Road To Fire: Broken Crown Trilogy, Book 1

by Luis, Maria

  I’m working with a stubborn bastard and a foolish priest who can’t see the truth staring back at him. Saxon Priest is not the hero in this nightmarish fairytale. He hates the Crown, and he hates it enough to manipulate a good man like Father Bootham into thinking that they’re working together for the same cause.

  A man like Saxon, who claims to be heartless, clearly has no qualms about the subterfuge. But I . . . It feels so utterly wrong to sit here and tell the priest that he’s doing the right thing in saving Saxon’s life, when he’s doing nothing more than turning on the people who are actually his allies.

  The boy. The mother.

  Slowly, I drag in a breath, letting it fill my lungs with renewed purpose. Of why I’m here. Of what I’ve suffered to be in a position that allows me to chart my life as I see fit. “You said the details are sketchy but if we’re to help Saxon, I need more. Did the mother know where her son met for those meetings? Which professor banded all the students together?”

  “Yes,” Father Bootham answers softly, like the word has been torn from his moral compass. “I know it all.”

  A pained smile crosses my face as I slip my hand into my coat pocket to pull out a pen. I press the tip to my palm and test the ink. Black beads on my flesh. “I’m listening, Father. Go on.”

  17

  Saxon

  “You’re done.”

  Mouth gaping open, Jack shoves a thumb into his chest. “Me? I’m the one who’s bein’ sacked?”

  Elbows planted on my desk at The Bell & Hand, I meet the gaze of the man who’s been by my side since we opened. Over the years, I’ve saved him more times than I count, even when logic told me to let him go. Jack’s a loose cannon on the best of days and a walking disaster on his worst. Temperamental might as well be his middle name. Yesterday’s backtalk, however, sealed his fate. “Today will be your last shift.”

  Jack leans across the desk to jab a finger in my face. “Hold on. You’re sackin’ me but you’re keeping that fuckin’ bint?”

  Each word is abbreviated with another finger jab.

  “Keep that up, and you’ll be missing a finger along with your pride.”

  Expression hardening, he doesn’t pull back. If anything, he thrusts that digit closer. “I know too much about you, Priest. About this entire damned place. You think I won’t use that information? You think I won’t—”

  A squeal erupts from Jack’s mouth when I grab his hand, snap that finger backward, and listen for the telltale crack signaling a clean break. “Motherfucker!” he screams, scrambling back to cradle his hand to his chest.

  “Unlike you, I don’t make promises that I can’t keep.” Slowly, I rise from my desk, my knuckles rooted to the wood. “Loyalty, Jack. It’s a simple thing.”

  Still holding his broken hand to his chest, he snarls, “You don’t think I recognize a sinkin’ ship when I see one? The minute that bitch walked in here, ye’ve been unable to think with anything but your knob.”

  My muscles vibrate with barely leashed control. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t I?” On shaky feet, he strides toward me, only to stutter to a halt when he sees the look on my face. “I see it. We all do. Ye watched her leave that first day like she’d taken the air with her. A fool, that’s what you are. A bird like that ain’t gonna be doin’ you any favors.”

  Frustration bleeds into me, and it takes every ounce of self-possession not to beat the man to a pulp. He has no idea what the bloody hell he’s talking about. Isla is a piece of the puzzle for my long game, that’s all.

  Nothing more.

  I storm over to the door and swing it open. “Change of plans. You’re done now.”

  “You’ll regret this, Priest,” he snaps, closing the gap with his nostrils flared, his eyes narrowed to slits. “Everything about this pub—I could spill its secrets so fast ye’d be unable to do anything to stop—”

  My hand locks around his throat as I drive him into the open door. Eyes going wide, he scrabbles at my fingers.

  I’ll let go when I’m good and ready.

  I thrust my face close to his, until he can feel each of my knuckles cutting off his air supply. “Wasted words,” I utter, calmly, evenly. “Turning me in would only convict yourself.” I squeeze, so he’ll feel the power behind my grip. His breath heaves and mine remains steady, and still I keep him plastered against the door. “The thing about blackmail, Jack, is that it’s only successful if you’re smart enough to pull it off. Methodical to the very end.” I lower my voice. “I’d catch you every step of the way. Every time you thought you’d pulled the wool over my head, I’d beat you at your own game until there’s nothing left of you. No hope, no ambition. Save us both the headache.”

  Red in the face, he breathes, “You’re a cold bastard.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  I let him go with a push out the door. He stumbles forward, his gait uneven, but catches himself before landing flat on his face. Silently, I watch from the hallway as he moves toward the front of the pub. He snarls like a beast at one of the staff, then picks up a glass from a table and hurls it against the wall.

  Just like a child who hasn’t gotten his way.

  At all the commotion, Guy’s dark head pokes into the hall, and he glances over to where I’m standing. “Sacked him?”

  I give a curt nod.

  “Finally,” he says, clapping his hands together in mock applause. “This calls for a celebration. I’ve only been waiting for this moment for almost ten years.”

  I stride toward him. “Can’t. I have a meeting.”

  His brows knit together. “With?”

  “Isla.” Pulling my mobile out from the back pocket of my trousers, I check the time. Right on target. “Is she here?”

  My brother frowns. “No. Was she supposed to be?”

  Yes.

  “She’s probably running late,” I mutter, moving behind the bar.

  But when fifteen minutes pass, and then yet another fifteen, with no signs of her strolling in through the front door, I’m forced to consider the inevitable: Isla Quinn quit on me.

  Maybe yesterday’s verbal match pushed her over the edge. Or maybe that’s not it at all. Maybe she looked at her life, matched it against mine, and realized that she’s better off letting me rot alone in hell while she saves herself and her siblings.

  I wouldn’t blame her.

  Guy steps in beside me, taking a clean rag to a damp glass. “Still a no-show?” he asks quietly, his eyes scanning the dining area.

  “Nothing.”

  As much as I don’t want to entertain the thought of her quitting, it doesn’t seem at all like her either. Hell, yesterday she showed up to my brother’s flat simply to warn me that I’ve some university kids looking to cause some problems. That wasn’t part of our original terms. She came of her own volition because she wants to repay her so-called debt and keep me alive.

  None of this makes sense, and I say as much to Guy.

  My brother side-eyes me. “You know her well enough to make a claim like that?”

  “Money talks, and she needs every penny that she can get.”

  “Maybe she’s found herself another position.”

  “In less than a day?” No, something is wrong. I can feel it in my gut, in the tightening of my chest.

  My gaze cuts to the front door for what must be the tenth time in a matter of minutes. Ten seconds. That’s all it takes to cross from Christ Church to The Bell & Hand—twenty, if you’re purposely dragging your feet and taking your sweet time. I don’t want to even consider what could happen in the span of twenty seconds. Getting hit by a car. Being kidnapped right off the street.

  I step to the left, so I can peer directly out our window onto Fournier. It’s a typical late-winter, London day. Gray skies interspersed with splashes of sunlight. A slight rain—just enough of a drizzle for Londoners to break out their umbrellas.

  Nothing out of the ordinary.

  My pulse qui
ckens.

  “I’m going to run by the church,” I tell Guy, who sets his now-dried glass down and picks up another from the rack, running it through with the rag.

  “We don’t know her.”

  “She isn’t for you to know.”

  When I make a move to cut around him, Guy heads me off. “And she is for you?” he says, his voice pitched low enough to not be overheard by customers. “Be smart about this. We are not on the same side as her.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “Are you?” His blue eyes rove over my face, like he’s trying to get a read on me. “Because from where I’m standing, the view is crystal clear. Will you ever tell her that the intelligence she gathers is used to betray everything she believes in? Will you fake sympathy, pretending all is well when her own parents are dead because of a king that you protected? The woman I met yesterday would not turn around and kiss you in gratitude.”

  I flinch.

  Stepping forward, I bring my profile close to Guy’s, so that my mouth is directly next to his ear. “Don’t go there.”

  He claps a hand on the nape of my neck, like we’re sharing a brotherly hug.

  It’s anything but.

  “You would break a girl like Isla,” he hisses, his breath rustling the strands that cover my scar from King John. “You’d break her heart when she realized who you are, and you’d break her spirit the second you put your hands on her.”

  It’s not anything that I don’t already know. Hearing it from Guy, however, churns my stomach. I was nine when Mum died. Ten when a butcher dragged me into an alleyway, for daring to steal a slab of meat from his shop, and took a massive blade to my face, severing my upper lip in two and leaving me scarred for life. Twenty by the time I gained enough confidence to sleep with a woman, only for her to ask to be on all fours so she didn’t have to see my face while I fucked her.

  A shattered soul doesn’t happen in a single instant. It’s gradual—a fracture that occurs time and again until there’s nothing left to stitch together.

  For myself.

  For Isla.

  I push my brother aside.

  “Fucking her isn’t happening,” I say over my shoulder, “but I’ll be damned if I don’t make sure that she’s still breathing.”

  I don’t wait for a comeback, instead picking my way through tables and patrons, hope clinging to my icy heart that she’s simply caught up in conversation with Father Bootham.

  But finding the priest in his office offers no reassurance.

  His wide eyes glance up at me from behind his desk. “She left nearly an hour ago, Saxon. Told me that she was going directly to the pub to speak with you.”

  “Fuck.”

  The good father doesn’t even reprimand me for the language.

  Cautiously, he settles his elbows on the desk and threads his fingers together. “I suspect I know where she’s gone.”

  My gaze darts to his. “Tell me.”

  The priest swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing roughly. “I told her . . . I told her that there’s been a—shall we say—a certain commotion at Queen Mary University recently.”

  My tongue feels thick in my mouth. “Say that again.”

  Father Bootham reaches up to tug at his priestly collar. “At Queen Mary, there’s been . . . some trouble.”

  “Trouble involving what?” I demand, dread seeping into my veins like toxin.

  “Not what but whom,” he says, still fiddling with his collar. “You, Saxon. The trouble involves you.”

  The priest keeps rambling, but my brain is on a crash-course collision. Yesterday, Isla came to me with news that a group at Queen Mary wants me dead. I turned her away. Both for my own sake—killing loyalists is something I try to avoid at all costs, in respect for my own misguided vow to the Crown—and because the fact is, if I murdered every person who had it out for me, I would bathe in the blood of my enemies for the next two lifetimes.

  But for her to hear the same story from Father Bootham, tangled with the irrefutable fact that she feels some strange compulsion to save me, there’s no doubt where she’s gone.

  Isla Quinn isn’t a murderer, but that doesn’t mean she won’t find herself killed in the process of trying to do the honorable thing.

  That strange, sickening sensation swirls in my gut once more. The one I felt when I spotted her curled in the fetal position in front of Buckingham Palace. And the one I felt, even stronger, when I dragged her into my arms for the first time and prayed that I might still find her alive.

  I meet Father Bootham’s dark eyes. “Tell me everything. Now.”

  18

  Isla

  As I pass the Clock Tower on Queen Mary’s campus, wind whips my hair into my mouth and rain turns the grass soggy beneath my feet.

  If the weather’s anything to go by, coming here was a very bad decision.

  “In, out,” I mutter to myself, for the third time since I got off the Tube.

  That’s the plan, at least.

  Father Bootham knew just enough to describe the group’s gathering place as a grand room with a domed ceiling and busts of literary figures peering down from the upper two galleries.

  There’s only one place like it at Queen Mary: The Octagon.

  Bowing my head to keep my face from being splashed by raindrops, I follow the paved path toward the back of the Queen’s Building. It’s eerily quiet out, the stormy weather keeping everyone indoors.

  Everyone but me, that is.

  Because you’re a stubborn fool.

  No, not stubborn. Just incredibly persistent.

  Saxon might not care to know what the plan is to kill him, but I do. I don’t allow myself time to reason out why that might be; nor do I allow myself time to dwell on the adrenaline rushing through my veins as I duck past a bicycle rack.

  I visited The Octagon once with Peter for a concert, when he first started attending uni. The strings of the violin and cello and harp rose like heaven-sent chaos. Otherworldly. Beautiful. And amplified by the glass ceiling until it was impossible to feel anything but dwarfed by the splendor of each note. We’d sat at long, bench-style tables, alongside every other attendee.

  Today that’s the last place I should be. I need to get myself to one of the two upper floors without being caught.

  My feet slosh through a shallow puddle but I’m too busy scanning the side of the brick building to do anything but shake out my leg like a dog and keep trudging forward, ignoring the rain pelting down on my shoulders, ignoring the paranoia that sweeps around me, like a lover might, and demand that I turn around and leave.

  I lock sight on the front door then search for another, more covert entrance than—

  A hand comes down on my shoulder, hard enough to rattle my teeth. “You look lost.”

  Oh, hell.

  I pin a smile on my face, turning toward the stranger. “No! Not at all. I’m attending a meeting, but I’ve never been and I’m gathering the courage to—”

  Every word dies on my next breath.

  Brown eyes. Dark hair tucked under a tweed flat cap. A weathered face that appears no older than mid-forties.

  I know that face.

  I know that face.

  How. Where. When?

  The man readjusts the hat, rain catching on his short lashes, and—

  The bloke I played side-shuffle with on the front stoop of The Bell & Hand. As in, The Bell & Hand, home to anti-loyalists everywhere. Relief floods my system so hard that I nearly gasp and throw my arms around this man I’ve only ever seen in passing.

  He reaches down, flicks his brolly open, and positions it above my head. A smile curves his thin lips as his brown eyes hold mine. “First time coming to Queen Mary, eh? I’m a professor here.”

  My breath catches in my throat. Don’t think the worst. Don’t you dare think the worst. Right. I’m letting the paranoia take root again. The likelihood of him being the same professor that Father Bootham mentioned is—

  “Ian Coney,” he adds, insta
ntly shattering all hope.

  Fuck.

  I dart a glance over to The Octagon, then the drenched walkway that leads to freedom. There are two options here. I play the flighty sort, thanking him for stopping to check on me, and continue on my merry way. I’m only a matter of blocks from being home, safe and sound, and putting this all behind me.

  Or I do what I came here to do.

  In the end, Professor Coney, leader of the loyalist group out for Saxon’s blood, makes the decision for me. With the brolly still over my head, he says, “Come inside and get out of the rain.”

  I swallow, thickly, and choose option three. “That would be so lovely!” I smile, all teeth, and shiver for dramatic effect. “It’s only that”—I wave at The Octagon—“I’m meant to be attending a meeting. My brother comes here for university and thought I would find the group . . . enlightening.”

  Coney’s brown eyes drift over my frame. “And he pointed you here, to The Octagon?”

  I nod. “Yes.”

  “Interesting you should say that.”

  “Oh?”

  He gives the umbrella a little shake. “It’s where I’m heading too. Please, let me escort you.”

  The idea of having Professor Ian Coney at my back sounds less enticing than bathing in a pit of poisonous snakes. I hold my breath, keeping count of every step that brings me closer to learning of their plans to kill Saxon, all while praying that I won’t end up dead in the interim.

  Coney steps to the side as I open the door, but instead of letting me through, he blocks my entrance with the closed umbrella. “I didn’t ask. What is your name?”

  Rain soaks the earth, a cacophony that fills my ears as loudly as the blood thrumming in my temples. “Beth,” I lie smoothly, “Beth Linde.”

  “You’ll need a password to proceed, Beth Linde.”

  I stare at the clear, plastic brolly in front of me. It might as well be a broadsword, for all the good it does in appearing harmless. With the umbrella to my front and Coney at my back, I’m well and truly stuck. “A password?” I echo.