To Capture a Warrior
~ Logan’s Legends ~
A Revelry’s Tempest Novel
A Regency Romance
K.J. Jackson
Copyright © K.J. Jackson, 2018
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, Living or dead, is coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any forms, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.
First Edition: June 2018
ISBN: 978-1-940149-30-1
http://www.kjjackson.com
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More of my Books
Historical Romance
If you haven’t already, be sure to check out my other historical romances—each is a stand-alone story and they can be read in any order (here they are in order of publication):
Stone Devil Duke, Hold Your Breath, currently free!
Unmasking the Marquess, Hold Your Breath
My Captain, My Earl, Hold Your Breath
Worth of a Duke, Lords of Fate
Earl of Destiny, Lords of Fate
Marquess of Fortune, Lords of Fate
Vow, Lords of Action
Promise, Lords of Action
Oath, Lords of Action
Of Valor & Vice, Revelry’s Tempest
Of Sin & Sanctuary, Revelry’s Tempest
Of Risk & Redemption, Revelry’s Tempest
To Capture a Rogue, A Logan’s Legends Novella, Revelry’s Tempest
To Capture a Warrior, A Logan’s Legends Novella, Revelry’s Tempest
The Devil in the Duke, Revelry’s Tempest (Logan’s story, Fall 2018)
Paranormal Romance
Flame Moon #1, currently free!
Triple Infinity, Flame Moon #2
Flux Flame, Flame Moon #3
– For my favorite Ks
{ Chapter 1 }
~~~
Men of uncommon valor.
Each with a past to deny.
Peerless. Formidable. Coveted.
One man to unite them, this band of guards unlike any other.
~~~
Western Spain, deep in the midst of the Peninsular War
July 1812
“Rifle.”
The order thundered across the room, cutting through the echo of the last blast from the spent rifle the soldier was holding out.
Bridget’s look whipped to her father. Perched on his knees on the floorboards, his arms flew about him, gunpowder spilling as he manically measured and poured it into one of the four rifles scattered about his legs. He grabbed the ramrod, jamming a linen-wrapped lead shot deep into the barrel. Without looking up to her, he thrust out the Baker rifle to her, his other hand already reaching for the gunpowder to load the next.
She snatched the rifle from her father’s hand, her fingers clutching the still warm barrel from the last shot.
Bridget ran across the room, her hands so quick to get rid of the rifle she tossed it into the soldier’s waiting hand, then snatched the spent one from his grip. He pulled the butt of the rifle to his shoulder, aiming out the window, his dark eyes trained on the cobblestone lane below.
A dream. This had to be a dream.
An hour ago she had been dressing wounds.
They were supposed to be safe here. Safe. The lieutenant colonel had guaranteed it.
But they weren’t. And now they only had one man defending them against the oncoming French troops.
What had made the building so safe as an infirmary—two stories high, built of dark grey stone and with sight lines in all directions above the neighboring cottages—had also made it a target.
It was the safest place in the village. Also the most strategic.
But this wasn’t a dream. The stench of burnt gunpowder searing her nose and the constant barrage of lead balls picking at the exterior stone wall just two feet away from her assured her this was horrifyingly real.
Bridget stared at the man perched along the side of the open window. Careful, practiced, only a sliver of his body would show along the window’s edge to the oncoming soldiers. His dark eyes intense, unflinching as he set his aim, he didn’t blink as a bullet tore into the grey stone next to his head, exploding shards of rock onto the side of his face.
He was hard. He was war. And beautifully, tragically, the last thing set between her and death. A brutal, horrifying death.
Within seconds of gaining control of the building, Boney’s soldiers would dispose of her father, of the ten wounded men that were under their care in the adjoining room—most of them already touching death and of no help to them.
Her…her they would most likely keep. Keep until her body had been defiled and ravaged and torn in two. And then maybe, if she was lucky, they would kill her.
She had accepted that possibility when she followed her physician father into this war. She had come, willingly, because her father depended upon her like no other.
Her father was a physician that could actually save men with his abilities—not just blithely saw off appendages and let soldiers bleed to death like so many of his compatriots. Even as a physician, surgery was where he excelled, and he had taught her everything he knew. It would have been reprehensible for him not to serve the crown—to serve the brave men where he could. And that meant Bridget had needed to come with him to the continent. To this blasted war.
Bridget’s gaze locked onto the soldier’s forefinger. The slightest twitch and he slowly pulled the trigger.
A slight nod was the only indication he had hit his target, his hand flinging out the empty rifle as he yelled again, his look not leaving the cobblestone street below.
“Rifle.”
Even though it thundered, the calm of his voice was like no other. Low. Commanding. Gentle as it cut into the acrid air of the flash of gunpowder.
Bridget jumped, grabbing the stock of the spent rifle and spinning back to her father. She grabbed the next two primed and loaded rifles by the barrels, the metal of one of them burning into her palm as she rushed back to the soldier and shoved it in his hand.
The soldier had burst into the building, running up to these rooms with five rifles bundled in his arms and a heavy satchel of ammunition in a knapsack. He’d dropped all of that to the floor in a frenzy, rushing from window to window, desperate for the perfect vantage point. Her father had gone to lock every door he could between them and the approaching French soldiers outside.
But they had come. And they were getting closer.
This soldier—a marksman of the highest order—had held them at bay for a half hour. Picking off Boney’s soldiers one by one.
But it wasn’t enough.
The cries, the French yelling below, filling her ears was close—too close. They had made it to the corner of the building if the voices she heard were any indication.
Crack.
Another shot off. Screams from below.
No matter how fast her father loaded the rifles. No matter how quickly she delivered them to the soldier. No matter how many men the soldier shot down.
They were here.
Bridget pushed another rifle into the soldier’s waiting hand as she took the spent rifle.
This time, her hands were shaking as her fingertips touched his
.
He hadn’t looked at her. Hadn’t acknowledged her other than the legs that brought the rifles to him, but at that moment, he paused, looking to her.
His dark eyes, almost the color of ink, pierced her. “You will survive this, lass. You will.”
She froze, his words hitting her.
He told the lie so effortlessly, so calmly and without a hint of doubt that she wanted to believe him.
Hell, she did believe him.
Before she could move again, spin back to her father to retrieve the next rifle, he turned back to the window, squinting his left eye closed. Not a second passed before he shot.
But as he opened his eye, lifting his head, he didn’t immediately fling the rifle out for her to take.
“Our forces. They’re almost here.” His mouth pulled back, almost to a terse smile.
Bridget stepped to the side of the window, hiding her body behind stone as she searched through the peaks of the surrounding cottages.
A flicker of movement, and she leaned forward to see a number of men moving along a far off lane.
With a wicked curse the soldier shoved her away from the window, sending her stumbling. Another shot blasted into the stone of the windowsill where she had just been. Jagged flecks of stone sprayed into her eyes.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
More shots.
And then a very distinct sound. A door slamming open.
“Blast it to hell.” The soldier swore under his breath, the first indication she had seen from him of any alarm.
He stepped away from the window, pointing to her father. “All of them, I need all of them loaded now.” He ripped his spent rifle from her hand and rushed to her father, bending down next to him, his fingers flying as he loaded it.
“Five. Dammit, five bloody rifles. I should have grabbed more.”
Crack. Crack.
The floorboards shook under her boots as another door below them crashed open.
And then the terrifying sound of feet thundering up the stairs.
Not looking at his hands as he loaded the last rifle, the soldier looked up to her father. “The window.”
With a nod, her father jumped to his feet and grabbed her arm, yanking her across the floor to the open window. The soldier followed him, juggling every rifle with him and lining them up on the floorboards in front of him.
Her father stuck his head out the window, then quickly pulled himself back in, his panicked hazel eyes on her. His words flew in a frenzy. “Our forces are coming. You can make the jump, Bridget. You’ll be safer out there than in here.”
Crack.
A shot blasted through the lock of the door.
The door to their room exploded open, the wood splintering.
Bridget screamed, gripping her father’s arm. “You can—”
Her words ripped from her throat as she went flying through the air.
Shoved—pushed through the open window to fall through the air.
Terror like she had never known seized her.
Falling.
Falling.
Falling.
She hit the ground.
{ Chapter 2 }
The breath he gasped filled his lungs, blasting him into consciousness. Blasting him upright. His hands flailed, searching for anything to clutch onto, and he opened his eyes only to see hazy light.
Nothing but hazy, white light.
Hell.
Not his sight. Not his eyes.
Panic stormed him.
His legs tangled in sheets, in blankets, his arms thrashed about, desperate for something solid.
Sudden warm hands caught his bare forearm, clutching it, stilling it.
“Hunter, calm, calm.” The soft voice slid as honey into his ears. A woman. “You are awake, finally. But calm. Calm. You need to calm.”
His arms stilled.
“Please, Hunter. Lie down, lie down and let me help you.”
Help? What did he need help with? He needed to get back to that front line. To the men that would die because he wasn’t there. He was the one that had to help. He was the one with the vision. The aim. The gift.
He choked on a gasp. His eyes. His sight.
That was why he needed help. He couldn’t see a blasted thing. Just haze.
The fingers on his arms pressed into the muscle. Then one of her hands left him only to land on his shoulder.
His body fighting defeat, fighting the damn bed he’d been forced into, he nonetheless couldn’t resist the palm gently pressing on his shoulder and guiding him back down to the bed.
It took long moments before his breathing slowed, and the insistent palm on his shoulder didn’t move, didn’t twitch until he stilled.
“There. Thank you.” The voice reached into his mind, calming him where he couldn’t calm himself. “Now if you will manage to lie still for a moment, I can tend to your head.”
Without waiting for a response, a flurry of fingers descended onto his forehead. He realized a thick covering of bandages had been wrapped about his skull.
Quickly, the strips of linen lifted away from his scalp as the woman spoke. “You do not know how relieved I am that you have awakened, sir.”
The last strip of linen moved along his temple and then lifted from his face, freeing his skin to the air. He opened his eyes, blinking.
Blinking again.
And again.
A ceiling. White. Plain plaster. An almost indiscernible crack running from the corner.
His sight was perfectly fine. Not harmed at all.
He shifted his head to the left to look up at the woman tending to him.
Her.
The girl in the infirmary. The girl bringing him rifles. The girl with the wide green eyes and light brown hair.
The girl he pushed out the window.
She survived.
She blinked, her green eyes piercing him. “You, sir, are not only a hero, but you have proved these so-called surgeons here very wrong, and for that, I am eternally grateful.”
His mouth cracked open and before he could talk, she set a wet cloth to his lips, dripping water into his mouth. Heaven.
He took a moment to let the moisture sink into the crevices of his mouth, his throat. He opened his lips again. “You.”
A soft smile lifted her lips. “Yes.”
“How—how are they wrong?”
A frown quickly replaced the smile. “They thought to place you in the death room. They were not going to bother with you.”
“I was to die? What happened to me?”
She leaned in over him, setting the wet cloth to his lips again and her voice dipped low. “There was the bullet along your skull. And then the bullet in your foot. And then the bullet that tore through your side. Between all of it, they did not think to give you a chance.”
He closed his eyes for a long breath. He moved the muscles in his arms, his legs, his torso, praying all of him was intact. He opened his eyes to her. “But then they did give me a chance?”
She nodded, her green eyes somber. “They did. I saw you when you arrived and I watched where they were to place you, and I…well…” Her words trailed as the edges of her eyes crinkled in a cringe. “I threw what could only be considered the most obnoxiously ridiculous fit ever achieved in a battlefield infirmary. I had to validate the belief that many men hold in that women are hysterical creatures.”
“But you are not? Hysterical?”
She shrugged. “That was the first time. But it was worth it. It kept you from the death room and that was all that mattered. I threatened to work upon you by myself if they did not do so. It wasn’t until I reminded them who my father was and what I could do that they acquiesced. And truly, you have been my main concern over the past three weeks. My other patients are all in the beds next to you.”
The throbbing all over his body had built up in force—painful, pounding pulses that made it hard to concentrate on her words.
He sucked in air, seething out words. “Pain—why
pain?”
Her brow instantly furrowed and she leaned forward, fussing with the bandage still wrapped around the top of his head. “Your head? The swelling finally receded around the wound two days ago, although I imagine it still throbs.” Her frown deepened as she craned her neck to look down at his body under the sheets. “Your side survived quite nicely, as the bullet went clean through. So I imagine it is your foot.”
“What happened to my foot?”
“A bullet shattered the bones in your ankle after it tore through your foot.” She visibly tensed, bracing herself. “I made them remove the bullet, and I fear they should have just taken the foot, but they didn’t. It has not been healing well. There is still infection.”
He nodded, his eyes closing as he focused in on the brunt of the pain racking his body.
He was to be lame.
He escaped with his sight, but also a leg he would never be able to stand upon properly again.
And it would do no good to allow even a moment of deceiving himself on the matter.
He looked to her. “I assume I will have difficulty walking?”
“Yes, it is almost certain. But one never knows.” Her eyebrows drew upward. “You appear to be rather accepting of the fact.”
“I knew what could happen to me when I signed onto the crown’s sharpshooter regiment. But this is not death. It is not to the extreme that many I imagine in this hospital will have to deal with.”
The tension in her face shifted in that moment, the apprehension in her green eyes giving way to relief. He imagined she dealt with men far too often that had lost a great deal, and that she often had to be the bearer of the news. Some men handled losing a leg, an arm, or a foot with grace. Most did not. And she would inevitably take the brunt of it. He was not about to add to that burden.
“Where are we?”
“Safe. In a hospital by the sea.” Her gaze skittered about. She’d stopped bracing herself, but didn’t trust there wasn’t an upcoming explosion. “I should get fresh bandages.”
To Capture a Warrior: Logan's Legends (A Revelry’s Tempest Novel Book 5) Page 1