Road To Fire (Broken Crown Trilogy #1) - Maria Luis Page 0,117
dead.
“What did you do?” Dread pervades the rush of adrenaline when I clutch Saxon’s thigh. “Saxon, answer me. Please.”
He ducks down, swiftly bending at the knees, so that we’re at eye level. “I chose,” he rasps, pressing a soft, devastating kiss to my mouth, “and I chose you.”
Framing his face with my hands, I stop him from retreating. “But what did you do?”
His unholy gaze flickers between mine, once, twice, before he clasps my hands. Mine are sweaty, his cool to the touch. But I feel them trembling, as though he’s seconds away from coming undone. Then he physically pulls back.
His absence hits me like I’ve been dunked in a frozen lake.
“You need to leave.”
Violently, I shake my head. “Get in the car. Come with me, dammit!”
His hand curves over the door frame. “The devil always collects his due, sweetheart, and I bargained everything I had on you.”
Before I can edge out another word, he slams the door shut and the car—the car that should not be moving without my foot on the accelerator—shifts into gear, all on its own, and slowly takes off down the dark, tree-lined road.
Darting a glance to the rearview mirror, I spot Saxon standing there, with what looks like a remote control in his hand. He waits no more than a beat before dropping it to the ground and smashing his heavy boot down upon it. The car immediately jerks in response, as if the control has been revoked, and unexpectedly swerves to the right, toward a tree.
“Shite!”
Instinct has me latching onto the steering wheel and yanking hard to avoid collision. I manage, just barely, but my heart . . . my stupid, bloody heart is locked on what I’ve left behind.
The last I see of Saxon Priest are figures stepping out from the dense thicket to surround him. One catches him behind the kneecaps, nailing him down to the ground. Another grasps him by what looks like his shirt, hauling him forward across the dirt path. The thick wood gathering behind me insulates the scene after that, and a sob breaks from my throat.
What have I done?
38
Saxon
Dulled pain registers in my hamstrings seconds before I hit the ground.
Familiar bodies circle me, men whose faces I’ve known for years, but are now silhouetted by splintered moonlight. They swarm like locusts, all frenetic energy and pulsing anger. I stare through them all, as if they don’t even exist, and watch Isla’s taillights fade into the pitch-black night.
She’s gone, safe, and I’m—
“You helped her escape!” Roughened hands bunch the fabric of my shirt, jerking me forward. Thin nose. Hollow, weathered cheeks. Jayme Paul’s pungent breath wafts over my face, whisky soaked. “What the hell were you thinking?”
The same as I’d thought when I found her, unconscious and curled on her side, in front of Buckingham Palace. Nothing. Nothing beyond an inexplicable need to see her safe—even if safe entails sending her far, far away from me.
The devil.
The monster.
The man who doesn’t even deserve to kiss the ground she walks on.
When Paul, my father’s old replacement, shakes me like I’m nothing but a rag doll, I clamp a warning hand around his wrist. “Let me go, old man.”
“She killed the fucking king, you dimwit. The king!”
“She did, but she doesn’t deserve to die.”
“Doesn’t deserve to die?” Startled astonishment flatlines Paul’s rabid expression. With his fingers still clasping my shirt, he gapes at me, then at Jude and Benjamin, another of our agents, before visibly pulling himself together. “Did you hear that, lads? Apparently, Isla Quinn doesn’t deserve what’s coming to her, even though she murdered the one person we’re sworn to protect.”
“Utterly daft,” Jude clips out.
Benji shakes his head. “You risked everything—our location, our mission, each of us—and for what? Half-rate pussy? Come off it, Priest, you’re better than—”
The rest of his sentence hinges on silence when I lunge for him, practically taking Paul along with me, and undercut my throw to nail him in the chin. His head snaps backward; his body sways in place. Like any Holyrood agent, he’s formidable, lethal, and instead of retreating, he grabs my arm and digs his thumb into the shallow flesh wound left behind by Isla’s knife.
I see red.
“The big, bad Saxon Priest,” he sneers, “taken down by a woman with a set of balls bigger than your own. Has your knob shriveled up too?”
“I don’t advise playing that game with me, Benjamin.”
His dark eyes glitter in the moonlight. “A game? This isn’t a game. You helped her escape. You,