from the stars scattered across the sky.
And the torches. At the treeline, two strangers hold flickering flames aloft, their features distorted by the wavering light.
Jack stands halfway across the clearing, facing them with his fists raised.
Except...Fortuna help me.
That’s not Jack.
My chest seizes, my entire body draining of blood. I would recognize that stance in the dark. Idorecognize it in the dark, because I’ve clocked its lethal grace a thousand times, felt my heart tugged along by the rise and fall of those fists like a puppet bound by strings.
That’s Weston standing there, with his chin tucked and ready to brawl. Every line of his body looks precisely the same as it does in the ring.
For a moment, I can’t speak. I can’t even breathe.
The sturdier of the duke’s lackeys steps forward, his wolfish gaze fixed on me. “Well, lookey here. You wouldn’t happen to be that Charm that went missing last week, now, would you?”
Weston glances back at me. “I thought I told you to stay inside,” he snaps, but there’s no heat in it.
“I...” My throat has gone dry. That’s the man I love, under that mask. The one I thought abandoned me. “I couldn’t.”
The invading men venture closer, and Weston turns back to them with a snarl. And goddess, the sound is so veryhimthat I can’t believe I didn’t recognize him, even with that gravelly voice he affected.
Except maybe I did. Maybe my body knew him without conveying the message to my brain.
“Leave us alone,” Weston says. “We don’t like trespassers showing up in the middle of the night, and we don’t know anything about any Charm.”
The duke’s lackey sneers. “No? Then why’re you dressed like a highwayman? Big coincidence, seeing as how one stole the duke’s wife last week.”
I almost shout that I’m no wife of the duke’s, not yet, but I hold back. Not that it matters. Weston has no excuse for his attire, nothing that will convince these men he’s anything other than the criminal who kidnapped Alverton’s intended.
The other man raises his torch to cast me in a brighter light. He sucks on his teeth and hocks a gob of spit. “That’s gotta be her. Look. Long brown hair, just like Alverton said. Pretty, too.”
At that, Weston makes a murderous sound.
“They’re two of us,” the smaller man warns. “And only one of you. So you might as well hand her over. Maybe if you do, you won’t hang.”
