The Steel Rogue: A Valor of Vinehill Novel

by K. J. Jackson

  “But why? Why is it so important?”

  He paused, his forearms on the edge of the weapon chest, and looked up at her. “It’s the ship that made me a captain.”

  “Made ye a captain?” She froze. “That means it was the ship that killed yer Captain Folback and a third of yer crew.”

  His grey eyes met hers, the glint of steely vengeance in them impenetrable. “Aye. It is. The very one.”

  “And everyone on board is out for revenge.”

  “Aye.” His hands dove back into the chest and he started yanking daggers from the bottom, steel clanking against steel as he tossed them onto the bed. “And I’ll be leaving Weston on board to guard you. But should they get past him, I want you well armed.”

  “If they get past him?” The words barely audible, she sank backward onto the chair by his desk. “But he’s yer best fighter—ye will need him.”

  “Exactly—he’s the best, worth three men in battle—so he’s the one I leave to protect you.”

  He stood up, strapping blades of various sizes to his body. Two daggers to his right leg, a cutlass dangling from a scabbard around his waist. One dirk tucked along the band of his scabbard. A parrying dagger stuffed along his left boot.

  He picked up two small daggers and set them on her lap. “Here. One for each boot. Get them hidden.” His eyes ran her up and down. “I think we can get at least one pistol hidden along the folds of your skirt. We just need to strap a sheath around your waist, then sink it between the fabric.”

  Before she could shift on the chair, he’d grabbed a leather belt with a sheath attached and bent over her, wrapping it around her waist. His breathing fast on her neck, his hands moved around her waist, setting the buckle of the belt in place.

  For a moment he paused, looking at her, his hands pressing around her ribcage. “You will be fine, Torrie. I guarantee it. No harm will come to you.”

  “There are no guarantees, Roe. I ken it more than most.”

  His fingers tightened on her sides. “No. But then again, you’ve never had me guarantee you anything.”

  A wicked smile came to his face, so full of male pomposity and aggravating arrogance it made her laugh.

  He chuckled, releasing her. “I don’t know if you laughing at me is what I was hoping for there, but I’ll take it if it puts the spark of fight into your eyes.”

  He stood and turned back to the weapons cache, pulling out three pistols and starting to load them. His hands were quick with the powder and balls—practiced as though he’d done it far more often than the most seasoned soldier.

  “I don’t laugh at you. I laugh because I don’t know what else to do.” She leaned forward to tuck the daggers along the inside of her boots. The steel of the blades sent cold twinges of pain along her skin, but not enough to remove them. She’d regret it if she needed them and didn’t have them at the ready. “When I followed you down onto the docks, this was not how I imagined any of this turning out.”

  He stepped back to her, tucking one of the pistols into the sheath about her waist. “Yet here we are.”

  She nodded. “Here we are.”

  “Suck in.”

  She sucked in her belly and he slid the leather of the belt underneath the top band of her skirt.

  “Wait—I should have asked.” His hands didn’t leave her waist. “You know how to use this as well?”

  “It’s been a while since I’ve shot one—since I was at Vinehill—but yes. And I wasn’t the worst shot.”

  He nodded with a smile. “Good.”

  He turned to the bed and started piling the rest of the stash of weapons into his left arm as he nodded with his head to the row of windows above the bed. “The right windowpane pushes open—if the worst happens, there’s a ledge out there that leads to a small wedge of space you can only access from the outside. There are nuts and brandy in there. You can hide in it for a few days, maybe more. There’s also a rope secured to a beam, so you can get yourself down to the water to swim to land if you get close enough.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “I thought you guaranteed me no harm.”

  “And this is how I do it. Always a back-up plan.” He pulled the door open. “But in the meantime, you stay in here no matter what. I’ll send Weston down when we’re close—that is assuming we get close. They’ve already started to run, but we have the full sails at the moment and they don’t. You’ll know we’re in range when you hear cannons.”

  She stood, nodding. “You’re dragging me into something I don’t want to do, aren’t you?”

  “Aye, I am, lass, but you’ll be better for the experience.” The wicked smile was back on his face.

  “Tell me that when it’s over.”

  “I intend to.” He nodded to her and was out the door.

  { Chapter 9 }

  There he was. The wretched refuse that was Lord Bockton.

  Hovering in the corner, a slew of men in front of him. The bastard that had sent a blade across Captain Folback’s neck.

  Rage from that moment in time a year ago surged in Roe’s veins, sending him forward through the sickly haze of smoke, of swords swinging, of bodies thunking to the deck, of men screaming. The battle wasn’t as he wanted it, more of his men down than he’d hoped for, but they weren’t losing. They were on their way to the death of this ship and every bastard of a man on it.

  And if he could get to Lord Bockton and sink a blade between his eyes, it’d be over before another man of his went down.

  Over for good and he could get off the blasted sea.

  Leave the Firehawk to Des and never set foot on a rolling ship again.

  He wasn’t natural on the sea—never had been. It still took days of walking barefoot on board after setting sail for him to get his sea legs.

  Hell, if he lived so far inland he never caught a whiff of the salt of the sea again, he would die a happy man.

  If he didn’t die in this battle first.

  He kicked the back of the leg of a brute about to swing a cutlass at the neck of Filbert. Filbert was half the man’s size, but always picked the biggest man to fight in a battle. The brute fell backward, his weight dragging him down no matter how fast his feet shuffled for balance. His back slammed into the deck.

  Filbert could take it from there.

  Roe rushed forth, blocking swings of steel at his head as he advanced. One man. Another. Another. In the long stretch to the stern, he lost count of the men he’d downed in his wake.

  Then it was just the four men left in front of Lord Bockton. Two of them already engaged with his men.

  End it. Now.

  Yanking the dagger from his left boot, Roe charged forward with his cutlass high.

  “Cap! Cap!” Des’s bellow cut through the echoes of gunfire, the clashes of steel.

  Roe skidded to a stop, spinning in a quick circle to see what Des was alerting him to.

  Shit. Torrie.

  A band of four men—not in his crew—running across the gangplank. Running onto his damn ship.

  Blast his crew. How could they let Bockton’s brutes get close enough to the plank?

  Roe started running, his head jabbing around swinging steel as he crossed the deck, his chest tightening to where he couldn’t breathe, to where he couldn’t force air past his throat.

  He’d always fought with full, easy lungs. With aplomb—never considering death, for he truly didn’t mind if it came or not. He’d fought without care since he was eight and in the thick of misery of St. Giles.

  But in that moment, he cared. He cared because death was bearing down on Torrie. And all his breath, all his senses left him.

  “Abandon—cut the hooks.” He screamed the words across the cracks of gunfire and steel clanking steel. “Cut the hooks. Pull back. Now!”

  His boots thudded onto the gangplank and he was across the gap in three strides, bearing down on the backs of the four brutes. He heard them below the quarterdeck before he saw them—Weston battling them back from the door to his cabin. />
  Dammit, he should have hid Torrie—hid her in a barrel so deep in the ship she would never have been found—or seen.

  Roe stormed under the quarterdeck and into the wide vestibule in front of his room. Weston had been pulled far to the left of the door by two of the brutes, swords flying wild in the air.

  Where were the other two?

  Roe’s legs sped, but slow, too slow.

  The clank of steel from his quarters. Torrie attacking—or fending off attack.

  Faster. Faster. He had to be faster.

  Another clash of blades and the distinct sound of a cutlass clattering to the floor.

  A second of silence just before a shriek.

  Bloody hell.

  The two brutes came out of his quarters, the second one dragging Torrie, a knife at her throat.

  Roe flew at them, shoving past the first man and barreling directly at the brute that had grabbed Torrie and had a blade on her skin. His dagger high and swinging before the brute even saw him, Roe stabbed it into the side of his neck.

  The brute stilled, swaying in a wide circle for a moment before his hands fell from Torrie, his blade clattering to the floor. He dropped, stone dead weight, landing at Roe’s feet.

  He saw Torrie’s face a split second before her eyes cringed and a blast filled the vestibule.

  A pistol. Her pistol. His look dropped to her arm. Her hand shaking, her arm extended out past his elbow.

  A thud behind him. Another body hitting the floor.

  He looked over his shoulder. Face down, blood seeped from the back of the man’s head.

  A body cracked into the wall to his left and Weston finished him with a quick slice of his blade. The other man Weston had already disposed of was crumpled in a pile in the corner.

  “Stay here.” Roe barked the order at Torrie as he yanked free the dagger from his right boot and his grip tightened on his cutlass. He ran past Weston with a quick nod.

  Out the vestibule and onto the main deck with Weston directly behind him, Roe was coiled, ready to attack in the chance that the Minerva crew had boarded the Firehawk.

  Mayhem.

  Planks yanking free, ropes being severed.

  “Roe, what’s going on?”

  Torrie’s breathless voice behind him sent him spinning around. “I told you to stay inside.”

  “But—”

  “But listen to a damn order when I give you one, woman.”

  Her head snapped back, her fingers twisting on the dagger she gripped in front of her belly.

  The deck went askew, the boards beneath their feet tilting as they pulled away, the Firehawk hitting swells as it turned hard to the east to sever connection.

  Torrie stumbled to the side and, lightening quick, he grabbed her arm, steadying her balance. She had spun fully toward the Minerva, her eyes wide at the enemy ship.

  Roe followed her look, only to see Bockton at the railing of the Minerva, watching their retreat with a sickening sneer on his face. He looked directly at Roe, then his gaze moved to Torrie. The sneer on Bockton’s face grew wider.

  The blood in his veins turning to ice, Roe looked down at Torrie and instantly dropped his grip on her arm. He stared at Bockton disappearing across the swells.

  Bastard. Again, the devil ship escaping its due.

  And the worst of it was that Bockton had seen Torrie. Seen him grab her. Seen him abort the whole damn attack to get back to her.

  Dammit to all hell.

  Roe spun in a circle, scanning his crew, looking at the faces, noting who he did and did not see. Ticking off in his mind who was wounded, who was limping, bleeding. Ticking off the men that hadn’t made it back onto the Firehawk.

  Three. Three of his men hadn’t made it back. Hal, Barry, Marty.

  The rest of his men stood on the deck, steel still in their hands at the ready, watching the Minerva cut through the waves. Its speed alone ensured they wouldn’t catch it. Not by the time they turned the ship around and caught the winds.

  At the front of his crew, closest to the railing they had mounted the attack on, Des turned around, setting his back to the Minerva.

  Of course he’d been the last man off Bockton’s ship. He always was. First man on, last man off. Des sheathed his sword, his low voice rising above the lapping of the sea on the side of the ship. “Another day, men. Another day and she’ll be ours.”

  A direct order from Des for the crew to get on with the day. To admit defeat, for now, and get to setting the ship and the injured men back to rights.

  His men dispersed, moving about in stony silence, shuffling about the deck in a haze of bitter disbelief, clearing the ropes, the weapons, setting the injured in the middle of the deck so bones could be reset and wounds sewn shut.

  Roe knew exactly what they felt. The hatred that demanded release boiling in their guts. Hatred that would not find an escape today.

  He expelled a long sigh. It had finally been their opportunity. Quite possibly their only one ever.

  “Why is everyone glaring at me?”

  Roe jumped. He’d forgotten about Torrie standing behind him.

  His eyes closed for a long breath as he reined in his thoughts, reined in the anger running rampant through his veins. “We abandoned the attack. I ordered it.”

  She stepped forward, looking up at him with her eyes wide. “You abandoned the attack? Were you losing?”

  Roe grabbed her arm and moved, pulling her back under the quarterdeck toward his room, stepping lightly between the dead bodies of Minerva crewmen on the floor.

  Reaching his quarters, he spun her into his room and slammed the door closed behind them. “Never talk about losing in front of men you’ve just yanked from a battle.”

  “Oh, I meant no disrespect.” Her shoulders fell. “But what was happening—why stop the attack?”

  His lips pursed, his head shaking as he looked to the timbers of the ceiling. “My own blasted idiocy—that’s what the hell happened. We were winning, but I had to pull them back when those four brutes made it onto the Firehawk.”

  “The men that attacked me?”

  “Yes. They got across.” His fist slammed into his thigh. “And I don’t know how in the hell that happened. Everyone knew they were to protect that line in front of the planks.”

  Her eyebrows drew together, scrunching the skin atop her nose. “You stopped the battle for me?”

  He nodded, a heavy sigh lifting his chest. “I thought you were in danger.”

  “So you stopped the attack?” She took a step toward him. “But you said this was important—important to everyone on this ship. And I saw their faces—the faces of your men. This was more than simple vengeance—why?”

  Roe walked over to the weapons’ chest and dropped his cutlass in it. “Lord Bockton—he owns the Minerva and rides with it, and they aren’t just smugglers—they’re pirates when the opportunity presents itself. They’ll attack a ship if it’s convenient. Which is what happened to the Firehawk—they drew us close, and attacked us just days after we’d taken down a Turkish ship on a letter of marque. It was so soon after the last battle we were in that many in our crew were already wounded, and we were all weary. We couldn’t fight like we’re able to and we were only barely able to pull away from them. Had the Firehawk stayed attached to the Minerva, all of us would have been killed that day.”

  Her hand went up in front of her mouth. “That’s atrocious.”

  His look met hers. “But that’s not all—Lord Bockton is evil like I have never seen in another human. Our men he’s killed and how he’s killed them—tortured them within eyesight of us. Within earshot of us.” He closed his eyes, his head shaking. “So my men are all out for revenge. I’m out for revenge. There isn’t a one of us that will rest until Lord Bockton and his crew become meat for the sharks.”

  She stared at him, three deep breaths lifting her chest before she opened her mouth. “So you had him in your grasp and you abandoned him for me?”

  “Aye.” He shook hi
s head, unable to hold her gaze and he looked to see a bloody tear in his shirt along his upper arm from a wild cutlass.

  “You left his ship, left the vengeance that was almost yours, to save me. And you did save me.”

  His look lifted to her, his eyebrows arching. “You saved yourself, Torrie. And me.”

  “No. There was only one bullet in that pistol and it was all I had left. If you hadn’t shown when you did.” She paused, shuddering. “You saved me.”

  “You would have found a way. You’re a survivor, Tor. It’s who you are.”

  “But not always by my own accord.” She slowly shook her head, then suddenly stilled, her look pinning him. “I need you to tell me something, Roe. And I need you to be honest. The most honest thing you will ever say in your life.”

  The look in her green eyes, the way she was reaching down into the very gutted depths of his soul, took him aback.

  His jawline tensed so impossibly hard, he couldn’t get words to form. So he nodded.

  The question flew out of her mouth, direct and harsh. “The day of the fire, you held a torch, Roe—I saw it with my own eyes. Did you set flame to my family’s farm? Were you with those bastards? Did you kill my family? Or am I wrong?”

  { Chapter 10 }

  The guttural question had come out sharp, but so easily from her lips.

  The one question she’d been wanting to ask him for days, but had been too afraid to do so. Afraid for his answer, or afraid she wouldn’t believe him, she wasn’t sure.

  But this was the moment.

  After what she’d just witnessed, death closing in on her and then Roe appearing, bursting into the vestibule, a violent storm that laid waste to the threat on her life. His face—fury and panic and brutal, unmistakable rage that was directed at the brute about to hurt her. A one-man force of enraged demon warriors coming to save her.

  To see him like that should have scared her to the marrow of her bones. To see what he was capable of.

  It didn’t.

  For it hadn’t just been about keeping her safe. It was about her. About the way he looked at her as the brute slumped to the floor between them.