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But one could never predict how fortunes would turn.
Instead, he was walking out alive.
Alive with the world at his side.
{ Chapter 24 }
The crack against Rune’s jaw made her wince, but Elle held her ground, not rushing forth, not throwing an arm up.
Didn’t Lord Kallen say to punch Rune when she saw him?
Better to have Des do it. Her niece’s husband was so much stronger than her.
Plus, she’d already stabbed Rune. Twice.
She looked around the drawing room in Weston’s townhouse. She should have stayed in here earlier today when Des and Weston had made her promise she wouldn’t move from the room until they returned. But she had needed air, her legs needed to be moving, and then she’d spied the park across the street.
She had only made it three steps from the townhouse before Gatlong’s brutes had grabbed her and flung her into a carriage.
She stifled a shudder, attempting to block the last four hours out of her mind.
She was safe. Rune was safe. Des and Weston had minor injuries—a few cuts from blades—but both had sloughed them off like mere gnat bites.
“You were working for Hoppler this whole time? Laney was almost killed by his thugs, you despicable swine.” Weston stepped in front of Des and punched Rune the second he gained his feet after Des’s hit.
Good. Wes was huge. It should hurt.
Lies should hurt.
Rune smashed back against the wall, sending the glass of the sconce next to his head rattling off its holder and shattering to the floor.
His head bobbing up and down, Rune fought to stay conscious.
Des and Weston stood in front of her—a solid wall between her and Rune.
A wall she needed or she would break and rush to him and forgive everything she shouldn’t.
Her look shifted off of the sliver of Rune she could see between their shoulders, concentrating on a small tear in the back of Des’s dark coat where a blade had caught him.
“You have explaining to do,” Des growled.
“Shiploads of it.” Weston’s snarl was even lower. Deadlier.
His hand rubbing along his jaw, Rune shook his head, shook off the impact of the fists on his face and his eyes narrowed, his stare focusing on her through the crack between Des and Weston. “Elle—”
“No. You don’t talk to her.” Des’s shoulder slammed into Weston’s side, erasing the small window. “You don’t look at her until you give me a good reason that I would ever let you near her again. Elle’s my family and you’re lucky that Jules isn’t here or she would have already slit your throat.”
“Start talking,” Weston said, his trunks of arms crossing over his chest.
Rune sighed. A sigh she could feel in her own bones.
Rune’s jaw cracked and his voice started low, each word drawn out, not wanting to be spoken. “My father was an antiquarian. He led expeditions for treasures and he was killed by a peer—a man that had hired him—when I was fourteen. Elle knows this. I never lied to her on that score."
He paused, silence stretching long over the room. “My father was Miles Draper. Lord Gatlong killed him. Gatlong financed the last expedition my father cobbled together with the goal of finding the Box of Draupnir. But the truth is, my father had been searching his whole life for that box.”
He coughed, and she could hear the blood thick in his mouth. It was quite possible Wes had dislodged a few teeth.
“Keep talking,” Des said.
