My cheek meets damp grass a second before the rest of my body follows suit.
I gasp, biting out a curse as pain twinges in my elbows, the base of my spine. Don’t give up. Don’t. Give. Up. Think of Peter. Think of Josie.
Lightheaded from the fall, I fumble hastily with my coat, angling my fingers for the knife I stowed inside. Grazing the smooth hilt, I tug it free—No!
A big hand grabs my wrist, tearing the knife away, and, as my gaze follows in fear, he stabs the sharp blade into the earth, out of reach. A knee presses heavily into my lower spine, immobilizing me, and then that same hand that stripped me of any chance for self-defense anchors down beside my head.
I feel his bulky weight shifting, feel the heat of his breath on my bare neck, and then there’s nothing but the sound of his raspy voice in my ear.
A voice I well recognize.
A voice that belongs to a man with a scarred face and soulless eyes and a heart which I swear does not beat.
“Going somewhere, Miss Quinn?”
8
Isla
Saxon Priest.
I’m not sure that the reality of him is better—or worse—than being kidnapped by a stranger with a personal vendetta. At least with the latter, I know what I’m up against. With Saxon, all bets are off.
He turned me away today. Hell, he didn’t just turn me away; he practically laughed in the face of my desperation.
Arsehole.
When I lift a sore wrist in a last, feeble attempt to snatch the knife, Saxon’s hand flattens mine to the grass, his hold uncompromising. I swallow, hard, then turn my head just far enough so I can see his profile.
The distorted upper lip. The harsh slant of his dark brows. The crooked nose and sharp, angular jawline.
I’ve been pinned down by the devil himself.
“Try it,” I mutter, my voice still hoarse from shouting Peter’s name. “Whatever it is you plan to do with me, do your worst.” I pause, gathering steel fortitude like a mental blade poised to strike. “I bite.”
“Something tells me that you’d enjoy it.” The weight on my hand doesn’t let up. Not even a little. If anything, Saxon only hovers there, his bulk covering my frame, his face so very close to mine. “I should warn you—I bite back.”
Before I can summon a response, he’s flipped me over. My clothes, already soaked through, meld with the damp grass. Any attempt to wrestle my way out of this mess is thwarted when he pins my hands above my head and straddles my thighs.
Though the position is intimate, the look on Saxon’s face is anything but.
The cast of light from one of the park’s lampposts reveals his expression to be nothing less than merciless. Mouth firm, jaw locked, he stares down at me as though I’m an inconvenience.
“I found you unconscious,” he growls, his lips barely moving as he spits out the words.
Unconscious.
The all-too-vivid memory of being swallowed by the crowd twines its way around me like a thorny vine. Bodies rushing to safety, feet trampling my hands, my legs. Every time I’d attempted to stand back up, someone else had knocked me down until it seemed easier, less strenuous, to simply hold on tight until it was all over.
The irony of life, I suppose.
I meet Saxon’s steady green gaze. “I thought you were kidnapping me.”
“I’m many things,” he says stiffly, still restraining my hands, “but a kidnapper isn’t one of them.”
“Brilliant.” I wriggle my fingers. “Now that we’ve established that, will you let me go?”
His thumbs press down on my inner wrists, right over my pulse. “Do you still plan to stab me?”
“I’m many things but a murderer isn’t one of them.”
I utter the words primly, and it must do the job of convincing him well enough because the brawny pub owner releases his grip. Electricity shoots up to my fingertips from the sudden release of pressure, and for a single moment, I find myself staring at his rough-hewn features, this man who speaks without a hint of warmth but still saved me from being crushed by the crowd.
Who are you really, Saxon Priest?
Finally, as though he’s confident that I won’t double back on my word, he lifts off me and climbs to his feet. Still sprawled out on the ground as I am, he appears all the more intimidating as he rises to his full height. Those broad shoulders block the light from the lamppost behind him, so that I see nothing of his face but shadows.
“Can you stand?” he asks, abruptly bending low to swipe my knife from where he buried it to the hilt in the soil.
“Will you carry me again if I say no?”
He pauses, blade in hand, and angles his head down to look at me. “Have you forgotten already, Miss Quinn? I don’t do charity.”
At least some things never change.
Rolling over onto my knees, I steady a hand on my thigh as I stand. For a moment, the world goes topsy-turvy and the corners of my vision turn a deep maroon. Oh, bollocks. I feel myself sway on weakened knees, only for warmth to circle my bicep at the very last second when Saxon keeps me upright.
“Thank you,” I murmur, my mouth dry. “I feel like I’ve been run over. Once for being in the wrong place at the wrong time; twice just for sport.”
His grip slides south, to my forearm. “I didn’t take you for a rabid dissenter.”
“I’m not.”
“And yet, here you are.”
“My brother—” I cut off as guilt takes a sledgehammer to my lungs. If I hadn’t fallen, would I have found Peter by now? The thought that he might be alone, that something even more disastrous may have happened to him than it did to me, hastens my breathing. If he’s been hurt . . .
Stop. Don’t think like that.
“Your brother?” Saxon prompts, his voice low, emotionally untethered.
“I forbade him from coming to any of the protests. What happened to our parents”—I shake my head, forbidding myself from going there, to those memories I wish I could erase forever—“could happen to him. He doesn’t see it that way because he’s too damned stubborn to think he’s anything less than immortal.”
“How old is he?”
“Eighteen.”
Saxon steers me toward one of the park’s paved paths. “Eighteen-year-old boys are hard-headed.” When I snort under my breath in agreement, he only pulls me along, keeping me beside him. “But something tells me that stubbornness is a uniquely Quinn trait.”
I open my mouth to protest, but clamp it shut a moment later. Begrudgingly, I mutter, “You’re not wrong.”
“Didn’t think I would be.”
My teeth crack together at his impassive tone. “Do you ever feel suffocated by your own arrogance?”
“No.”
Good God, the blasted man is rigid as stone.
Standing in his presence is like being thrust, naked, beneath the icy surface of a frozen lake. Even my pulse feels sluggish, as though the very chill of him is now seeping into every one of my extremities. Another ten minutes of this halfhearted banter and there’s a good chance I’ll have frostbite.
I tug at my arm, and he lets me go without issue. “I need to find Peter.”
“You’re swaying again.”