Road To Fire (Broken Crown Trilogy #1) - Maria Luis Page 0,6

stumble across any pictures of them online. No firsthand interviews, either.

Because people are terrified of the repercussions if caught dishing out that information?

It’s not the first time the unnerving thought has snuck up on me, and I quickly stamp down a spark of worry.

I’m in need of a job, and if I have the opportunity to take one that won’t shove “God Save the Queen” propaganda down my throat, then there’s simply no better fit.

“Looking for somethin’?” asks one of the servers in a thick, Cockney accent when he spots me hovering by the bar. His graying hair is thin at the crown and seems to have migrated to his bushy beard. “The boss ain’t in.”

From all accounts, all three Priest brothers manage The Bell & Hand. “I want to apply for a position.”

His shrewd, brown eyes drift down my body, taking leisurely time to stop at my breasts and hips before he sucks his teeth behind his bottom lip. “Sorry, no openings.”

Before the riot, before my chance for freedom was ripped away by circumstances out of my control, I worked as a celebrity publicist. I can read a schemer when I see one, and this man? He schemes with the best of them. I bet he wouldn’t know honesty if it crawled out of that unruly beard of his and waved ’ello.

Reaching for the closest chair, I drag it out, purposely allowing its spindle-wooden legs to scrape against the floor, then sit down without an invitation. I tip my face up, all the better to meet the bloke’s stare head-on. “I have time to wait.”

I don’t, actually, not with Josie and Peter in and out of school, but that’s not this man’s business. All he needs to know is that I won’t be moving until I speak to one of the Priest brothers. Lucky for him, I’m not picky. Any of them will do—I’m certainly not about to start playing favorites.

The server grumbles under his breath, but anything he might have said next is forgotten the moment a dark-haired woman comes flying out from the hallway beside the bar. She hustles between the tables, moving slow enough to not crash into anyone but fast enough that I notice the harried way she peers back over her shoulder, once, twice, before darting out the front door and disappearing out onto Fournier Street.

Curiosity seeps into my veins when I hear a rumbling voice bark, “Jack!”

The Cockney server whips around, torso twisting sharply. His back snaps straight, and mine does, too, at the sight of the man entering the pub.

Savage.

My nails scrape the table as the thought flares to life. He’s big, large in a way that most men can’t even compare. But it isn’t his intimidating frame that kicks my pulse into overdrive.

It’s his face.

I stare openly, unable to wrench my gaze away from the harsh line of his crooked nose or the angry, ragged scar that gravely distorts his upper lip. My knees squeeze together under the table, feet involuntarily pulling inward as though prepared to send me running. The response is completely instinctual. Fight or flight. He’s not a man to anger, that I already know. His cheekbones are high, and his lack of beard surprises me.

Doesn’t he want to cover that scar? Maybe he likes it, the way it stops people dead in their tracks and makes them nervously avert their eyes. Maybe he even finds a certain thrill in their fear. It seems impossible that he might be a man who cowers with insecurities himself—

Not when he storms over to Jack, the server, arrogance lining every stride.

Not when they jump into conversation about an order that was late on delivery, and I sit in my chair, wondering if I’m about to make a massive mistake.

Not when Jack says something under his breath, waving an arm in my direction, and I learn firsthand how the scarred man feels about a stranger seeing him for the very first time.

The palest green eyes I’ve ever encountered fixate on me. Fixate, and don’t waver, as though that one glance has gifted him the opportunity to bare my soul and steal every last one of my secrets. Including those I plan to keep buried. A harsh breath billows over my lips as I struggle to hold my ground.

At my old job, I came across men like him frequently. Not savage men, not men with faces that could terrify small children and send full grown adults scrambling. But men who felt the need