Page 93 of The Lord who Seduced Me
Cabe shook his head again, “You think that, but you would be wrong. If I die, my crew will hunt you down and kill you. Slowly.”
Rose shuddered at the vehemence in Cabe’s voice. “And if you touch a hair on her head, I will do the same.”
Lucius’ eyes filled with such malice; Rose could feel it from here. He leveled the gun at Cabe’s chest. “Then I guess it’s just too bad you won’t have a chance to stop me.”
He pulled the trigger and Cabe fell backward, blood blooming from his chest.
He lay still on the floor, and Rose screamed Cabe’s name over and over. But he didn’t move, and she watched in horror as the blood red stain moved across his chest into an ever-widening arc and then dripped to the floor.
She kept screaming over and over and her eyes shed tears.
Lucius grabbed another gun and pointed it in her direction. “I honestly thought we would have more time together my dear. I am sorry I never got to play with you, but your screams are music to my ears. The ones I have longed to hear from the beginning. But I am afraid our time is through. You have seen too much and know more.”
She closed her eyes as he brought the gun up, and she heard as a shot ring out.
She felt no pain, and knew she had either died, or could not feel the pain yet. She opened her eyes slowly, and saw Nathaniel standing behind Lucius’ body.
He held a smoking gun, and she looked to see a hole in the back of Lucius’ head.
She looked away from the blood and gore that stained the floor from that man’s death in Cabe’s cabin and tried to get free from her bonds.
She struggled and Nathaniel came to her side, pulling a knife from his boot.
He sliced through the bonds at her wrists and ankles. She pulled the ropes off and dropped to her knees off the chair.
Crawling over to Cabe’s body, she put his head in her knees and she curled over him. Sobbing into his hair.
She cried his name over and over, holding him close. How long she held him, she did not know, but Nathaniel pulled her to her feet.
She struggled against his hold. “No! Let me be! Leave me with him!”
Nathaniel shook his head, “Cabe would want me to see to your safety. And having you surrounded by his death, and that miscreant’s death, would have been too much for him. Please Rose. I need to see to his body.”
She took another look at the blood and the dead man that lay across the room from Cabe and her stomach rebelled.
Nathaniel rushed her from the room, and she made it to the side of the ship before retching over it.
She did so over and over until there was nothing left in her stomach and she placed her head against the cool wood.
Nathaniel had turned from her when she was retching and when he turned back to her, the compassion in his eyes broke her and she turned from him, running down the gangplank.
He called after her, and she heard him trying to catch up to her, but she managed to lose him.
She called for a hackney and when one came, she told the driver that she had no way to pay him now.
The man had kind eyes and a kind face. And he told her to just sit, and he would get her to where she wanted to go. No payment was needed.
Rose felt numb. Her body was cold, and she was still in just her nightclothes, but she did not care.
She had seen Cabe die right in front of her eyes, and she hated having that play over and over in her mind.
As if it was on a loop. She felt she was forever doomed to repeat that scene in her head until the end of time.
Seeing him fall, the blood blooming from his chest and his unmoving body on the ground.
She sucked in a breath, trying to keep her emotions under control, but failing. Miserably.
She was shaking, her body cold and she felt ill and her heart hurt.
