Road To Fire (Broken Crown Trilogy #1) - Maria Luis Page 0,45

immortal, not the icy veneer that I wear like a second skin.

A red-blooded man, just like any other.

I despise the vulnerability, just as much as I despise the idea of being at a woman’s mercy.

Isla’s mercy.

Harsh, angry words spill from my mouth. “Go the bloody hell home.”

I feel her shocked gasp like a knife plunging between my ribs.

“Isla, go home.”

“Really?” I can almost imagine her shaking her strawberry-blond hair back from her face, her pert chin shoved up with insolence. “I’m to hop to your every command, then? You tell me to run, and I sprint. You tell me to fall on the blade, and I aim it straight for my heart.”

I cast her a sharp look over my shoulder. “You work for me—or have you forgotten?”

“You told me to call you whatever I wanted, and the only thing that comes to mind is coward.”

If she were anyone else, she’d be bleeding out on the floor already.

My nostrils flare at her brazenness. “You’re on thin ice, Miss Quinn.”

Fiery confidence bleeds from her expression when she counters, “Except for when I’ve been slung over your shoulder like a rag doll, thin ice is how we operate. It seems my tail has gotten tired of hiding between my legs and can’t be bothered to get with the program anymore.”

Air comes fast, pumping into my lungs at such an alarming rate that I feel unsteady.

Isla Quinn is thawing me out, and nothing about that sits well with me.

Get this conversation done with—now.

“Tomorrow, after confessional,” I say from behind clenched teeth, refusing to even acknowledge what she’s said with a suitable response. “Meet me at the pub. Don’t be late.”

Sarcasm clings to her slender frame when she clicks her heels together and salutes me with two fingers—a sod off, if I’ve ever seen one. “Of course, boss,” she says, every word soaked in saccharine sweetness, “I wouldn’t dare disappoint you, boss.”

First Jack, now her.

I’ve been thrown into an alternate universe that’s my own version of hell.

It takes everything in me not to squeeze my eyes shut and burst into a chorus of a thousand curses. “Tomorrow,” I reiterate stiffly.

She moves to the door, hips swaying angrily, hair flicking out behind her like a mane of candlelit strands. Ripping the bloody thing open, she pauses on the threshold. Her shoulders rise with a heavy breath, and, in the rarest display of vulnerability that I’ve ever been shown—by anyone—she touches her forehead to the door frame.

A gift.

That’s how this moment feels, like she’s gifted me some forever elusive puzzle piece to humanity that’s escaped me.

She turns her head, her temple still kissing the wooden frame, before her gaze fixes on my face. “Friends keep each other alive.”

Just like that, the imaginary ropes encircling my wrists finally chafe hard enough to draw blood. “We aren’t friends,” I tell her, my voice hoarse.

She pauses, her blue eyes flitting over me, before she pushes back. “We could be, Saxon, if only you’d let us.”

And then she leaves, as I demanded of her, and I’m alone.

The way I’ve always been.

The way I’ll always be.

Forever.

16

Isla

Father Bootham is right on time.

I hear the door to his side of the confessional click closed, and then the rustle of heavy robes being resituated as he sits.

Without Saxon here to invade my personal bubble, the confessional is surprisingly roomy.

Fucking Saxon.

In the twenty-something hours that have passed since I fled Guy’s flat, I’ve hovered between wanting to skewer Saxon where he stands, with the sharpest object I can find, and the utterly inexplicable desire to ask him how he can be so flippant with his life.

It’s no secret that he’s lived roughly. One glance at his face and I can only imagine the thousands of stories that he must keep locked away behind his formidable, don’t-try-me attitude. Saxon Priest is no sweetheart, that’s for sure, but his barks don’t terrify me—they only pique my curiosity.

Father Bootham’s voice startles me from my thoughts. “My child, shall we begin?”

Bollocks. One day in and I’m already on the verge of cocking it all up. “Yes, sorry. Apologies, Father.” His answering silence stretches on, awkwardly, until I remember that I’m meant to play the dutiful role of a parishioner seeking penance. Think of the money, think of the money, think of the money. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been”—approximately my entire lifetime since I’ve done this for real—“three days since my last confession.”

“Welcome back, my child.” Father Bootham’s voice warms, when he adds, “No need to be