Page 96 of The Duchess Curse

From inside, Guin yelped.

“Fuck,” Bran hissed. “Guin!”

“I’m not hit!” Guin called.

He shook off his fear. She was unharmed. She would remain so. Bran strode into the alley. Let Hesperus care for the other two. Bran had these.

The alley swallowed light, and Bran stepped into the darkness. Not ideal for shadow manipulation. He brought up a glamour in his palm—a floating fairy orb—and saw the two men at the end of the alley. One trained a pistol on Bran, and the other was stuffing a ramrod into the end of his own pistol.

Two shots rang out on the other side of the coach.

Hesperus chuckled again.

Guin swore, and Bran heard the coach door swing open.

“Guin,” he warned.

She darted into the street behind him, running off who knew where. He almost couldn’t stop himself from running off after her, but he had to, and with another frustrated growl, he continued marching toward the gunmen.

“Stop,” one yelled. “Just give us the duchess.”

The other was done loading his gun, and he brandished it toward Bran. “We’ll let you go!”

“Tell me,” Bran said calmly, a deception perpetrated through gritted teeth. “Why do you want her?”

A duo of shots behind Bran, then the sounds of a scuffle, boots slapping against the ground, a skull hitting a wall.

“Just need to get rid of her,” one attacker said.

“You’ll be better off without her,” the other assured him.

“And who is paying you?” Bran asked. “Maryville?”

“Mary who?” The men looked at each other.

One was trembling now, and he shook the gun at Bran. “Stay there. We don’t want to hurt you. I’m not hangin’ for no duke.”

“But you’ll hang for hurting a duchess?” He was close now. He didn’t want a panicked fight. He wanted to disarm them.

“Nah. She’s a scoundrel, from what we hear. Only pretending to be a princess.”

“As she’s my wife, I can assure you she’s not pretending.” A few steps closer.

Above him, a window opened. Fuck. An innocent could get hurt. And where the hell was Guin? Hopefully running toward Mayfair.

He needed to end this quickly.

The fairy orb threw a shadow from the person in the window onto the wall right next to one of the attackers. Bran launched himself into shadow, his glamour orb snapping out of existence. To them he’d disappeared into darkness. But he was right where he needed to be. He snatched the gun out of one of the fellow’s hands. It went off.

And the person from the window dropped to the ground with an oof. He couldn’t see them land. No idea what the bullet had hit. Not him. But there was a new factor in the ally—friend or foe? And did they think to get themselves killed?

Hands slapped at Bran’s body, looking for his gun. The attacker swung wildly in the dark. Bran swerved, but not quite in enough time. A punch caught him on the ear. The world buzzed, whined.

And a fairy orb flickered into life, glamoured, not real, and not Bran’s.

In the dim glow, Gwen stood from a crouch, blade in one hand, glamoured orb in the other. She’d been the figure in the window, the one who’d jumped.

He should have fucking known.