Read Online Siege of the Heart (Southern Romance Series, #2) by Lexy Timms - Free Book Online Page A

the field, transfixed in the face of Union troops, wondering if their death had come with blue coats. What could one do against such overwhelming force? There was only one with the presence of mind to do what must be done—and what Jasper could not allow. The man leveled his rifle, point blank, at Solomon.
    “No!” The scream was ripped from Jasper’s throat, and then the horses went over a rise and he could see nothing. He was struggling like a madman, trying to throw himself from the horse. He must get back, he must know—
    The blow to the back of his head was harsh enough that his teeth slammed together and the horse whinnied in distress. Blinding pain seized him, and he felt the hot trickle of blood in its wake. Don’t stop said a distant voice, and the jostling of the horse continued, but more distantly now. A woman was crying. Was it Clara? Jasper did not know. He arched his back, trying to escape the hell of jostling and bruised ribs, and the strike came again.
    This time, the world went dark.
    When he woke, he was vomiting onto the forest floor, and Cecelia’s bound hands were trying to keep his hair back from his brow. Jasper, please . Her voice echoed in his head like a roll of thunder, bringing another round of vomiting, and she cried out when she saw him convulse. Please, please be all right. Please be all right. Please.
    His little sister. His heart warmed to the thought, twinned with grief. She was going to watch him die. Solomon had failed, and they would be brought to the trial. Cecelia would see it, she would see the accusations and they would make her watch as they brought Jasper to the gallows. What would happen to her then?
    “I’m all right,” he gasped out, a reassurance that would have worked better if he did not need to spit bile onto the ground. He was shaking, shivering with sweat drying on his skin, and he half fell as she pulled him over, resting his head in her lap. Her eyes swam into view. Solomon’s eyes, but brown. Worried.
    “Did they poison you?”
    “It’s the head wound,” he managed. He had seen enough men taken like this, to know what it was. It was a miracle he had awoken at all. “Cecelia. Listen to me. Robert Knox, you know which one he is?” He waited for her to nod. “He’s promised me he’ll get you home when this is over.”
    “You’ll get me home,” she said at once, and Jasper squeezed his eyes shut.
    Solomon failed.
    “That’s not going to happen, Cee. We both know it.”
    “It is,” she said softly, urgently. “There are only six of them now. The others are still making their way to the camp. They’re hurt, and they’re trying to make a new plan. Knox is even writing a letter, and one of them will take it. Then there will only be five.”
    “Cecelia—”
    “We can do this,” she whispered, low and passionate. “We can get out. You just have to be able to get on a horse, and we can go. I can ride without a saddle; Clara taught me how.”
    He stared at her, feeling his heart breaking. She was more of a woman than any of them had noticed, even him. The quiet storm of her grief before they left had surrounded her, wrapped her up in white, and when it broke there was no longer the helpless little girl they knew. She had bravery in her, and she was willing to tempt death for a chance at freedom.
    She just did not understand how these men would tempt death also to keep her from her goal.
    “I’m not getting away,” he told her. He meant to have pretty words for it, but they were flat, blunt, enough to make her look like he’d slapped her across the face.
    “You can’t just give up,” she told him fiercely.
    “You’re very like your sister.”
    “Would you be telling her the same if she were here?”
    “Yes! I would tell her to run, and leave me here, and she would do it.”
    “She wouldn’t,” Cecelia said contemptuously. “You don’t know her at all. She’d fight to her last breath for you.”
    “And I for her, and she would