by Maria Luis
“Wrong,” she snaps, gripping the blanket like it’s the only thing keeping her from lunging forward and clawing out his eyes, “it’s mine. My ancestor founded Holyrood and yours bent the knee. Which means that your oath belongs to me and you do as I say.”
“Guy”—I throw him a hard look—“fucking apologize.”
His shoulders heave with a sharp breath. “No.”
I’m going to murder him. If the queen doesn’t do him in first, I’m going to murder him. “Just say the damn words,” I bark, my patience waning fast. “You lost your temper and the queen—”
“Is the queen.”
But it’s not Guy who spits this out but Queen Margaret herself.
With one hand cradling her wounded stomach, and her face red from exertion, she lifts her chin so that she never severs eye contact with my brother. “We’ve met twice now,” she utters in a voice pitched so low that she’s nearly inaudible, “and I’ve walked away both times with the same opinion: you are a bully, Guy Priest. If our lives had crossed paths while my father was still breathing, I’d have no choice but to put up with you. But he’s dead and I’m not, and so the only time we will ever meet again is on the day of your funeral.” She pauses, and an almost feral light glitters in her blue gaze. “Maybe, if you’re lucky, I won’t spit on your grave.”
No mercy.
Guy wanted her compliant and instead she’s revealed her claws.
It’d be impressive, if not for the fact that she’s just gone ahead and tossed a bomb into Holyrood’s very core.
“That isn’t a good idea.”
At the sound of my voice, the queen ends her staring contest with my brother and swiftly turns on me. “It’s my decision.”
“You don’t understand our politics.”
“It’s my final decision, Mr. Priest.”
“Holyrood is a powder keg waiting to blow.” Striding forward, I snatch Guy by the shirt and shove him behind me, then square off against the woman determined to take us all down with her. “Our father was murdered, and you know what happened? His second-in-command exiled us to Paris for five goddamn years.”
“Maybe he hoped to keep you all safe.”
“Or maybe he wanted all of this for himself.” Slashing an arm at the luxurious room, I think of that night, weeks ago, when I came across Paul, Jude, and Benji circling Saxon. There was no loyalty in the drive of their fists on my brother’s flesh, nor in the gun that Paul leveled on the back of Saxon’s head. There’d been only greed, even if no one else saw it but me. “Remove the leader from his pride and the vultures will swarm.”
“You don’t know that.”
“And you don’t know any of us. You’ve been sheltered—”
“Sheltered?” Disdain practically drips from her expression. “How sheltered am I when my father was murdered in front of me? Or was my innocence only tarnished the second that I watched Clarke fall? Or, I know! It was the moment when I crawled down the hallway of my home, bleeding out and almost dead, and realized that no one can be trusted.”
I meet her gaze, allowing the answering silence to drown us both until . . . “And Rowena Carrigan?” I ask, ignoring my brother simmering behind me. “Do you trust your best mate? After all, she saved you last night.”
The muscles in her neck jump as she averts her eyes.
“Answer the question.” I step in her line of sight, refusing to be ignored. “Do. You. Trust. Her?”
Her chin dips with a hard swallow. “No,” she whispers, squeezing her eyelids shut. “I don’t trust her. I can’t trust her.”
“Why.”
“Because she knew.”
Guy steps beside me. “What did she know?”
That hand on her stomach turns white-knuckled. “Clarke learned that Edward Carrigan plans to see me removed as Queen.”
My brain latches onto the most obvious: “Parliament doesn’t have the ability to do that.” Not anymore, at least. Not after King John stripped them of that power five years ago. A decision that led to one of the most devastating riots this country has seen in centuries. “Your father saw to that.”
“They do,” she replies slowly, “if I’m removed on the grounds of being mentally unfit to rule.”
Fuck. And, because it seems like the only fitting thing to say, I thread my fingers through my hair and say it again, “Fuck.”
The queen gives a terse nod. “Rowan knew—there’s no way she didn’t—and she never said a word, not even in warning. And then the fire . . . What’s the likelihood of her wanting to spend the night in the same week Clarke learned that her father plans to see me deposed?”
You’re speaking treason, she’d said.
A snake, she called me.
All that holier-than-thou attitude and it turns out that Rowena Carrigan is nothing but a conniving little liar.
“I’ll take care of her.” Jaw cinching tight, I pass a hand over the side of my face and mentally turn the situation over in my head. “There’s no way we can risk pretending that you died in the fire, even while we neutralize the situation.”
“I agree.”
“Good.”
She sits up tall. “And I think that—”
“Guy stays.”
The queen stiffens at my tone. “Absolutely not. I refuse to—”
“We can handle only one war at a time,” I tell her. “Who do you choose? The bully you know or the devil you don’t?”
Warily, her blue eyes shift to my brother. “I don’t like you,” she breathes.
Guy drops to his haunches, one hand on the bed, the other poised on his knee. “The feeling is mutual, Princess. The feeling is entirely fucking mutual.”
8
Rowena
The cell is a perfect square.
Ten limping steps take me from one wall to the next. Thirteen when I veer off course and accidentally stumble over Alfie Barker’s outstretched legs—which happens more often than not. Unfortunately.
“Will you stop moving?” Barker snaps, yanking his foot out of the way. The near-silent thud that follows tells me he’s either banged his fists on the floor or his head against the stone wall. “Back and forth, back and forth, all bloody day. You’re driving me absolutely mad.”
“Tell me about your daughters again.” In my thin-soled slippers, I take another careful step. “Specifically, whether or not they know that their father is a complete arse.”
“I don’t give a damn if you can see or not, Carrigan. If you take one more fucking step, that doctor is going to come back and find you breathless.”
“Breathless?” With careful precision, I adopt a tone soaked with saccharine sweetness. “I think you’ve too much confidence in your masculine prowess, Alfie.”
The insult doesn’t go over his head.
A heartbeat of silence passes, and then, over the sound of rattling chains, Barker snarls, “I’m going to kill you.”
If he weren’t restrained, I’d probably be more worried.
But he is, and I’m not, and the way I see it, the sooner I push him to the brink of insanity, the sooner someone will be forced to take me from this blasted cell and put me somewhere that isn’t a prison hole. So long as Godwin thinks I’m hiding priceless information, I’m still valuable.
Valuable enough that he won’t let Barker kill me.
Not yet, at least.
“How do you think it would happen?”
A sharp breath precedes an even sharper, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“If you killed me, I mean.” The only sounds in the cell belong to my shuffling stride and the faint trickle of water that I swear comes from a nearby stream. Meanwhile, Barker’s silence, lengthy and resolute, proves what I knew all along. “The thing is, Alfie, I’m not sure you could do it.”
“I could,” he grits out. “You don’t know anything about me.”
I might not know Alfie Barker, the man sharing this cell, but I’ve known hundreds of men just like him. Men who don civilized
masks and pretend every wrong that they commit is done in the name of protecting their child or their spouse or their home. But the mask always come off, and when it does, that shred of civility disappears right along with it.
Once upon a time, my father protected me too.
And then he realized how much more he stood to gain when he fed me to the wolves.
“You’d strangle me?” Pretending to think on it, I hum deep in my throat. “No, not strangulation. It doesn’t seem very you, Alfie. Too up close and personal. You’re more the sort to hide behind a gun.”
A small, heavy pause. “Are you saying that I’m a coward?”
“All I’m saying is that you’re quite the contradiction. One minute you’re sobbing, the next threatening to kill me. I don’t know, maybe that’s just the way you get it done. Pull the trigger; let the tears fall free.” When Barker lets loose a feral growl, I shake my head. Easy. So bloody easy that it—manipulation—should be a crime. It definitely feels like one. As always, I feel the pull of regret deep in my gut.
Do what you have to do to get free.
I throw out my hands and, to my relief, they graze roughened stone. Another round completed, even if I did take a few extra steps.
“Is that what happened?” I ask with forced nonchalance, turning around to start all over again. “Were you crying when Holyrood caught you and dragged you here—”
“That mouth of yours will get you into trouble one day, Miss Carrigan.”
That voice.
His voice.
I didn’t even hear him enter the cell, but instinctively, I stagger backward until my arse collides with stone and my palms splay out on either side of my hips and pain rips through my entire being. Stifling a whimper, I jerk my head to the side. There’s nowhere to run, no chance for escape. And even if I could somehow make it to the door, there’s no doubt in my mind that he would catch me.
Catch me and drag me back and take—
“Don’t tell me that you’re nervous now,” Godwin drawls, so much closer than before. Each arrogant step matches the staccato of my heart until I’m balancing on my toes, straining against stone, and the heat of him is right there, not even a breath away. “I so enjoyed sparring with you.”
Before or after you made me bleed, you bastard?
Desperate to appear unfazed, I dig my fingertips into the wall and lift my chin. “I don’t spar with snakes.”
“Smart choice. You wouldn’t win.”
The droll comment grinds my teeth together. “And, for the record, I’m not nervous. You don’t make me nervous.”
The warmth of his body infiltrates my personal space, swallowing the stale air from the cell and all the oxygen from my lungs. And then I feel it—him. His hands coming to rest on either side of mine, against the wall, and his breath, then his lips, brushing the slope of my neck as though I belong to him.
“You’re a liar, Miss Carrigan.”
The words vibrate against my skin. Velvet. Steel. Condescending. A shiver skates down my spine, and I wish—God, I wish—that I could stay perfectly still. But even now my shoulders tremble with the startling realization that whatever comes next . . . there’s no stopping it. Not with a madman at the helm. “I’m not lying.”
“Your pulse would argue otherwise,” he counters, his lips purposely grazing my throat, “but I’m not worried. We have more than enough time to get the truth out of you.”
And then, before I can even process what’s happening, my hands are yanked together, wrists forced to kiss by hands the size of boulders, and clink! clink! clink!
My heart stutters.
Palms pool with sweat.
Both are a sharp contrast to the cold metal now weighing down my arms.
The bastard . . . the bastard cuffed me!
“Let me go!” I thrash in place, swinging out a leg to kick him—and hit nothing but air. “I said, let me go!”
The chains linking the handcuffs go taut, as if Godwin fisted them in his grip, and then I’m snatched away from the wall in a single pull. The unexpected momentum throws my world off-kilter as up becomes down and left becomes right and darkness caves in completely. What little confidence I gained marching back and forth across the cell deteriorates instantly.
I can’t see, and I’m going to die.
I can’t see, and Godwin will take advantage of the weakness.
I can’t see, and Alfie Barker is clearly enjoying himself because he exclaims, “Thank God you’ve shut her up,” with all the palpable giddiness of a kid opening gifts on Boxing Day. And maybe it’s the hopelessness of the situation or the brokenness of my body, but either way I crash to my hands and knees. Hard.
Don’t give up, don’t give up, don’t give—
“Self-pity isn’t a good look on you.”
Godwin’s harsh words flay me alive, more sharply than the razor he used ever could, and then muscular arms fit under my stomach and haul me off the floor. No compassion. No empathy. I swallow, tightly, when his hand lands on my shoulder, his touch careful but somehow still unbelievably arrogant.
“Walk,” he commands, his voice pitched low next to my ear, “or I’ll drag you.”
I bundle my fear in a knot, then shove it so far deep that it’ll never resurface. “That’s not much of a choice.”
“It’s an ultimatum, Miss Carrigan. You’re all out of choices.”
With dread swimming in my gut, I walk.
Godwin guides me out of the cell, his hand rooted on my shoulder, and I swear Barker releases a breath of maniacal laughter when the door snicks shut behind us, locking him inside and leaving me to deal with the devil at my back.
If I were on my way to freedom, I’d ask Godwin what Barker did to deserve imprisonment. My cellmate revealed little more than what I prodded out of him—that he’s a father of two and that he was caught by Holyrood over a month ago—but kept his mouth shut otherwise. And I was locked in that cell right alongside him as though I haven’t spent years supporting the royal family.
Thieves and liars, brutes and murderers, all of them.
Words uttered by my father within Westminster’s Jewel Tower just two months ago when asked about the escalating number of anti-loyalist uprisings. The fourteenth-century stone walls had echoed with his booming voice and the ancient floors had trembled under the onslaught of his expectation for more. More independence from the Crown, more control. All around me, members of Parliament had nodded and hollered their support, all while draining their glass tumblers completely dry. King John stripped them of their power five years ago and now my father seeks to return it to them.
But not at the expense of Margaret’s life.
It isn’t true. It can’t be true.
Godwin is the brute here, the liar, not me.
The man in question tightens his grip, as if in silent warning for me to behave. Muttering “In here,” he turns me at a fifteen-degree angle and nudges me through a narrow door frame. Barely a second passes before the door clangs shut; the ensuing silence is all I need to know that we’re completely alone. For better or worse. Again.
He lets me go.
I stand in place, cuffed and straight-backed.
“Sit down,” he orders in the same breath that I demand, “What do you want with me?”
The scrape of a chair is my only answer. Its wooden feet wail against the floor, dragging closer and closer until anxiety doubles the pace of my pulse and—
A grunt escapes my lips when my knees abruptly collapse.
Unable to stabilize my weight in time, I tip backward and drop onto the chair that he so graciously shoved behind me.
Fury gathers in my gut.
“A gentleman,” I hiss, balling my hands into fists, “would never manhandle a woman.”
“There aren’t any gentlemen here, Miss Carrigan. You get me. Only me.”
“The world’s biggest bastard. How utterly fortuitous.”
I cock my head, hoping he’ll say something that’ll prove my point, but
he doesn’t.
No, he laughs.
This deep, raspy chuckle that reminds me of thorny vines just aching to puncture my skin and draw blood. He laughs like I’m the butt of the joke; he laughs like there’s nothing he’s anticipating more than becoming my very worst nightmare; he laughs like I’m doomed, and we both know it, and I’ll be stuck here until he’s good and ready to do away with my dead body.
“What,” I bite off, “do you want with me?”
“We’re going to play a little game, you and me.”
The chain rattles as I clasp my fingers together. “I’m not interested.”
“Didn’t ask if you were,” he murmurs, and I have the immediate visual of him slipping his hands into his trouser pockets as he circles me like a predator confronted with its next meal. It’s all there in his tone—the way he plans to trot me along, toying with me like a cat would a mouse, until either I stumble and fall, or he personally crashes me to the ground. “But we’re going to play anyway. Cooperate and I’ll let you visit with the queen.”
If I could see him, I’d punch him.
As it is, I sit so still that I’m surprised I don’t become living, breathing stone. “Another one of your ultimatums?”
“Think of it as a gift,” he counters smoothly. “Give me what I want, and I’ll make sure you get the same.”
“You had me thrown in a bloody cell!”
“That was all Matthews.”
I shake my wrists, making the cuffs clink noisily. “Then prove you’re sorry by unlocking these.”
Godwin’s answer is a solitary, deafening, “No.”
“Take. Them. Off.”
His footsteps pause. “Say please.”
I grind my teeth. “Only a chauvinistic arse would demand that I beg—”
“Say the word, Miss Carrigan, and maybe I’ll play nice with you.”
How many times have I been forced to play nice for the sake of stroking a man’s ego? How many times have I flirted when I felt sick to my stomach, and laughed when I wanted to scream, and prostrated myself before men I didn’t give a damn about and who most certainly didn’t give a damn about me?
And this man expects me to beg.