by Maria Luis
“Of course not!”
“He made me bleed.”
“Between the glass and the fire, your skin was . . . is quite raw.”
“And that excuses him for manhandling me?”
I tilt my head, hold my breath, and wait.
The sink turns off, followed by the distinct sound of a towel rubbing briskly against skin, as if the good surgeon is determined to buy himself time. But his hesitation stretches on, and on, until he’s left with no choice but to ditch the rag. It lands with a wet thwack on a counter. Even then, he says nothing.
You cannot beat the best, Dr. Matthews.
“I suppose . . .” Ducking my head, I draw my shoulders inward and drop my voice to a husky murmur. “I suppose working for Holyrood takes precedence over your care for a patient.”
“I don’t . . . I’m not one for . . . That is to say—fuck.”
Smothering a victorious grin, I layer on another dose of self-pity for good measure. “I barely escaped with my life.”
“Except you lived!” Agitated footsteps shuffle past before returning a second later. “You’re alive.”
“Without my sight,” I whisper in a painstakingly aching voice, dialed all the way to ten to pull on every one of his heartstrings. “I’m alone, Dr. Matthews, totally and completely alone. I don’t even know what this place is, never mind how I’ll—”
“Ightham Mote.”
The hospital gown crinkles beneath my fingertips. “Sorry?”
“You’re at Ightham Mote,” he says, “but we call it the Palace. You won’t find it anywhere on a map. Or rather, you would. Everyone thinks we’re an insane asylum.”
I nearly laugh at the irony.
Godwin, the snake, absolutely deserves to be locked away.
Gritting my teeth at the visceral memory of his impersonal, cruel touch, I dip my chin to my chest and ignore the aching pull of flesh stretching across my nape and shoulders. Dr. Matthews was all too kind to point out that he’d removed ninety-seven shards of glass from my back—all of which I heard drop into a metal basin.
Ping. Ping. Ping.
I’ll hear that sound for the rest of my life—nestled beside the long-ago memories of my mother’s screams, minutes before Margaret dragged me from my bedroom window.
I was born in fire and nearly died in its fiery embrace too.
Resolve stiffens my spine. “You’ll take me to the queen.”
A rush of air bursts from Dr. Matthews’ lips. “Godwin gave me strict orders to keep you here.”
“I’ll scream.”
“Miss Carrigan, this is out of my—”
“I’ll scream until you’re forced to sedate me, and when the medicine wears off, I’ll wake screaming again.” If expression had sound, then his jaw just came unhinged. Before he can protest, I add, “I’m about to become your worst nightmare, Doctor. Don’t think I won’t.”
A beat passes, and then yet another.
My stomach twists with anxiety and frustration, a cocktail of panic that I remember all too well from years spent talking to men who’d rather stick their hands down my knickers than pretend, for even a second, that I was anything more than a quick shag that put them on the path to bigger and better things.
I shove my former self deep down, internally silencing Young Rowena’s fears and her tears and her everlasting pain. “Well?” I demand.
“I’ll take you to her,” the doctor says briskly, “but you’ll need to . . . You can’t be walking through the Palace like that.”
Because I have no other option, I allow Dr. Matthews to swap out my hospital gown for new clothes. He doesn’t offer information on where they came from and, to be perfectly honest, I don’t ask. Not now, when the chance to see Margaret is just minutes away.
He angles my head through a hole of material, then positions my arms so that I can awkwardly slip them into a pair of sleeves. Bandaged like a mummy or not, when the cotton skims exposed sections of skin, I let out a low hiss.
“The dressings and ointment will protect you from infection,” he says, not unkindly, “but there’s nothing to be done about the constriction to your—”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Yes, of course you will.”
I’m shuffled into a pair of loose joggers with a drawstring around my waist. Thin-soled hospital slippers, but no real shoes.
Then, and only then, does Dr. Matthews lead me from the room.
Pain accompanies my every step. It aches in my legs, from my tumble down the steps; in my abdomen and ribcage, from the beam that nearly crushed me; in my back, which burns as hot as the flames that almost took my life.
I’m as broken as I’ve felt for years.
Broken, but never defeated.
I grip Dr. Matthews’ arm like a lifeline. Turn my head from left to right, like a marionette puppet attached to invisible strings. In another world, I’d be given time to recuperate. But there’s nothing easy about this life that we’ve all been thrust into. Britain is a land on the brink of war where death is the only constant and pain the only engine that drives us forward into another day.
And, right now, I don’t know which pain is worse—the threat of bile that rears its ugly head when Dr. Matthews ushers me to the left, a little too abruptly, or the unsettling realization that my sight might be gone for good. An entire lifetime of being locked within the bowels of Hell, forced to crawl through its embers on my hands and knees, and now I’ll be stuck with Clarke dead and Margaret bleeding as my last visual memories.
Karma, probably, for the years that I spent at Father’s beck and call.
Lungs squeezing tight, I force one foot in front of the other and do my best not to limp.
Broken.
But never defeated.
“Here,” the doctor tells me, “let me get the door for you.”
My weight rocks backward as soon as Dr. Matthews releases me. Toes flexing in the flimsy hospital slippers, I grip the floor with everything that I am. Hold your ground. I last only seconds before I start to sway, and it takes every bit of strength not to reach out and look for something to stabilize my unsteady frame.
Do. Not. Fall.
A door clicks open, its base sweeping across tile or stone.
The doctor grasps my elbow, and I follow with my head down.
A shuffle of movement catches my ear, and I frown. There’s no way that Margaret could be . . .? No. Of course she isn’t walking. Bloody hell, I’m no doctor and even I know that she won’t be doing much of anything over the next few weeks, let alone just hours post-surgery.
But there’s no mistaking the subsequent shuffle of feet . . . or the chilling clank of chains.
My heart stampedes inside my chest. “Dr. Matthews, where are—”
“Who the bloody hell is she?” comes a nasally masculine voice.
“Your temporary cellmate.”
What?
The comforting hand on my elbow disappears, leaving me to stumble in my newfound darkness. And, for better or worse, I stumble. One foot tripping over the other, my body careening so sharply to the left that I ram into a wall with jarring force. A burst of metallic warmth fills my mouth as I bite the inside of my cheek.
“You can’t leave me here.” Shoulder jammed against the stone for leverage, the pads of my fingers dig deep into the grout. “Dr. Matthews, I don’t understand—”
“You shouldn’t have promised to scream.”
And then those clipped footsteps retreat, departing the way we came, with a farewell that leaves me chilled to the bone: “Play nice, Barker. I expect to find her alive when I come back.”
7
Damien
The queen is sprawled out on the four-poster bed.
Pillows cushion her blond head and heavy blankets shield her body.
If anyone told me that I’d finally meet Queen Margaret while she was holed up in bed, and looking like death, I would have laughed.
There’s no laughter now. Not a single spark of joy anywhe
re to be found.
Thirty-one years of personally serving the royal family, of bending over backward to keep them all alive, and here we are in the end—Guy shored up by the bedroom door, me seated on an uncomfortable armchair by the fireplace, and the queen, tucked beneath her covers, looking like a child terrified of the ghosts lurking beneath the bed.
Or maybe it’s us who terrify her. Tough to tell when she’s barely said a word since we knocked on her door.
Finally, she asks, “Where’s Saxon?”
Living in Oxford with the woman who assassinated your father.
I meet Guy’s stare with a subtle jerk of my chin. Now isn’t the time to confess that we had Isla Quinn in our grasp and let her go free. Or, hell, that we know she murdered King John in the first place.
Our tangled webs are growing bloody roots at this point.
“There were some rumblings up in Aberdeen,” I lie, maintaining a neutral expression. Rumblings. Fake murder plots. So long as it keeps her from asking too many questions about why Saxon isn’t at the Palace—and won’t be here for the foreseeable future—then I have no problem blurring the truth. “He’ll be back when it’s all sorted.”
“Right.” Her mouth visibly tightens with displeasure. “Of course.”
“He rang when he saw the news.” That, at least, is the truth. Guy may have kicked Saxon out of Holyrood, but my middle brother hasn’t put down the torch—not officially. Frustrated as I am that he chose a woman over our oath, Saxon will always have my loyalty. “I told him to stay in Scotland.” Another lie. Another smooth excuse that rolls right off my tongue. I don’t look at Guy when I add, “We’ll take care of what happened tonight.”
“What happened?” The displeasure spreads from the firm tilt of her mouth to her blue eyes. “What happened is that Buckingham Palace exploded. What happened,” she grits out, “is that I’m nobody’s fool. Someone tried to kill me last night. No one would have ever found my body. No one would ever know that I didn’t just burn alive.”
Against my will, I think of Rowena Carrigan.
The queen may have been shot, but the prime minister’s daughter . . .
Burned alive is somehow fitting and still lacking in every single way. Matthews had gagged as he cut away her shirt from the ravaged skin beneath. The fabric had melded to her forearms and abdomen, her flesh an adhesive glue that took the older man over an hour to fully clean out.
I hadn’t gagged. Hadn’t replied to Matthews’ mutterings as he worked diligently over her prone body. But I’d watched, unable to turn away from the woman who looked like she’d barely escaped the devil’s lair, and I’d waited to feel something more. Pity. Compassion. Empathy for a fellow broken soul.
In that moment, I’d burned alive too.
For vengeance and hate and the anticipation of seeing Edward Carrigan finally fall. Hell if it doesn’t feel like the universe didn’t drop Rowena into my lap with a curt, “Do your worst.”
And, God help her, but I fucking plan to.
“What happened,” Guy says with his arms crossed over his chest, drawing my attention back to the conversation, “is that if it weren’t for Clarke, we would have found out too late.”
I almost bark out a dry, humorless laugh.
After a year of pestering Clarke to come up with a code word to signal if the queen was in danger, the bastard finally picked one after the king died. He’d chosen Dunrobin, the Scottish castle where Queen Margaret lived after her sister’s assassination.
Twenty-four hours ago, I’d no idea that his choice hid a sentimentality for a woman he never should have touched. And then, with one text sent after two in the bloody morning—
I pin my gaze on the queen.
One mention of Clarke and she can barely look me in the eye. By all accounts, she should have died there beside him. She definitely shouldn’t have made it to Kent, let alone survived the damage done to her internal organs.
As he stitched her up, Matthews had called her a miracle.
I don’t believe in miracles or fate or a monarchy anointed by God. Don’t believe in much of anything beyond cold, hard facts. And the facts tell me one thing only: “You were shot first.”
“How . . .” The queen blinks. “How in the world do you know that? Did you watch the security tapes?”
“The cameras were tampered with.” And now they’re gone. Just like every other bit of evidence we could have used to re-trace the bastard’s steps. Swallowing my frustration, I drop my elbows to my knees. “Clarke would have assumed that the assassin planned to take him out first, if only to make it easier to kill you once he was dead. And,” I add grimly, thinking of what Rowena revealed, “because the shooter managed a head shot.”
Guy curses beneath his breath.
All the color drains from the queen’s face.
I do nothing but hold her hollow stare. “Clarke thought you were already dead, didn’t he.”
Her throat bobs in silent confirmation as she closes an arm over her midsection, like she’s worried that her intestines might spill out after all. “I couldn’t get up,” she whispers, her fingers tangling with the bed covers. “I could hear them struggling. I could . . . I could feel the blood coating my fingers. It—it was everywhere. I was dying. I should be dead.”
I don’t bother to deny it. Still . . . “You were allowed to live.”
Two pairs of eyes swing in my direction.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Guy bites off. “She nearly bled out.”
“Roughly five percent of people survive a gunshot to the head compared to the almost ninety who live after a shot to the abdomen.” Between my spread knees, I link my fingers together. “The queen lived; Clarke didn’t. Whoever staged tonight’s attack isn’t an amateur. They hacked our cameras. They bypassed every security measure we put in place to keep the queen safe. They blindsided us. You think they’d suddenly toss all that to the side to maybe kill her in the end? No,” I mutter, shaking my head, “it was part of their plan. Had to be.”
The blue of my brother’s gaze turns piercing. “The fire—”
“Destroyed every shred of evidence, which is exactly what they wanted. I—we—have nothing but the bullet that Matthews fished out of the queen’s stomach.”
I squeeze my hands together, doing my best to ignore the dampness pooling in my palms. Dampness that’s not from anxiety or even regret, but from the constant hum of rage that threatens to spill over and wreak havoc on everything in my path.
Buckingham Palace was my domain, which means that it’s my failure. Clarke’s death is now on my conscience. Every single staffer death will forever be on my head. The fact that I didn’t set the palace on fire, or pull the trigger, doesn’t matter when the killer is still out there.
I will find you and haunt you and destroy everything that makes you you.
“Damien.”
At my brother’s low timbre, I force my hands apart and drag them over my trousers. Turn to the woman in the bed with a look on my face that I’m sure would send small children scrambling. “I’ll do what I can. Look for leads, pull footage from nearby city cameras. Until then—”
“You’ll fake your own death,” Guy interjects.
A leash.
A collar.
Good idea or not, my chest grows impossibly tight at the absolute finality of my brother’s words. “Sod off” is right there, begging to launch free, but some inexplicable gut response tugs my attention away to look at the queen.
She watches Guy, her stare blazing with grief and anger. Her fingers coil over the bedsheets, dragging the blankets damn near up to her chin. At this rate, she’ll either suffocate or disappear altogether.
“You cold, Princess?” my brother asks from his post by the door. “Or just thinking about your own mortality?”
My chin jerks in his direction at the same time she retorts, “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m your queen.”
“For now.”
Jesus.
“
Guy,” I mutter roughly, “shut—”
The queen throws up a hand, silencing me mid-sentence, even as she hauls herself up in the bed, pushing and heaving with one palm on the mattress. Sweat beads across her upper lip and her fingers visibly tremble as she gathers the blanket again in a tight fist. “Explain yourself, Priest,” she says in a tone carved from stone. “What do you mean by for now?”
“Just that I know all about how you fought Clarke tooth and nail when it came to every order. After what happened tonight, I hope you’re prepared to do everything we tell you. No more objections.”
The queen’s mouth flattens into a thin, angry line. “You work for me—not the other way around.”
Pushing away from the door, Guy closes the distance between them. One hand fists the headboard while the other lands on the mattress, scant centimeters away from her leg. He leans down, invading her space. “I’ve been in this world longer than you’ve even been alive, Princess. I watched your sister be gunned down while you were still playing with dolls. I—”
“Don’t even speak Evie’s name.”
“—dealt with your father while you were banished to Scotland for safekeeping. And you know what I learned?” He removes his hand from the headboard to grip the pillow propping up her head. “I learned that while your time is finite, Holyrood is here, king after king, queen after bloody queen. So, you’re my queen for now. And if you die—like you almost did tonight after I explicitly told Clarke to get you out of London—there’ll always be another one of you to shuffle into place.”
CRACK!
I watch, in startled silence, as Guy lifts a hand to cup his left cheek.
She slapped him.
Bloody fucking hell, she slapped him.
Mouth dry, I step forward. “Your Majesty—”
“I want him out.” Her furious stare doesn’t leave my brother’s face. Never wavering, completely honed in. “Today.”
Guy’s lips peel back in a snarl. “Holyrood is mine.”