He doesn’t retreat. He doesn’t apologize, either.
Instead, he only chuckles, soft, low, like it’s a fine game that we’ve decided to play while the rest of the group watches with piqued curiosity, heads tilted, eyes studiously assessing.
I have zero interest in participating.
I shift on my seat, inching away, only to be jerked back into place like an errant child fleeing punishment. My soft grunt breaks the charged silence as my head cranes forward and my shoulders remain trapped within his hold.
“Miss Linde?” Professor Coney prompts.
Focus. Play nice. Do what the crazy tosser says before you end up dead in the Thames.
With my gaze zeroed in on my knees, I utter, “I think you’ll be better off taking Gregg’s approach. A half-cocked plan is no plan at all.”
There’s nodding from half the group, including Gregg and the bald man.
I breathe a little easier.
“Funny you should say that,” the professor murmurs. One hand comes off my shoulder, and then is followed by a distinct rustling sound, like he’s fishing in his pockets. “See, we’ve been debating how best to—shall we say—eradicate Saxon Priest for weeks now. Do we recreate King John’s assassination? Do we go for something completely different? We can’t quite come to a mutual decision.”
A thin stack of photographs lands in my lap.
The moment the face in the picture registers, every muscle turns to ice.
Saxon.
His unique green-yellow eyes are bright from the sunlight which bathes his brawny frame from one of the pub’s windows. He’s speaking to one of the servers at The Bell & Hand, hands fixed on his hips, his scarred mouth set in that rigid line that I’ve grown to recognize all too well.
Dread keeps me paralyzed as Coney leans over me, his front plastered to my back, his fingers finding the first photo and tossing it haphazardly to the ground. “Of course, I don’t believe in doing anything half-cocked,” he continues, pointing to the next frame, which shows Saxon bussing a table at the pub. “You learn by watching. Their mannerisms, who they trust, the motives behind their every move.”
At my sides, my fingers twitch. “I agree.”
“Do you?” Coney’s breath warms my face as he turns to stare at me, but then we’re cheek to cheek once more. No one else says a word, their attention riveted on us. “Then perhaps you can understand my surprise when I showed up today and found you standing in the rain.”
He flicks to the next picture, and it’s me.
Me standing there, talking to Saxon, that day we went to Christ Church.
Shite, shite, shite!
“See, you being here doesn’t align with what I’ve learned of you . . . Isla Quinn.”
Swapping to the next photo, it’s instantly recognizable: Saxon and I standing next to the side entrance of Christ Church, my hand wrapped around his arm, Saxon’s expression murderous, seconds, perhaps, before he told me to get my arse inside the church or go home.
Each picture proves more incriminating than the last.
Anxiously, I scan the others in the group, looking for an ally. A potential friend. Anyone, really, who might prove useful in helping me get out of here unscathed. But as my eyes dart from one man to the next, their mouths stay zipped shut. Poses casual, albeit alert. There’s no help coming, not from that lot.
“I’ve been trying to garner information from him,” I edge out, thinking quick on my feet, “that’s all. So I could come here and tell you.”
“No, I don’t think that’s the case.”
Before I can even plot my next move, Coney’s made his.
The hand that showed me the photographs fits around my neck, squeezing, and I scream. I scream so loud that I’m surprised the glass ceiling doesn’t shatter.
Coney clamps his other hand over my mouth.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.
“I think you’re as much a traitor as Saxon Priest,” he grunts in my ear, below the sound of the other men mocking my strangled gasps for air. Deftly, Coney sweeps his thumb along my jaw as he chokes me.
And he is choking me. Every bit of training from my youth flies out the window as pure survival mode kicks in. It isn’t pretty and it certainly isn’t strategic. My feet skate over the floor, legs twisting wildly as I grab his wrists, yanking hard enough to leave marks behind. But his grip doesn’t slacken and dear God, I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe! I wheeze, digging my nails into his flesh, and try to wriggle free.
“No, little bird,” he drawls, running his thumb down the column of my throat in an eerily appreciative gesture, “I think you planned to sit here, all prim and proper, before traipsing right back to the traitor to tell him everything you heard. And if you did that . . . we’d all be dead.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to shout that I killed the king.
I did it. Me.
At least they’d punish the right person. At least I’d earn my penance without costing Saxon his life.
Except that I’ve never been all that good with accepting my lot in life—I have no interest in dying, not yet. I want to live. I want to fall in love. I want to taste happiness again, in a way that’s eluded me for years.
I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive.
And damn anyone who tries to take that from me.
I breathe through my nose, ignoring the black web of unconsciousness creeping over my vision, and nimbly snake my fingers into my coat pocket for Dad’s knife. By the time the jeering from the others morphs into screams that I’ve pulled out a weapon, I’ve already sunk the blade into Coney’s thigh.
He stumbles back, releasing my throat with such abruptness that I collapse to the floor, completely lightheaded from the regained oxygen pumping into my lungs. Crawl. Crawl! God, I try. I gasp for air and shove myself onto all fours, but fingers grasp my ankle in a vice, stalling my flight, and then Coney snarls, “You fucking bitch!”
And then I’m dragged backward.
19
Saxon
I run.
Rain plasters my shirt to my chest and my feet churn up puddles but there’s not a bloody chance in hell of me slowing down when the visions skating through my head are hideous nightmares.
Isla dead before I can save her.
Isla almost dead, blood caked in her strawberry-blond hair, her bright blue eyes fluttering closed one last time before she goes limp in my arms.
It can’t happen. I won’t let it happen.
Without hesitating, I hurdle over a bicycle rack marked with Queen Mary University’s emblem—a crown. As if I need another reminder that when I reach Isla, I’ll be breaking my oath to a different queen, this one the Queen of the United Kingdom.
An oath that we inherited, Guy argued just yesterday.
Inherited or not, I’ve never strayed from Holyrood’s singular mission.
Until now.
Until her.
Picking up the pace, I follow the curve of a brick building and feel a surge of relief when I spot the rotund façade of The Octagon that Father Bootham described. I’ll need a way in, something more circumspect than the singular door that faces a large quad and more university buildings.
Doubling back, I retrace my steps.