The Bone Roses

Kathryn Lee Martin

Description

#1 Amazon Bestseller in Steampunk



Sixteen-year-old Rags is the most feared Rustler in the world, and for good reason...



When she’s not raiding the post-Yellowstone Kingdom’s established settlements for supplies to keep her frontier, Rondo, alive another day, she’s fending off witch hunt-happy villagers who want her rare blue eyes in an unmarked grave. 



But when the Kingdom strikes back, kills Rags’s best friend, and sends its second-in-command to destroy Rondo in four days, Rags must make a choice: seek revenge, or save her loved ones who are trapped in a town bound for slaughter broadcast Kingdom-wide. With little more than a stolen dream to guide her, and a growing attraction to a sly Kingdom informant, Rags is about to give the Kingdom four days it’ll never forget—if the bounty on her head doesn’t get her killed first.



If you like Gunslinger Girl or Vengeance Road, you'll love The Bone Roses! 



Start the Snow Spark Saga now! 

Informations

• Publié par: The Parliament House
• Date de parution: 08 mai 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9788827575147
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Bone Roses
The Snow Spark Saga - Book One


Kathryn Lee Martin
Copyright © 2018 by Kathryn Lee Martin
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Edited by Samantha Marie Shrider
Line edits by David Rochelero
Created with Vellum
Contents



Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47


About the Author

A Request From Rags

The Parliament House
Chapter One

I watch the widow’s gnarled hands count out each copper kik on the weathered market stall’s countertop and finger the switchblade in my left hand. Knives are cheating when it comes to this sort of thing but playing fair is a surefire way to die. Especially now that they put the flyers up and tripled the bounty on me— dead or alive .
The wolfskin satchel’s leather strap pulls across my water-stained buckskin jacket, the dangling fringes tangling and parting in the bitter winter breeze. My arm brushes the coarse brick wall, and my frigid-blue eyes narrow as I dig my deer-hide boot deeper into the filthy slush, easing closer to the building’s corner. A light tremble goes through my wrist as the wind pulls several strands of long mahogany hair against my wind-burned, pale cheek and toys with my untamed bangs.
Farther up the street, the Kingdom Corps patrols; their forest-green jackets, helmets, and olive-green pants making them stick out in the bustling Hydra crowd struggling to collect its weekly rations.
Twenty yards on foot . . . Too close to outrun their carbines in the open. They’re making this a challenge today.
A silk, forest-green banner with the Kingdom’s golden running hare insignia cracks and showers ice on an unsuspecting market stall as a sudden wind gust whips it high into the air and drops it back against the library’s brick wall. A ginger-haired young man in a sorrel jacket and blue jeans with a dark-walnut recurve crossbow slung across his shoulder jumps back as the entire canopy collapses and decides to move on, much to the angry merchant’s swearing.
Damn. Now I have to get what I need from this stall after all.
My back presses against the wall and I struggle to steel my nerves. Just get the rubbing alcohol and get the hell out. A basic rustling mission and just what Tracker feels I need to calm my nerves before we run a near-suicide raid on the largest military base in the Kingdom’s Northeast Territory in a few days.
Rubbing alcohol. I pan the flimsy shelves tucked under the torn canvas roof and watch the widow’s boney hound twitch an ear in its sleep. Just because he’s half dead and mostly blind doesn’t mean his teeth don’t work when he grabs onto something. Last time I raided this stall he got hold of one leg of my buckskin pants and tore half the fringes off the lower leg before I got away.
The widow continues to sort her earnings as I watch a scraggly, soot-covered pack of pickpocketing little boys hit the crowds. A smirk tugs at my chapped lips. Amateurs. Drawing a short breath, my feet prowl over the slush and gravel, eyes fixed on the clear mason jar on the upper shelf before roving to the widow and then back again to the K. C. mingling with the crowd.
The mud-brown hound shifts in his sleep. I pause, shoulder touching the market stall and keeping to the shadows. The switchblade twitches in my grasp as I place my right hand on the uneven wooden half wall and vault over it. Both feet hit the ground with a soft bounce at the same instant the widow raises her head in surprise, turning to look at me with shifting eyes.
Our gaze meets for a split second; her brown eyes widen. I reach up, snatch the rubbing alcohol from the shelf in one fluid motion and bolt for the half wall separating me from the crowded street.
“Rondonian rustler scum.” The widow stands, rattling the countertop with a shriek that sends the drowsy hound into a flurry of barking. “Guards. Someone. It’s her. The child from the flyers.”
“Just because I look like a child doesn’t mean they think of me as one, lady.” I mutter under my breath and grip the jar tighter. There are grown adults who run from me the moment they see my blue eyes looking at them. Both my legs clear the half wall at the same time the K. C. raises its carbines and turns in this direction.
Sorry lady, but we need this more than you do right now. Clutching the jar in one hand and the switchblade in the other, I dart through the row of market stands. Canvas curtains tear from their brass hooks. Merchants howl in rage.
Hydra’s men shout, hurrying to get anything they can to catch me, or stop me in my tracks. Dead or alive . The words flash through my mind a second time. I brace a knee against the slushy street, and reel back as a crude net cuts me off, offering the enraged butcher a forced grin before doubling back and sprinting across the busy market square and for the nearest alleyway. Tracker’s going to kill me over this.
“Hey, you.” A tall soldier raises his carbine to block my path, but I’m faster, knocking the barrel aside with my forearm and nailing his knee with a swift kick. He shouts and falls, faceless forest-green helmet watching me flee through the crowd.
Pulse pounding, I twist around a woman and her two children and duck under the startled ginger-haired man’s arm, the distance growing as the K. C. knocks everyone and anyone to the ground in the chaos. Up ahead, the alleyway beckons as an old flatbed ration truck from the days before Yellowstone erupted, bars my path.
I chance a look behind me, just in time to see one soldier raise his carbine and take aim.
This is going to hurt . My elbow strikes the truck’s steel bed as both legs propel me upward, rolling across it and plummeting into a frigid puddle on the other side. Keeping low and to the wall, I flinch as the hail of bullets cuts through the shadows and the shouts of angry and determined Kingdom Corps continue the chase.
God they’re persistent. I look ahead to Hydra’s second square where another crowd gathers and aim for it.
Someone’s hand seizes my left arm, wrenching me off my feet. Before I can get the knife up to fight back, their gloved hand covers my mouth, brute strength dragging me into a dark doorway and holding me there while the Kingdom Corps continues its chase.
The second hand pins my wrist across my chest as I strike out with my deer-hide-clad foot, grazing his knee.
“Enough, Rags. Be still and be quiet,” Tracker’s deep voice warns, his grip tightening and drawing me close until I stop struggling, the scent of his ancient leather flight jacket helping calm me down.
Turning my blue eyes up to look at the man who adopted me and calls me his own daughter, I see his brown eyes narrow at something at the alley’s end. White stubble flecks his dark skin. He relaxes his grip on me, but keeps one gloved hand on my shoulder in silent warning.
His leather flight jacket rustles as he shifts his weight, towering over me and listening. When the footfalls fade, he glances back at me.
“When I said strip a bottle of rubbing alcohol, I did not mean cause a riot.” The words are stern. I offer a sheepish look.
“To be fair, I got what I came here to get.” Holding up the precious jar, I see the aging man’s eyes soften as he takes it from me and examines it.
“Good girl. Now we need to go. They’ll swarm all over this place once they realize we’re not in the square.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice. I hate this place.”
“I am aware of that.” He eyes the alleyway and the gathered crowd at its end. A raucous, collective cheer rings out. “Go, we’ll skirt the crowd and flee through the broken fence out by the tracks. Don’t look at them, and don’t stop for anything. Do you understand?”
“But what—” What is he talking about? “Who . . .” I try to make out the words of the man in the crowd, but the cheers only muffle the sound further.
“Go.” A gentle shove forces me into the dark alleyway. Keeping quiet, I stalk closer to the crowd. Another cheer resonates through Hydra’s box-like, enclosed square. I stand taller for a better look, catching the faint, metallic odor of blood in the air. Blood? Tracker offers a stern glare not to look and takes point.
Following his brisk walk, we skirt the outer crowd undetected. The stench intensifies, and a sickening queasiness settles in my stomach. I bite back the bile trying to creep up. The crowd thins closest to the street lea