“After receiving a tip from an anonymous source this morning, police have discovered the long-time reverend of Christ Church Spitalfields, William Bootham, dead in a Stepney flat this afternoon. The flat belongs to twenty-nine-year-old Isla Quinn.”
31
Isla
My legs collapse beneath me, and it’s only thanks to Saxon that I don’t go crashing to the floor.
His muscular arm wraps around my waist, drawing me into his side. “Breathe,” comes his gravel-pitched command in my ear, his nose rustling my hair as his palm slips under the fabric of my shirt to rest on my stomach. Across the room, my brother studies us with narrowed eyes. “Isla, breathe for me.”
Dramatics aside, I don’t think I’ll ever breathe again.
With my attention locked on the BREAKING NEWS notice scrawled across the telly in blood-red font, I watch in horror as uniformed medics wheel a stretcher, carrying what can only be Father Bootham’s body, down the narrow walkway leading from my front steps to the waiting ambulance on the street. Officers move in efficient lines through the open doorway, their faces somber. A quick pan of the camera reveals my landlord speaking with a journalist.
I look again to the stretcher, just before the ambulance’s aluminum doors clang shut, and my stomach bottoms out for a second time.
Three days.
Only three days ago, the priest sat opposite me in the confessional and told me that he worried for Saxon’s safety. Bloody hell. Why hadn’t he been more hard-pressed to worry about himself? Why hadn’t he stopped to think about what telling me would inevitably do to him?
As though sensing my inner turmoil, Saxon’s hand settles more firmly against me, his thumb caressing my skin. Back and forth, back and forth. Maybe, under different circumstances, I’d find his touch soothing—I would have, even five minutes ago—but this . . . this.
Dear God, Father Bootham.
Ruthless. Broken.
Murderer.
The guilt of yet another death sits on my doorstep—quite literally this time.
Move. I need to move.
Yanking away, I escape Saxon’s hold on quick, purposeful feet.
“Did you know?” I demand, my voice cracking pitifully as I stumble backward, putting several meters between us. I need to breathe. I need to think. And with him so close—even now—I might as well be a lost cause, forever destined to seek him out.
Saxon Priest has made me a convert.
Despite my floundering, he remains stubbornly fixed in place. Shoulders pressed back. Green eyes hard. Hands fisted down by his sides. An unholy king that refuses to kneel, even in the face of utter destruction.
If only we were all so lucky not to feel blindsided by this news.
“Saxon, did you know?”
“No.”
“You said there was something you needed to tell me about my flat, that when you went there—”
“Someone broke in,” he says stiffly, keeping his whole focus centered on me. On my periphery, I spy Peter shifting his weight from foot to foot after turning off the television. “Someone who fully intended for you to be there when they did.”
Dead.
They—whoever they are—wanted me lifeless. Saxon doesn’t need to say so out loud when all the confirmation I need is already written across his face.
This is the moment I’ve dreaded these last two months. Does it really matter if I’m wanted for the death of King John or Ian Coney when it’s all the same in the end? My identity has been blown and I’m being hunted—and then framed for the one murder that I didn’t commit myself.
You lasted two months longer than you predicted.
Ignoring the stamp of trepidation, I grit my teeth against the onslaught of paranoia. Breaking down won’t do me any good. Crying won’t do me any good. Either I fall to my knees and accept defeat or I grasp the torch I’ve been passed and dredge up whatever strength is left within me to keep pushing onward.
A new fight. A new war to be won. A new reason to look myself in the mirror and marry the Isla of old with the blood-stained woman who now stands in her place.
Saxon’s gaze skates over my face. “Bootham’s death is a warning. They’re wanting to push you out of the shadows.”
The illustrious They again.
As in, the blasted loyalists.
Good men like Father Bootham, my brain reminds me. Not all loyalists are bad, but the majority of them—idiots, the lot of them. They’re sheep all falling into line, unable to see the catastrophic effect the Crown has set into motion over the last twenty-plus years. Anger swirls in my belly. All I need in this world are the people in this house—Josie, Peter, Saxon. Everyone else can rot in hell, and I’ll be damned if I deliver myself to those faceless, traitorous bastards with my tail between my legs like I’m ashamed of what I’ve done.
I’m not.
I’d do it all over again if it means surviving yet another day to see them fall.
“They’ll have me once I’m good and ready. Not a second before.”
“They’ll never have you,” comes Saxon’s dark, sinister growl. It’s a threat as much as it is a vow, and a thread of desire sweeps along my spine. “I’ll tear their fucking hearts out first. Mark my words, Isla. Nothing will happen to you.”
My back collides with cool glass and fabric warmed by the sun. The window. The curtains erasing the outside world from view. Out there, London is reeling from the sudden death of a beloved priest. In here, it’s the quiet before the storm. We can’t stay hidden forever. I don’t want to stay hidden forever. That’s not the sort of life any of us deserve. And, hell, Father Bootham deserved his ending least of all.
He did nothing wrong. Nothing besides believing in his queen and supporting her right to keep the throne. Now he’s dead, and I may as well have been the one to deliver the final blow.
“If we have any hope of coming out of this unscathed, we need to figure out how he was murdered,” I mutter beneath my breath.
Maybe he was slaughtered inside my flat. Maybe he was brought there after the deed was already done. Either way, my nerves twist and my calm disintegrates like a water balloon striking a hard surface, and it’s as I’m drawing in a deep rush of air that I catch a blur of navy blue launching toward Saxon.
“Peter, no!”
My brother ignores me completely.
His arm swings, fist at the ready, and aims for Saxon’s face. I flinch, expecting to hear the crunch of cartilage breaking or a pained growl from the man who brought me to orgasm, multiple times over, just an hour ago.
I should have known better.
With quick reflexes, Saxon bobs the punch, grabs Peter by the wrist, and yanks my brother around until his back is flush with Saxon’s chest. Bigger, stronger, Saxon binds an arm across Peter’s front, forcing my brother’s arms to dangle uselessly by his sides.
“Let me go, you bastard!” he cries, wriggling in Saxon’s immobile hold. “You did this. You did this.”
I step forward, only for narrowed green eyes to pin me in place. “Don’t move.”
At Saxon’s order, I go deathly still, my stare flitting to Peter, whose face crumples with misery. Red cheeks, flared nostrils. His eyes are squeezed shut but if they were open, I know they’d be bright with fury. And that fury would be directed at the wrong person. Saxon did nothing. He offered me a position when I begged. He saved me—twice—when I faced down the proverbial barrel and was seconds away from inevitable death. He brought us here and gave us shelter, when he could have easily walked away and wiped his hands clean of all things Quinn.