Des’s face turned back to Elle, his voice grave. “It’s true. She told me.” His head swiveled forward, his eyes narrowing on Rune. “So Jules knew you then?”
He looked to Des. “No. I never met her. Not until she landed on the Firefox years later. My father kept me hidden away from his clients. And I was held back from the scene—on the other side of the wood screen that ran along the room.”
His eyes closed and his chest lifted high as he slumped the crown of his head back against the wall. “I tried—I fought so hard to get to my father—to see him, to touch him before he died. Before he took his last breath.”
Elle gasped, her heart shattering for Rune and all that he’d suffered in that time. First his mother, and then... Tears spilled over her lower lashes. To not only watch his father murdered, but to see the life go out of him and not be able to get to him. She shuddered, wiping away the wetness on her cheeks.
“Why couldn’t you get to him?” Weston asked.
Rune’s eyes opened and he looked from Weston to Des. “It was Hoppler. We were just boys then, but he knew. He knew to hold me back. He knew what would happen if I charged into that room at that moment. The next bullet would have been in my chest. He saved me from myself.”
“So you do know Hoppler.”
“Since we were eleven.” Rune nodded and he shifted his feet, pushing himself up along the wall until he was standing near to his full height. “We met on the docks in Belize Town. He was an orphan, same as me. He saved my life as many times as I saved his. We were inseparable—we only survived because we were together in those years.”
“Until?” Des asked.
“Until I boarded the Firefox and he didn’t.” Rune’s gaze darted back and forth between Des and Weston. “Hoppler was supposed to be on the ship—told me he was coming, five minutes behind me. But he wasn’t. Captain Folback set sail and Hoppler wasn’t on the ship. He would have been your mate just the same as me if he’d made that tide. Our paths split at that time. Mine went with the Firefox and my shipmates. All of you. His went a very different direction.”
“To a despicable low-life.” Weston growled. “I don’t care who he was to you, Hoppler tried to have us killed for that damn box.”
“That was never supposed to happen. His men were supposed to wait. They were never supposed to go after the box. Yet they took it upon themselves to get the box when they knew I was the one that was supposed to deliver it.” Rune’s mouth pulled back to the side. “Hoppler can’t always control the idiocy of his men. That’s why I was there accompanying you to Seahorn, to make sure they stayed in line. To make sure they didn’t touch you or Laney.”
“A hell of a job you did at that.”
His stare never leaving Rune, Des grabbed Weston’s arm before he made motion forward to hit Rune again. “Why was Hoppler after the box?”
“Hoppler never wanted the box. Gatlong was making him do it. Gatlong has—had—something over Hoppler. Enough to make Hoppler go after the box for him. Hoppler was supposed to get the box and then hand it over to Gatlong. He didn’t have a choice but to comply.”
“And you chose to help him—help him over protecting your own mates,” Des said.
“Except that’s what I was doing—or trying to.” Rune’s head shook, his look going to the ceiling. “My loyalties have been split for a long time and I was trying to help everyone—help myself—keep everyone safe.”
“How?”
Rune’s look dropped to Des. “Hoppler did what he needed to in order to survive. It’s how he is. He survives. But he knows everything about me. And he knows that the day my father died I was left with two goals. One, get back the Box of Draupnir and fulfill my father’s life mission.”
“And two?” Des asked.
“Kill Lord Gatlong. With the box in-hand, Hoppler could deliver Gatlong to me. It was the only way I was ever going to get close to the bastard.”
At that, Elle shoved between Des and Weston and set herself in front of Rune. Des didn’t stop her.
She pinned him with her stare. “What was your father’s mission?”
Rune sighed, his hand lifting to rub the red spot along his jaw from where Weston had hit him. “I told you what I knew of the box—that lore says the ring holds the soul of the last true Viking god.”
Her arms crossing over her ribcage, her head cocked to the side. “Some drunk old man in a tavern didn’t tell you that, did he?”
“No.” Rune shook his head, his copper-green eyes centered on her. “All of what I told you—that was my father’s research. Stories that had been handed down generation after generation. Maps. Sightings of it through the centuries.”
“And the wooden planks didn’t come from your captain?”
“No.” His lower jaw shifted to the side, cracking. “Handed down through generations. And I found two of them on an expedition in Egypt.”
Prickles of anger ran up her spine, swirling about her scalp.
The lies.
The lies upon lies.
Her eyes closed, her head shaking as words whispered from her lips. “Why? Why?”
“My father believed all of it. The power of the box—the curse of it. He was obsessed. Obsessed, but still at the mercy of the men that would fund his expeditions to find it.”
“Why the obsession?” Des asked.
Elle opened her eyes to glance over her shoulder at Des. His hand was still curling and uncurling, ready to strike again. She wasn’t sure if she was happy about that or not.
Rune’s shoulders lifted. “My father believed that he—that we are descendants of that last soul. He believed it was his mission to find the box and return it from whence it came.”
Elle gasped.
Rune nodded. “Exactly—from Jules’s own lips. It needs to go home.”
Weston stepped forward, setting himself to Elle’s right side. “But in all those years that you were around the box—on the ship, in London, at Seahorn—why didn’t you just take it?”
Rune looked to Weston. “I didn’t know what to do with it. Where it should go. What good is having the box if the power of it overtakes you? I know you know what it’s like, Wes, and I couldn’t chance it. I couldn’t chance becoming corrupted by it before I discovered where it needed to go. I didn’t want to be tested and found weak, to want to keep it for myself. I couldn’t fail my father like that. Not for all he gave for the box. His time, his soul, his life.”
“So you used us—you used us all—the deaths, the horrors at the hands of that curse,” Weston rumbled, leaning forward.
Rune pulled himself to his full height, meeting Weston’s fury. “No, whoever held that box wanted it. They wanted the riches and they never once considered what it would cost them. Their course was set whether I was there or not.”
Weston looked ready to pounce, until his mouth suddenly pulled to the side and he took an unexpected step backward.
Rune’s gaze flickered to Des. “But the time had finally come at your castle, Des. Not one of you wanted the box at Seahorn. That was when I was going to take possession, no matter if I was ready or not. But then a wrinkle appeared.”
“Jules’s vision,” Elle whispered.
Rune nodded and his stare settled on Elle. “That combined with the fact that Elle had seen the box in the mosaics in the baths—a clue—a clue like no other. You don’t know how many years my father searched for a trail like that. How long I searched for a trail like that. It was the closest we’d ever come to knowing the true origin of the box. So I had to see it—see the mosaics.” His voice went flat. “And I had to use Elle to see them.”
A cold shudder wrapped along her spine. To hear from Rune’s own lips how he’d used her. “Is this a lie, Rune? All of it, is it a lie?”
“Elle—”
Her hand curled into a fist, punching through the air toward the ground with a stomp of her foot. “Is this a lie?”
“It isn’t.” His shoulders dropped, as though all air had left him—noth
ing but a deflated shell. “This is the full truth of it. If Jules were here, she could tell you—tell you exactly what that room my father died in looked like. Exactly what my father looked like, what he wore, when her father shot him and he fell to the ground. I watched it, she watched it. How she looked when she pulled that box from his hand. Which side she knelt on. How she had to touch his lifeless fingers to extract the box. She could tell you all of it and it would match exactly what I witnessed.”
“Dammit, Rune, you’ve lied to us for years—hell, since you boarded the Firefox,” Des spat out. “Why in the bloody world should we believe you now?”
Rune’s gaze snapped to Des. “You’re right. I haven’t told you the truth of my past for years. But you know the code of the ship—we don’t inquire as to the past. And I’ve done everything in my power to protect you from Hoppler once I knew he was set upon getting the box for Lord Gatlong.”
The room fell silent.
The wall of her, Des and Weston stared at Rune.
Rune took their glares, not begging for forgiveness, not claiming innocence. If he was to be condemned for everything he’d done, he was to take the judgement with integrity. With owning the choices he’d made.
Even if it would cost him everything.
She’d never loved him more.
She’d never hated him more.
Her bottom lip quivering, she managed to force words from her tongue that she needed—but was loath—to say.
“Get the hell out of this house, Rune.”
{ Chapter 25 }
Dodging the middle-of-the-night carriages, Rune stepped across the street in front of Weston’s townhouse, moving into the square. He stopped for a moment, his hands gripping the black wrought-iron rail that lined this portion of the gardens.
Heaving a suffocating breath, his head dropped and he bent over, his eyes closed.
He needed to talk with Elle alone.
The only thing he’d wanted since Des and Weston had dragged him back here. The only reason he’d come.
For that slight chance he could get her alone.
But Des and Weston weren’t about to let that happen. He knew how protective Des was about his family. He knew his friends now hated him.
Rightfully so.
There wasn’t anything he could say or do to erase the past and what he’d hidden from them. What he’d allowed to happen to them. There’d be no forgiveness for him on that score.
But with Elle—he’d try—try anything and everything to get her alone. He didn’t need her forgiveness. He didn’t need her to give him a chance.
He just needed her to know one thing.
She was everything.
The only thing.
No matter if she ever forgave him, ever saw him again, he needed her to know that. Above the box. Above everything he’d sworn to do. She was everything.
He heaved a breath into his lungs, the thick air of London settling deep into his chest.
Pain throbbed along his jaw with every heartbeat, along the dagger wounds in his thigh. Pain he fought. Pain he couldn’t allow himself to acknowledge.
Pain was nothing.
Elle was everything.
Turning around, he stared at the windows of Weston’s townhouse. Stared at the shadowed figures moving about in the lower drawing room they’d just been standing in.
He needed to talk to Elle.
And he wasn’t going anywhere until that happened.
~~~
“Is he still out there?”
Lounging in a wingback chair next to the unlit fireplace in Weston’s lower drawing room, Des looked up from the Times and nodded. He folded the paper down and set it across his lap, his hand moving to rest on the shin of his right leg cocked atop his left knee. His bare toes stretched. Elle had long since become accustomed to Jules’s husband’s quirks—such as his consistently bare feet.
Without looking at the window and the sheer drapes holding a thin line between them and the outside world, Elle moved into the room, sitting on the chair opposite Des. “It’s been two days. How? Why? He hasn’t moved from that spot—how is he even managing it? He must be leaving at night.”
“He hasn’t moved.” Des’s lips pursed for a long second.
“A stone.”
“He’s stubborn. Always has been.” Des’s gaze moved to the sheer drapes. “Wes went out and talked to him this morning.”
Elle perked up in her seat. “He did? Did he tell him to leave?”
Des lifted his shoulders. “I don’t know exactly what directive he gave Rune.”
Her bottom lip slipped under her top teeth. “We cannot stay here forever—Weston has been more than gracious in opening his townhouse to us, but I am sure he wants to get back to Laney and I know that you are rather desperate to return to Seahorn and Jules and your babe. I have interrupted your lives long enough.”
“Stop—this isn’t an interruption. You are family, Elle. We show up for family—always. What we really need to know is what would you like to do?” Des’s eyes narrowed at her. “I would offer to open up my townhouse for you, but you know we aren’t about to leave you alone in the city with Rune lurking about. He’s stealthy and there has never been a building he couldn’t quietly break into.”
“Truly?”
“He was known for it.” Des frowned. “Which is why I don’t like the thought of you going back to the isle either. You need to come back to Seahorn with me. Jules will be desperately worried about you if she doesn’t see you alive and well in the flesh.”
A half-smile touched her lips. Des was every bit the big brother she never had.
Her look went downward, her head shaking. “I know, but Seahorn…it’s not the place for me right now. And I don’t know why. It’s always seemed like a true home to me—with you and Jules. But now…now it just seems…” Her words trailed off and she shrugged, unable to put into words the heaviness that was in her heart. Heaviness that she knew Seahorn and Jules could not soothe.
For all that Des and Jules had made her a part of their family—for all that she loved them for that—she was still an extra. An extra in their lives that could come and go and their lives would go on, nonetheless.
And she truthfully didn’t know if she could bear it. As much as she loved her niece, it was a babe, a family, a home. Everything she’d lost long ago. Everything she’d just dared to start to hope for again.
Hope that had been stupid.
Des inclined his head to her, his voice low and patient. “It’s your choice, Elle. Until you make it, we will stay here. Jules would kill me if I left you alone and in danger. Truly, we want you at Seahorn.”
She nodded. “I know and I thank you for that. I will come there soon, I promise.”
Des looked past her to the window facing the street. His jaw shifted back and forth, clear he was pondering his next words. “You didn’t ask what Rune said to Wes.”
She stilled, her head tilting to the side. “Do I want to know?”
Des shrugged. “You tell me.”
Her look went down to her lap, her eyes glazing over as her fingers played with the light cream muslin of her skirt.
Did she want to know?
Of course she did.
Should she want to know—that was the real question.
She had to hold tight to the fact that Rune had lied about everything. Used her. Hold tight to that and not let the small cracks in her resolve to hate him turn into gaping canyons.
Still, she couldn’t hold herself back.
As much as Des’s next words could destroy her to the core, she lifted her gaze to him and nodded.
His mouth quirked to the side. “He’s out there for one reason. You.”
“Me?”
“He told Wes he’s not moving until he talks to you—alone. So you can understand why I’m hesitant to leave you alone here in London or anywhere else, for that matter.”
Her fingers clamped together, her nails digging into her palms. “Did Wes thre
aten him?”
“Most likely, knowing Wes. But Rune is still out there.”
She nodded, then silently stood and moved over to the window.
Her heart pounding in her throat, she drew aside the drapery. The mist that had permeated the day had collected on the glass, fat droplets that streaked downward in front of her eyes.
A blink, and she found Rune leaning against the black iron railing, his arms crossed in front of him, his clothes soaked and hanging limply from his strong frame. His black trousers were lumpy around the knot of the white bandage about his leg where she had stabbed him. His brown hair, dark with the wetness, dripping onto his face.
His stare found her instantly. Piercing, sending blades through her chest.
He made no motion. Not the slightest twitch.
Stubborn bugger.
All that and he didn’t even look pathetic. He looked solid. A granite boulder in a raging river, the world parting around him. Determination that wasn’t about to yield.
She let the drape fall from her fingers, blocking her view of him.
She couldn’t look at him for long without breaking.
With a step backward she inhaled, breath edging deep into her lungs, barely able to make it through the clamp that had seized onto her chest the moment she’d seen him.
Hell, she’d already broken.
“I’ll see him. I’ll talk to him.” She turned back to Des.
Des set the paper onto the ottoman in front of him and stood. “You are sure?”
“If I see him, then he’ll leave, right?”
His brow furrowed. “One never knows with Rune. He lied to us for years, so what do I know of him?”
Exactly. What did she really know of him?
Talk to him. Get him out of her life. It was all she needed to concentrate on now.
She’d had this same conversation numerous times with men during the last six years.
Rune would just be one more.
{ Chapter 26 }
One last breath to solidify her spine and Elle opened the door to the drawing room, her gaze downward as she entered the room, refusing to look up. She turned around to close the door, her look on the tips of her slippers poking out from her skirts.
The Soul of a Rogue (A Box of Draupnir Novel Book 3) Page 17