Guy Priest.
I lift my gaze to Saxon’s, aware of our audience, and barely move my mouth around the words, “Let me go.”
His response is instant: “You don’t know what you’re asking of me.”
I move a second time.
Again, the stubborn man mirrors the side shuffle, firmly planting himself in my way, as though shielding me from prospective harm. A hopeless, frustrated laugh climbs my throat. There’s no danger here, not in this house. Nothing besides the very real possibility of crushed emotions if I don’t smooth the troubled waters before the waves drown us all in one go.
I lower my voice, intending my next words to be only for the two of us. “She’s young. This isn’t”—I draw in a sharp breath—“You need to step aside, Saxon. Please. Right now.”
He drags his thumb along the side of my neck to settle over the plump center of my bottom lip. I feel that one touch all the way down to my toes. But in his prolonged pause, I can’t help but wonder if he’s weighing his choices. Maybe debating whether or not to throw me over his shoulder, the way he has before, and do away with my choice altogether. Then, jaw clenched tight, he slams those brilliant green eyes of his shut. Without a word, he tears himself away.
The loss of him is immediate. Overwhelming.
Don’t reach for him.
Not right now, at least, when I desperately need to give Peter and Josie my full attention—while somehow managing to ignore commentary from the arsehole onlookers.
Sole attendee: one.
“Jos,” I say, casting my gaze past Guy, who’s propped up against the door frame, and turn to my sister. She’s huddled under Peter’s lean arm, hauled up against his side. Her blue eyes remain rooted to the floor, avoiding mine. “Please . . . please don’t be scared of me.”
Wordlessly, she shakes her head.
“Josie, please—”
“You’re all over the telly.”
At the droll statement, my head jerks toward Guy. Arms linked over his chest, he watches the scene play out before him with an avid curiosity belied only by his shrewd stare. I press my lips together, refusing to take the bait. “I didn’t kill Father Bootham.”
“But you did murder the king.”
Saxon stiffens beside me. “Guy, stay out of this.”
“What? I’m only looking out for her.” He kicks away from the door frame and ambles closer. A lion on the prowl. A jackal poised to strike. It takes every ounce of willpower to keep my feet fixed in place. “The way things are going, your little pet will be stuck behind bars any day now. She needs a place to hide—somewhere outside of the City.”
“She,” I snap, “is standing right here. Either talk to me directly or don’t bother at all.”
The corners of Guy’s lips curl in a small, self-serving smile. “Should I tell you how I’m jealous, then?”
Unblinking, I meet his stare. “Do you really need an invitation? I imagine you already plan to tell me why.”
His smile kicks up another notch as he leans forward. “Jealous,” he murmurs slowly, as though tasting the word, “because you managed the one thing that we’ve all been angling for, for years—the king dead. Total chaos ensues. Absolute anarchy.”
A knot forms in my throat. “That’s not what I want at all.”
“No?”
“No one wants anarchy.”
“You’re right,” the eldest Priest says, stepping close. I catch a hint of his aftershave—something masculine, sharp—when he claims a small perimeter around me. Only once he’s at my back, leaving me with a full view of Josie and Peter, does he add on a raspy whisper, just for me, “I wanted revenge.”
The memory of Mum and Dad leaving for Big Ben slams into me with such force that I nearly keel over. Revenge. Vengeance. Anger. Five years with only those emotions fueling me, governing every one of my actions. Even now, as I stare at my siblings clustered together, like they don’t know whether I’ll turn on them next, I find myself succumbing to the rage all over again.
With my gaze on my brother and sister, I dip my chin. “Revenge was all I had.”
A masculine hand—firm and tanned and unbruised, so unlike Saxon’s—lands on my shoulder to slowly twist me around. I catch a glimpse of broad shoulders and a strong chest before Guy bends, next to me, to say, “I was twelve when our father was murdered. He was another victim of the king. Bled out on the street. Stabbed fifteen times.”
Realization dawns and I breathe a single word: “Paris.”
“How smart you are, King Killer. We fled the country in the middle of the night. And, somehow, I can’t even find it in myself to be disappointed that you took what I wanted right out from under me.” A rough chuckle grazes my ear. “But I think . . . I think I’ll call in a favor to even the score.”
I run my tongue along my bottom lip. “What favor?”
“Let my brother be the hero in this story.”
Unbidden, I look to where Saxon stands by the window. Nothing in his posture reveals that he’s overheard his brother’s bargaining chip. I wait, heart in my throat, for him to glance my way. I want him to see me. But he doesn’t return my stare and, if I weren’t already positive that he does, in fact, have a heart beating under all that steel muscle and hard flesh, I might have been able to convince myself that he’s completely tuned us out.
Steeling my own body, I shrug Guy off. “I don’t need a savior.”
“We never know what we need until it’s too late.”
Ominous.
Gooseflesh erupts over my skin, turning the tiny hairs on my arm on end. “What do you know that I don’t?”
“I know that you can’t stay in this house forever.” Guy slants a critical look toward the curtained window. “At some point, you’ll need to leave. You and your siblings, and Saxon—why don’t you tell her what you told me?”
Shoulders rounded with one hand planted on the wall, Saxon’s back expands with a heavy breath. Slowly, that open palm drags into an angry fist, and I swear I can feel the scrape of his roughened fingertips over my skin. His gaze catches on my face, his eyes clear and calm and collected.
Like ice.
“We have a house in Kent.”
I pause. Another house? The retort sits on my tongue, ready to spring. At the last second, I ditch it in hopes of getting answers they might actually deliver. “So, you want to shuffle us from one spot to the next.”
“I want to keep you safe.”
Dammit, Saxon.
Joy sparks heat and, despite everything that’s happened, I struggle with biting back a smile. Destiny. There’s no other reasoning for why one comment like that from him has the black clouds hanging over my head dissipating within seconds.
“You have a heart,” I tell him.
He holds my stare. “Only for you.”
33
Isla
“Get in.”
I ignore Saxon’s order to slip into the car and quickly survey Lyme Street instead. It’s eerily quiet, just as it’s been since we arrived on Monday night. No signs of life. No movement of any kind. Even the array of cars parked along the curb seem frozen in time. Three days of me watching the outside world—this small strip of it, at least—and there’s nothing to indicate that these homes are actually in use.