Road To Fire (Broken Crown Trilogy #1) - Maria Luis Page 0,54
I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe! I wheeze, digging my nails into his flesh, and try to wriggle free.
“No, little bird,” he drawls, running his thumb down the column of my throat in an eerily appreciative gesture, “I think you planned to sit here, all prim and proper, before traipsing right back to the traitor to tell him everything you heard. And if you did that . . . we’d all be dead.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to shout that I killed the king.
I did it. Me.
At least they’d punish the right person. At least I’d earn my penance without costing Saxon his life.
Except that I’ve never been all that good with accepting my lot in life—I have no interest in dying, not yet. I want to live. I want to fall in love. I want to taste happiness again, in a way that’s eluded me for years.
I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive.
And damn anyone who tries to take that from me.
I breathe through my nose, ignoring the black web of unconsciousness creeping over my vision, and nimbly snake my fingers into my coat pocket for Dad’s knife. By the time the jeering from the others morphs into screams that I’ve pulled out a weapon, I’ve already sunk the blade into Coney’s thigh.
He stumbles back, releasing my throat with such abruptness that I collapse to the floor, completely lightheaded from the regained oxygen pumping into my lungs. Crawl. Crawl! God, I try. I gasp for air and shove myself onto all fours, but fingers grasp my ankle in a vice, stalling my flight, and then Coney snarls, “You fucking bitch!”
And then I’m dragged backward.
19
Saxon
I run.
Rain plasters my shirt to my chest and my feet churn up puddles but there’s not a bloody chance in hell of me slowing down when the visions skating through my head are hideous nightmares.
Isla dead before I can save her.
Isla almost dead, blood caked in her strawberry-blond hair, her bright blue eyes fluttering closed one last time before she goes limp in my arms.
It can’t happen. I won’t let it happen.
Without hesitating, I hurdle over a bicycle rack marked with Queen Mary University’s emblem—a crown. As if I need another reminder that when I reach Isla, I’ll be breaking my oath to a different queen, this one the Queen of the United Kingdom.
An oath that we inherited, Guy argued just yesterday.
Inherited or not, I’ve never strayed from Holyrood’s singular mission.
Until now.
Until her.
Picking up the pace, I follow the curve of a brick building and feel a surge of relief when I spot the rotund façade of The Octagon that Father Bootham described. I’ll need a way in, something more circumspect than the singular door that faces a large quad and more university buildings.
Doubling back, I retrace my steps.
It takes two tries of jiggling handles that won’t budge before I crack one door open and slip inside.
Immediately, the rain dims to a dull staccato, matched only by the thud of my shoes as I start down a hallway that ought to lead me directly to The Octagon. Seconds bleed into seconds, and the place becomes maze-like, winding me in, taking me in one direction, before unfurling into an intersection with three options and time ticking away.
Focus.
Within Holyrood, I’m notorious for staying calm. I’ve fought, and won, with a knife wound that punctured the sensitive flesh just above my kidneys. Broken bones. Bullet wounds. Even a deflated lung. I stop for nothing. Savage, Hamish once called me, after we completed a mission to take down a group of Scots who wanted King John dead.
I’m efficient, not savage.
Right now, I’m neither of those things.
No, I’m unraveling.
My chest pumps with excess adrenaline and every muscle in my body screams in protest when I push myself harder, faster.
And then I hear it.
A scream that raises the hair on the back of my neck and sends my heart rate straight into overdrive. A scream that will haunt me until the day I die, until I’m buried, chained down in hell, and still unable to escape her shrill cry of fear.
Isla.
Red swarms my vision.
Anger. Panic. Retaliation already rearing to strike as the double-wide doors to The Octagon come into view.
I throw my entire weight, only for them to vibrate in place. One glance downward reveals old-fashioned chains threaded through a single lock. Picking it would waste valuable time that I don’t have, which means any attempt to remain inconspicuous is about to be shot to hell. Literally.