Road To Fire: Broken Crown Trilogy, Book 1

by Luis, Maria

  “I wake up to peeping Toms staring at me through my window every morning.” When I gawk at him, concern swelling at the thought of us being discovered by the authorities, my brother takes pity, adding, “The deer, Isla. I’m talking about the deer.”

  Oh, thank God.

  Perhaps it was pitiful to return here, to a village I’ve only driven through, but the bed and breakfast I booked comes with a fully furnished wing, large enough to fit all three of us without always bumping elbows. Not that the quaint farmhouse is anything to drool over. The matching wallpaper from room to room dates back to the seventies, at least, and the furniture is threadbare and on the verge of passing over to wherever furniture goes to die. And, while I haven’t used the shower yet, there’s no mistaking the startled yelp I hear from Josie whenever the water suddenly turns cold mid-wash.

  The benefits to staying here: it’s cheap and Stokenchurch is tiny.

  And it’s close enough to London should there be any . . . news.

  Josie’s elbow glances my side as she scoots closer, resting her head on my shoulder. “It’s been three days. Maybe we should venture out. I would die for some crisps right now.”

  “Maybe I ought to go first,” Peter says, clasping his hands together in his lap. On the floor, his toes tap out an uneven rhythm. “No one knows my name”—he throws an apologetic look my way—“or my face. What if someone recognizes you from the telly?”

  We’ve been lucky so far.

  The owners accepted the banknotes without question, and we used Peter’s license to check in, instead of my own. Just in case. For three days, we’ve stayed far away from the news. No turning on the car for a listen to the radio or popping on the telly. Not that the latter works—I tried, that very first night we stayed here. Seventy-two hours after I fled London, and we’ve been cocooned in a bubble of ignorance ever since.

  Shaking my head, I pass the mug over to Josie when she taps the handle, silently asking for a sip. “We go together, or we don’t go at all. Same as we did when we went shopping yesterday. I don’t . . . I don’t want us separated again.”

  Lips flattening, Peter hangs his head forward. “If I’d known . . . if I’d known what that bloody bastard was prepared to do to you, I wouldn’t have allowed him to send us to Oxford.”

  “Peter . . .” The sofa cushion squeaks under my bum when I stretch out a hand, settling it on his knee. “You can’t blame yourself. You can’t. He said I’d be following the next morning—how were you to know that wouldn’t be the case?”

  “I should have known better than to trust a Priest.” He lifts his chin, his gaze finding mine. The blue of his irises is rimmed with remorse. “I told you not to trust them, and then I went ahead and did just that. You almost died!”

  “Peter . . .” I rub my lips together, sliding my arse forward until I sit on the edge of the sofa. “Do you remember the time you threw yourself from the tree?”

  Josie mimics me to my right, dropping her feet to the scratchy beige rug. “I do,” she announces, hooking an arm around mine. “He screamed bloody murder.”

  My brother shoots her a dirty look. “I didn’t anticipate breaking my leg.”

  “You thought you could fly.”

  “And you,” he deadpans, “thought it’d be a grand idea to follow in my footsteps.”

  I hold up my hands between them, making the universal gesture for time-out. “The point is, you had no idea how you might feel after you jumped. You just did it, because Mum and Dad always taught us to be brave and to take chances and to remember that there are no bad decisions. The prospect of consequences didn’t even enter the picture until you were limping around in a cast for months on end.”

  Squirming beside me, Josie splays her hands out wide. “Killing the king was—”

  “A bad decision,” I finish for her, “which is exactly what I’m trying to get at. Anger ruled my emotions. Revenge, too. I spent years watching the two of you struggle after Mum and Dad died, and never . . . Well, I should have shined the lens back on myself, perhaps, because I was the one struggling most of all. I assassinated him in cold blood, and I’ve spent months living in fear because of it.”

  Peter drops his stare to his crossed ankles. “So, what you’re trying to say is, we should forgive Priest.”

  My heart pinches at the memory of Saxon being shoved to the damp earth. No matter how much I try, there’s been no forgetting that moment. And I’ve tried, over and over again, since leaving London. Since reading the message that he sent me, only to realize that he’d purposely cut off all other communication.

  The damned man thought of everything.

  On a whisper, I admit, “I think that he’s spent his entire life putting the Crown first. Tricking me into that cell was the equivalent of him jumping from the tree. Or, in my case, pulling the trigger on the king.”

  But unlike Peter, who whined and griped about his scratchy skin beneath the hard plaster, or even me, who took to hiding in plain sight, Saxon faced down the consequences and flashed it the appropriate two fingers—knowing, all the while, that it would lead to his own demise.

  I chose you, he told me. I chose you.

  “Don’t cry,” Josie murmurs from beside me, her arm snaking around my waist, “please don’t cry.”

  “I’m not.”

  Peter kicks my foot with his. “You definitely are.”

  Blast it, not again.

  With my knuckles, I wipe away the dampness from beneath my eyes. “I’m all right. See?” The smile I give them threatens to crack my cheeks in two, as if I’m made of porcelain and not human flesh. “Just fine. Really.”

  “You love him.”

  “I-I—”

  “You love him,” Peter repeats, harder this time.

  My vision shimmers and my breath quickens, and tearfully, I confess, “I do. I love him with everything that I am.”

  And then I crumble, right there before them both. For years, I’ve held myself composed. The rock of the family. The foundation keeping us all afloat. Any hope of turning my emotions to stone disintegrates completely when Peter takes the empty cushion beside mine, hugging me on one side while Josie maintains her post on my right.

  Their arms surround me, a tight cocoon.

  For the first time since Mum and Dad died, and I stepped up as head of the family, I let my siblings catch me.

  And then, as true siblings do, Peter coughs not so delicately into my neck, muttering, “You really need a shower.”

  “I was just thinking that,” Josie says, on the other side of me. “It’s quite bad.”

  “Like rubbish.”

  “No, like B.O.”

  Laughter climbs my throat. “I can hear everything you two are saying.”

  Peter grumbles, “I’m hoping you’ll get the point.”

  “The point being,” Josie adds, patting my leg like I’m a dog, “that I want crisps more than anything and you need a shower. Immediately. Right now. Before I pass out from sitting too close to you.”

  “Duly noted.” Chuckling for what feels like the first time in weeks, I push up from the sofa and smooth my palms over my shirt. Maybe this is what we need—the chance to eat out like nothing is wrong, that I’m not a criminal on the loose, or that my heart wasn’t captured by the devil himself.

  I can pretend, for a few hours, that I’m happy.

  “Isla?”

  At Josie’s sweet-tempered voice, I turn on my heel. “Yes?”

  Her blue eyes pin me in place. “Everything you’ve done, everything that you’ve sacrificed . . . We would do the same for you.”

  Perhaps it was an omen, foreshadowing at its finest, that Josie would repeat the same words that I said to her, weeks ago.

  It takes twenty minutes for me to wash all the grime from my body.

  Another five before we’re on the road.

  And only thirty seconds for Peter to switch on the radio and for us all to hear the same, bone-chilling announcement: “The Metropolitan Police have ju
st come forward with a shocking update on the murder of Reverend William Bootham. During a second autopsy, which was apparently required after complications with the first, dried blood was discovered under Bootham’s fingernails. Police Commissioner Marcus Guthram has confirmed that Isla Quinn, whose flat Bootham was discovered in, is no longer a suspect in the case. The DNA belongs to the infamous anti-loyalist, Saxon Priest.”

  “Isla! Isla.”

  Hands slide over mine, gripping tightly, and twist the car back into the two-lane road.

  “Pull over.” Peter’s tone leaves no room for rebuttal. “Isla, pull the bloody car over right now. You can’t drive like this.”

  With trembling hands, I pull the car over, rolling into a grassy embankment.

  “He lied,” Josie says from the backseat. “Saxon didn’t kill the priest, did he?”

  Leaning forward, Peter drops his forehead onto his upturned hands. “No. He took the blame, so—”

  “I would go free,” I whisper. Free of Father Bootham, he’d said, just before he slammed the car door shut. “He did it, so I could live.”

  So I could breathe.

  Damn him.

  Damn him!

  Palms sweaty, I grit my teeth. “I need to find him. I need to—”

  “We know,” Josie says softly, settling a hand on my shoulder, squeezing. “We know.”

  Peter digs his thumbs into his eye sockets. “You can’t go back to the Palace. They’ll kill you, if you do.”

  Where else might he be, though? If not the manor house in Kent, we could try his home in Camden. Or . . . “The Bell & Hand. He might be at The Bell & Hand.”

  “We’ll come with you,” Josie says.

  I shake my head. “It’s too dangerous. I couldn’t forgive myself if something happened to either of you.”

  “We come with you,” Peter repeats, his voice rough, “together or not at all.”

  41

  Saxon

  “You’re a bloody idiot.”

  “I could say the same for you,” I utter tonelessly into the mobile, my gaze fixed on Christ Church Spitalfields. It feels like months since I’ve stood under its shadow, not a matter of days. “How long before big brother dearest finds out you’ve phoned me?”

  Damien’s low growl echoes through the receiver. “I don’t give a damn about that.”

  “You should.”

  “I don’t,” he clips out. “But I do care that you paid off Guthram to falsify the coroner’s report. Fucking hell, what were you thinking?”

  Pushing away from the roughened brick wall, I resettle the hat on my head as I cross Fournier Street. I’ve made this walk thousands of times, at all times of the day, but never as I am now: With my face plastered across every storefront and news network. Without the backing of Holyrood to stay handcuff-free, should someone from the Met spot me.

  With my heart and mind continuously circling back to a certain blond warrior.

  Damien’s agitated voice drags me back to the conversation when he snaps, “Guthram is a snake. Trusting him is like feasting with the devil and expecting not to end up in hell.”

  “I know the risk I took.”

  “Do you? Because from where I’m sitting, it’s starting to look like you’ve a death wish. Just like Pa.”

  Sighing, I ask, “Why did you ring me, Damien?”

  Barely sparing The Bell & Hand a glance, I approach the side entrance door to Christ Church. The same one I nudged Isla through. Feeling the now-familiar pinch in my chest at the thought of her, I rub my heart with the flat of my palm. Once, twice. The sensation doesn’t lessen, or loosen, not that I thought it would. I’ve resigned myself to this miserable fate: wanting a woman who will never be mine.

  Life was so much simpler when I didn’t know what lay beyond the ice.

  “I want you to tell me that you haven’t thrown away everything for a woman,” Damien says, frustration brewing in his gruff voice. “Holyrood, the other men, Guy, me. Fuck, you threw it all away, and for what?”

  “If you have to ask, then you won’t understand.”

  “Then make me understand!” he explodes, and I’m instantly reminded that he’s been nicknamed the Mad Priest. A boy genius with a heart of gold, but with a dark underbelly that I’ve never understood. “Guy never plans to speak to you again. The rest are too terrified to cross him. But me . . . For fuck’s sake, Saxon, make me understand.”

  “She made me human.” Pressing my eyes shut, I drop my forehead to the door, taking care to keep my profile averted from the street. “I’ve spent years waiting to die. Hell, I’ve spent years as Death itself. Who I murdered didn’t matter. Who I saved mattered even less. I existed, Damien. Existed like some shattered version of myself, and then she . . .”

  When I trail off, my brother impatiently prompts, “And then she what?”

  I swallow, roughly. “She made me want.”

  Her hands on my ravaged skin, her sweet mouth lifting to mine, her quick smiles and her husky laughter, and her ill-timed humor that never failed to make me grin. Isla Quinn snuck into my life, an untamable storm. She hammered my walls open, lodged blistering fire in my chest, and reminded me that I am a man like any other.

  A man who craves.

  A man who bleeds.

  And a man willing to drag himself through the darkest pits of hell just to keep her safe.

  Gritting my teeth, I fist the doorknob and tug it open. “I have to go.”

  “No, hold on—”

  “Watch your back, brother. You don’t want to end up like me.”

  “Saxon, dammit, don’t hang up on—”

  I hang up.

  With my chin dipped, I let the door close behind me as I enter the left flank of the nave. I’ve been in this church countless times, enough to know that at this time of day, the pews will remain empty as the afternoon light filters through the windows and dances across the marbled floor.

  One could argue that I shouldn’t be here.

  I might not have killed Bootham, but the taint of my life sullied him anyhow.

  For over a century, Holyrood has functioned like our mission overrules all else. We have a monarchy to uphold, to protect, and to hell with anyone who stands in our way.

  I don’t know how many deaths I’ve doled out. Upward of one hundred. Probably more. Doubtful less. At some point, the little boy who eagerly accompanied his father to St. James’s Palace lost his humanity along with his moral compass. The Crown, as the king had threatened me, should always come first. And then I became the monster John created.

  No victims remembered.

  No victims mourned.

  But Bootham . . .

  I slip into a pew at the front of the church, the old wood creaking under my weight as I lower the kneeler and sink down. The blood-red cushion cradles my knees as I clasp my hands together, head bowed, and give voice to my penance.

  “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned . . .”

  42

  Isla

  “Stay here.”

  Peter slips an arm around the back of my headrest and leans forward, his eyes locked on my face as I climb out of the car. “What did we say? Together or not at all, right?”

  “I won’t be long. Promise.”

  “It’s all a front.” His mouth firms as he slants a look back at Josie. “An infamous anti-loyalist pub when the lot of them are monarchists. Bloody brilliant, really, but who knows what the staff knows?” His Adam’s apple bobs with a convulsive swallow. “What if they’ve heard about you and the king?”

  “Impossible. There’s no way Saxon has told them anything.” Despite my protest, my stomach churns at the mere thought of what I might be walking into—everything ranging from bad to horribly deadly. Saxon may have said nothing to the staff, but that doesn’t mean his brothers have kept quiet. Don’t go there. I shake off the fear the same way a dog rids its fur of water. “I’m only asking for his mobile number. We’ll be back to Stokenchurch before you know it.”

  �
��What if Guy is in there?” Josie asks, poking her head into the front of the car, between the two seats. “What if he sees you?”

  Then I have my knife and my wits to save me.

  Unwilling to unnerve them any more than I have, I shake my head. It’s probably best not to dwell on the fact that the man’s flat is above the pub. “He won’t see me.”

  “You don’t know that, not for sure.”

  “Twenty minutes,” I tell them both, offering a fleeting smile. “If I’m not out by then, you have the right to drag my arse out for a lecture.”

  Josie quirks a brow. “You’re bribing me with blasphemous words. Don’t think I don’t know it.”

  “Is it working?”

  “It is for me,” Josie quips at the same time Peter rolls his eyes and grumbles, “Hardly.”

  Choking out a weak laugh, I tap the hood of the car. “Twenty minutes. Time me, if you want.”

  Slamming the door shut, I purposely avoid looking at Christ Church Spitalfields as I take to the pavement. Guilt and I have become intimately acquainted these last few months, but still, knowing that Father Bootham was killed—and that his real murderer is still on the loose—does little to relieve me of my remorse.

  “Think of Saxon,” I mutter, sidestepping around a small group when they spill across the pavement, leaving no room for me to squeeze past.

  Déjà vu strikes for a third time when I approach the glossy black door. It swings open, an older gentleman stepping out, and my pulse immediately spikes. Ian Coney is dead, I remind myself, as the man moves around me and heads for Commercial Street.

  In the span of days, I’ve gone from being wanted by the police to yet another nameless face in the crowd.

  All at Saxon’s expense.

  The scent of pastries and coffee fills my lungs as soon as I step inside. No matter that one of its owners has been accused of murder, The Bell & Hand is busy as usual. Customers fill nearly every seat in the pub, while the bar remains standing room only. Above the din, a melody dances to a light, airy rhythm.

  Time to get to it, then.