Road To Fire (Broken Crown Trilogy #1) - Maria Luis Page 0,123
said, just before he slammed the car door shut. “He did it, so I could live.”
So I could breathe.
Damn him.
Damn him!
Palms sweaty, I grit my teeth. “I need to find him. I need to—”
“We know,” Josie says softly, settling a hand on my shoulder, squeezing. “We know.”
Peter digs his thumbs into his eye sockets. “You can’t go back to the Palace. They’ll kill you, if you do.”
Where else might he be, though? If not the manor house in Kent, we could try his home in Camden. Or . . . “The Bell & Hand. He might be at The Bell & Hand.”
“We’ll come with you,” Josie says.
I shake my head. “It’s too dangerous. I couldn’t forgive myself if something happened to either of you.”
“We come with you,” Peter repeats, his voice rough, “together or not at all.”
41
Saxon
“You’re a bloody idiot.”
“I could say the same for you,” I utter tonelessly into the mobile, my gaze fixed on Christ Church Spitalfields. It feels like months since I’ve stood under its shadow, not a matter of days. “How long before big brother dearest finds out you’ve phoned me?”
Damien’s low growl echoes through the receiver. “I don’t give a damn about that.”
“You should.”
“I don’t,” he clips out. “But I do care that you paid off Guthram to falsify the coroner’s report. Fucking hell, what were you thinking?”
Pushing away from the roughened brick wall, I resettle the hat on my head as I cross Fournier Street. I’ve made this walk thousands of times, at all times of the day, but never as I am now: With my face plastered across every storefront and news network. Without the backing of Holyrood to stay handcuff-free, should someone from the Met spot me.
With my heart and mind continuously circling back to a certain blond warrior.
Damien’s agitated voice drags me back to the conversation when he snaps, “Guthram is a snake. Trusting him is like feasting with the devil and expecting not to end up in hell.”
“I know the risk I took.”
“Do you? Because from where I’m sitting, it’s starting to look like you’ve a death wish. Just like Pa.”
Sighing, I ask, “Why did you ring me, Damien?”
Barely sparing The Bell & Hand a glance, I approach the side entrance door to Christ Church. The same one I nudged Isla through. Feeling the now-familiar pinch in my chest at the thought of her, I rub my heart with the flat of my palm. Once, twice. The sensation doesn’t lessen, or loosen, not that I thought it would. I’ve resigned myself to this miserable fate: wanting a woman who will never be mine.
Life was so much simpler when I didn’t know what lay beyond the ice.
“I want you to tell me that you haven’t thrown away everything for a woman,” Damien says, frustration brewing in his gruff voice. “Holyrood, the other men, Guy, me. Fuck, you threw it all away, and for what?”
“If you have to ask, then you won’t understand.”
“Then make me understand!” he explodes, and I’m instantly reminded that he’s been nicknamed the Mad Priest. A boy genius with a heart of gold, but with a dark underbelly that I’ve never understood. “Guy never plans to speak to you again. The rest are too terrified to cross him. But me . . . For fuck’s sake, Saxon, make me understand.”
“She made me human.” Pressing my eyes shut, I drop my forehead to the door, taking care to keep my profile averted from the street. “I’ve spent years waiting to die. Hell, I’ve spent years as Death itself. Who I murdered didn’t matter. Who I saved mattered even less. I existed, Damien. Existed like some shattered version of myself, and then she . . .”
When I trail off, my brother impatiently prompts, “And then she what?”
I swallow, roughly. “She made me want.”
Her hands on my ravaged skin, her sweet mouth lifting to mine, her quick smiles and her husky laughter, and her ill-timed humor that never failed to make me grin. Isla Quinn snuck into my life, an untamable storm. She hammered my walls open, lodged blistering fire in my chest, and reminded me that I am a man like any other.
A man who craves.
A man who bleeds.
And a man willing to drag himself through the darkest pits of hell just to keep her safe.
Gritting my teeth, I fist the doorknob and tug it open. “I have to go.”
“No, hold on—”
“Watch your back, brother. You don’t want to end up like me.”