Page 37 of A Lady of Means (Roses and Rakes #1)
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The outpost in Bajgah had been ambushed. Captain Devyn Winter and his Lieutenant, Calum Sterling, tried to get everyone out, all of the men, the civilians, and locals that they could. Still, more and more enemy attacks kept coming.
Death was all around him. Death walked at his back and stood at his side and ran towards him. He couldn’t tell if it had come for him, or to use him.
“Where’s Belcher?” He heard Calum’s yell above the artillery fire.
He heard someone to his left swear. He followed the other man’s vision.
There was one of Devyn’s men several yards ahead, being forced into a caravan at gunpoint.
Sweat beaded on Devyn’s brow, he wiped it, feeling the dark dirt sticking to his skin.
His heart pounded so loudly he barely heard another onslaught of folly.
“Go with the others,” Devyn was forcing a group of men onto a boat, his voice hoarse from yelling over the intermittent blasts. “I’ll get Belcher, I’ll find you at the rendezvous point as quick as I can.”
“Christ, no, man. I’m comin’ wi’ ye,” Calum said, grabbing Devyn’s middle. The movement pulled at the bandage wrapped horizontally to hold Calum’s dislocated shoulder in place that was covered in blood.
“No! Stay with them, lead them,” Devyn ordered his friend.
Devyn was taking off his jacket removing the bundle in his pockets, “Take this for me, in case I don’t come back.
” The ring she’d left behind on her pillow when he’d woken up without her, glinting.
It was tied securely in the ribbon he’d bound them all together with.
“Don’t do this, Captain. Don’t ask it of me.”
“Don’t ask me to leave Belcher behind.”
Calum swore again. Ducking at the sound of another blast.
Devyn loaded the remaining men he was responsible for on a boat, taking off to get Belcher back.
He was running down the gangplank onto the bank, dirt kicking up around him to catch up to that wagon.
He thought his lungs would burst but he pushed, harder, faster.
Those men weren’t taking away his comrade, if he lost sight of that wagon, he’d never see him again. Belcher’s blood would be on his hands.
Blood and sweat and the tangy smoke of cannons and gunpowder assaulted Devyn’s senses.
He’d never catch up on foot. He lined up his shot, aiming for the driver of the wagon. But there somewhere in the haze stalked a familiar figure, gorgeous and ethereal and at odds with his surroundings. He didn’t pause long enough to look in its direction.
The figure floated closer, closer, and then her familiar voice curled into his ear as his finger hovered over the trigger. “Get down.”
But she was too late.
A bullet pierced his hip, shattering tendon and bone. He exploded with agony. As he fell, the battle raged on within him and around him. How many of his men would die today? How many on the boats he’d loaded would make it out? Would he ever see England, see her, see his brother again?
Shadows crept over his consciousness; he could feel them dragging him toward the ether. But there at his ear, he felt her lips caressing him, another caress at his cheek.
She wasn’t here, she couldn’t be.
He had to get up, had to fight for her, had to protect her.
“Don’t move,” a voice bellowed, hands staunching the bleeding at his wounded side. “Your shot hit its mark. He lost control, the horses careened. I was able to make use of the distraction and jump out of the caravan. I just wasn’t quite fast enough.”
“Belcher?” he asked.
“Aye, Captain, I’ve got you.”
Belcher was applying pressure, but the pain was holding fast.
“I’m here,” she whispered in his ear again. “I’m waiting for you.”
He groaned her name, it was barely audible, carried on the wind and shouts and bullets and horse cries. He was so tired. So bloody tired. He could just give himself over to the pain until it took him prisoner and it would all be over.
He felt her lips at his temple. “Stay. For me. Stay.” The voice was insistent.
She wasn’t here. She wasn’t really here in this hellscape, he was only imagining her. Or was she real, and it was the hellscape he was imagining? Surely, even a weary soldier such as he couldn’t conjure such a realistic layer of Dante’s Inferno.
“There is nowhere, no corner of this earth or the heavens that I cannot reach you.” It was her voice again. He recognized those words. The letters. The ring. Had he gotten them to Calum?
Hands lifted him onto a stretcher, the constriction of the movements causing him such tremendous, overwhelming agony. Blackness seeped over his vision.
“Stay.” She commanded as he drifted away from her, unable to do exactly as she bid.
He peeled his eyes open with all his remaining strength. An unending sky of stars stared down on him. Haze wrapped around his consciousness, taking the form of a woman. A woman with unbound blonde hair and impossibly gold-green eyes who took his hand and led him away like a spirit guide.
The cool breeze of her phantom touch calmed the pain behind his eyelids, the pain in his hip dulled its roar. He could feel little pain if she was here with him.
The battlefield and all the sounds and sights of death that lay around him fell out of his orbit. They couldn’t touch him or hurt him anymore. All he knew as his eyes closed was her as she spirited him away somewhere beyond its reach.