to use me. Not for my body, as I expected, but for information.” My lips turn up in a thin, dangerous smile. “You promised to steal every piece of me—to, what did you say?” I snap my fingers. “Oh, yes. To fill every broken and misshapen part of you. Do you feel better now? Do you feel anything but hollow for proving the world right? That you’re nothing but a savage, coldhearted—”
“I feel lost!” he roars, so forcefully that I actually stagger back. His chest heaves, expanding sharply. The tension in his harsh face remains tragically visceral. “You’ve had five years to walk alone. Try doing so for your entire bloody life.”
“Saxon . . .”
“No.” Despite the glass, I feel the anger radiating from him. Pulsing, threatening, gathering tangibility like a whip bound to flay trembling flesh. “You want me to unveil myself? Then I will, and you’ll see”—his voice catches, a vulnerable crack in his icy veneer—“you’ll see that you should have stayed far away from me. I don’t inhale, Isla. I consume, I devour, and then I destroy whatever’s left.”
Nerves eat away at my stomach as I rub my dry lips together. “I won’t allow myself to be frightened by you.”
An acrimonious smile curves his mouth. “Oh, yes. Because you’ve killed the king, you think that you can take on the world.” He drops his voice to a sardonic whisper. “Your night terrors would prove otherwise.”
I rear back, hurt. “I told you that in confidence—not to have it thrown back in my face.”
“Christ, you are so”—he rakes his fingers through his hair, tugging sharply on the thick strands—“so incredibly naïve. This is war, Isla, and we are not on the same team. And even if I had the choice to jump ship and stand by your side, I . . . I—”
“You what? Just say it.” I wave my hands at him, frustration turning my tone merciless. “Whatever you want to say, just say it!”
“I would still choose the Crown over you.”
In that moment, I learn the true meaning of self-loathing.
Oh, how I wish I could remain strong and impassive and rigid. Like stone, like him. But I’m the same girl who cried after losing her parents and I’m still the same woman who lies in bed each night, discovering new circles of hell for knowing that her actions have led to hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths.
Tears bleed to the surface.
I feel them and do nothing to wipe them away.
Sometimes warriors cry, too.
When I blink to clear my vision, Saxon has twisted around. His shoulders are broad, and his back tightly muscled, and do I disgust him that much that he can’t even bear to look at me? I ought to tell him to take his stupid food and sod off, but I find myself standing in place, unable to move, because this man—this cold, cruel man—should not have the opportunity to ignore me like I don’t exist.
He stuck me in this cell.
He abused my trust to satisfy his own motivations.
While I can understand that we aren’t on the same side, I would have thought—I do think—we are so much more than our divided beliefs on the royal family.
And then, so softly that I almost miss the words, he says, “I was eight when I learned my lesson.” Something in his tone prompts a shiver down my spine, and instead of stepping away, I move closer. Because I’m a glutton for punishment, for him, with no hopes of recovery, it seems. “The king made sure of it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” He turns, only slightly, but it’s enough to reveal the contours of his profile. The dark, heavy brows. The crooked, broken nose. The misshapen, scarred mouth. Vicious. Beautiful. And, until only hours ago, mine. “Your hatred for John started later but mine, it was born in terror.” His lids flutter shut, like he’s frozen in time, seeing whatever it is that devastated him. His powerful frame shudders. “I used to beg my father to let me attend to the king with him. Holyrood was in our blood. Has been since our ancestor saved a prince back in the nineteenth century. From birth, I knew that my life’s mission was to protect the royal family.”
Holyrood . . . the name is unfamiliar, but my gut tells me that it’s the government organization. The secret, spy one that Josie first guessed in teasing before he himself confirmed it.
With me locked inside this cell.
I force the bitterness down before