Chapter 30
Ice and fire merged in James’s veins at the sight of Vincent’s hands around Rose’s throat.
He raised the rifle to his shoulder, his grip steady despite the white-hot fury coursing through his veins.
He couldn’t shoot Vincent outright, not with Rose in front of the man and struggling. But he had to stop the beast from choking her
“Let her go.” His voice cut through the sounds of struggle—Rose’s choked gasps, Vincent’s labored breathing.
Vincent froze. His hand remained wrapped around Rose’s throat, but his body went rigid as he turned to face James in the doorway. For one heartbeat, no one moved.
Then Vincent’s face twisted into something ugly—fear and calculation warring for dominance. He yanked Rose tighter in front of him like a shield, one hand still gripping her throat. “You won’t shoot.” The words came out tight, strained. “You’ll hit her.”
James’s finger trembled on the trigger. The rifle sight wavered, and every instinct screamed at him to pull, to end this, to make Vincent pay for every bruise on Rose’s face, every mark his fingers left on her throat. Every scar his dominance and lies had left on her heart.
But Vincent was right.
In the dim firelight, with Rose struggling in his grip, the risk was too great. One inch off, and he could kill the woman he loved.
“Put it down, Balfour. Put it down, or I swear I’ll snap her neck right here.”
James’s mind raced through options, each one worse than the last. His splinted leg made it impossible to lunge for a better angle. He could wait Vincent out, but the man was desperate now. Cornered. And desperate men did awful things.
Rose’s eyes met his across the cabin, wide with fear but also with something else—trust. She trusted him to save her. The rifle felt like lead in his hands, useless despite its power.
The one thing he couldn’t risk was Rose’s life.
“All right.” James lowered the weapon and leaned it against the wall.
Vincent’s expression relaxed—just a fraction, but enough.
Rose must have felt it. Her heel drove into Vincent’s knee. He stumbled backward, his arm releasing her throat. She threw herself forward, away from him.
James lunged.
He had to get to Rose. To get between her and Vincent.
Vincent recovered and charged forward. James met his blow with his shoulder, shoving back. They melded into a tangle of limbs, then crashed into the cabin’s rickety table. It collapsed beneath their weight in a shower of splinters.
Vincent possessed the advantage of not being injured, but James had desperation and fury on his side. Vincent’s fist connected with James’s jaw, snapping his head back, but James didn’t let go. He drove Vincent backward into the wall, and the entire structure shuddered.
They grappled on the filthy floor, James’s broken leg twisted. Bolts of white-hot agony shot through his body. But the pain only fueled his rage.
This man had tried to drag Rose back into slavery, and James would die before he let that happen.
Vincent rolled on top of him, his hands closing around James’s throat. He fought for breath, his hands gripping the knave’s shoulders. Vincent’s arms were longer though, giving him—
The pressure built, darkness creeping in at the edges of his vision. His lungs burned.
Rose appeared behind Vincent, a cloth in her hand. She’d somehow worked one of her arms out of the ropes that bound her to the chair. She pressed the rag to Vincent’s snarling open mouth.
The surprise made his grip on James’s throat loosen, just enough for him to suck in a desperate gulp of air.
Vincent jerked his head away from the rag, but whatever that sweet fragrance was must have already started to work. His movements slowed, turning clumsy. The iron fingers around James’s neck weakened.
James shoved hard, throwing the villain off balance. He toppled sideways, and James rolled with him, ignoring the agony from his broken leg.
He had to pin Vincent down. Had to keep him there so Rose—
She crouched beside James and pressed the cloth again to Vincent’s face with her free hand. Ropes still bound her body and other arm to the splintered chair pieces.
Vincent thrashed beneath them, weaker now, his struggles growing sluggish. At last, his eyes rolled back, unfocused.
His body went slack.
James couldn’t trust it. He kept the weight of his good knee pressed down on Vincent’s chest, his hands pinning the man’s shoulders to the grimy floor.
His own chest heaved, dragging in air that tasted like rot and chemicals and blood. The room tilted sideways, and he blinked hard to clear his vision.
“Is he…” Rose’s voice came out hoarse, raw from whatever this blackguard had done to her.
“Out.” James forced the word through his own burning throat. “For now.”
He didn’t move. Couldn’t make himself ease the pressure keeping Vincent pinned. The security of Vincent’s body beneath him felt like the only solid thing in a world gone sideways.
Rose’s hand trembled against his shoulder. “James, you can let go now.”
Could he? Every muscle in his body screamed to hold on, to make sure this monster couldn’t rise again.
The chemical sweetness of whatever Rose had used still hung in the air, coating the back of his throat and mixing with the copper taste of blood in his mouth.
His broken leg had twisted beneath him at some point during the fight—he couldn’t remember when exactly, only that each breath sent fresh waves of fire shooting from knee to hip.
The splint dug into his flesh through his torn trousers, and warmth trickled down his calf that could be either blood or sweat. He couldn’t tell anymore.
“Jamie.” Rose’s voice cracked on his name. “Please.”
Her words finally broke through the red haze clouding his vision. He forced his fingers to loosen, one by one.
Rose had laid the cloth over Vincent’s mouth and nose, and the man’s chest continued its shallow rise and fall beneath him—unconscious, not dead.
James finally rolled off Vincent’s chest, his broken leg screaming as he turned. The room spun, and he had to brace one hand against the grubby floor to keep from pitching sideways.
But Rose needed him. He had to keep his senses about him.
She knelt beside him, still bound to the splintered chair back, her hair wild from all the fighting. Bruises darkened her throat in the shape of Vincent’s fingers, and her face—her beautiful face—showed a purple bloom on her right cheek where that monster must have struck her.
She started to wiggle out of the ropes, and he helped work the chair out from behind her. Once she pushed the ropes down the length of her skirt and off her feet, she turned to him.
He didn’t wait. Couldn’t wait.
He pulled her into his arms, ignoring the way his leg twisted beneath him, ignoring the fire that shot through every nerve ending.
Nothing mattered except the solid weight of her in his arms, the proof that she was alive, that he’d reached her in time.
God had protected her. Protected them both.
She collapsed into him, her body shaking so fierce, he could feel it in his bones. Her fingers seized his coat, clutching the fabric like he might disappear if she loosened her grip.
Never. He would never leave her side again if he had any say-so in the matter.
The trembling in her body worked its way into his own chest, settling there alongside the terror that still hadn’t quite released its hold on his ribs.
“I’m sorry.” His throat still burned from Vincent’s chokehold, making his voice raw.
“Rose, I’m so sorry. For the barn, for standing there useless when you needed me to tell you—” His words cracked, and he had to force the rest out past the tightness.
“For letting you believe even for a second that I blamed you or your mother for what that monster did.”
“I know.” Tears spilled down her cheeks, cutting clean tracks through the grime coating her skin. “Jamie, I know. I should never have run. I should have trusted you.”
The way she said his name—the childhood nickname only she had ever used—broke something loose in his chest. He pulled her closer, burying his face in her hair and breathing in the scent of her.
She was real. Solid. Alive.
And safe.