The pistol skirts south, to the notch between my eyes, silently baiting me to open them.
I obey on instinct.
And then, so softly that I strain to pick up the individual words, he orders, “Reach for your knife.”
“What?”
“We’ll have two minutes to get you to the car. Maybe less.” His pale eyes dart up, fixating somewhere behind me, before returning swiftly. In them, I see nothing but grim determination. “They’re watching us now. Guy, Damien, the others. I know you’re tired, sweetheart, but I need you to run for me. I need you to give me everything you have because if you don’t—fuck, we don’t have time for this.”
Sweetheart. He called me sweetheart.
Pulse racing, my fingers tighten on his leg. Beneath, I feel the delineation of a leg holster, as well as the sharp edge of a blade. My blade. “Why aren’t I dead?”
“This isn’t the time—”
“Why?”
Unexpectedly, his weight falls forward, one hand planted beside my head, the other still gripping the pistol. He keeps it locked in place, cold metal to vulnerable human flesh. “Because,” he husks out next to my ear, his voice so untethered, so raw, that I feel pressure building behind my eyes, “I’ve been a prisoner my entire life. I was born with shackles on my wrists, and centuries-old oaths contracted on my soul, and I won’t have that for you. I can’t. I need you to breathe, Isla. For you, for me.” He swallows, roughly, and perhaps it’s a trick of the light, but his unholy eyes glitter with what looks like unshed tears. Opening his scarred mouth, he adds, “For us and what could have been.”
I choke on grief. “Saxon, then come with—”
He cuts me off with a calloused palm over my mouth. “No one leaves Holyrood, least of all a Priest. This is the way it has to be.” His thumb caresses my cheek before he seems to catch himself. “Grab the knife and slice my forearm. Turn left down the hall and don’t stop until you hit the woods. I’ll be right behind you. Do you understand?”
Behind the weight of his hand, I nod.
I nod, even though I’m not sure I’ll have the strength to do as he says. I nod, even though I suspect this will be the last time I ever see him, and even though he’s kept me locked in this darkened cell for days now, my heart still calls to his.
Destiny.
Fate.
Whatever you want to call it, this is not how it was meant to play out between us.
Still, I don’t disappoint him.
The moment he lifts his hand, I swipe the blade from the holster and thrust it toward him. A sharp jab to ward him off, followed by a wide arc that actually glances his golden skin. His lips pull back with an audible hiss—lips that I’ve kissed, lips that have kissed me—and then he drops sideways, as though I’ve shocked him.
It’s an invitation to flee, and I seize it with both hands.
Get up. The second I scramble to my feet, black clouds roll across my vision. Don’t you dare fall! On weak legs, I stumble to the right, like a drunk after a long night. Reach out a hand, as if expecting someone to stabilize me before I end up sprawled out all over again.
“Isla,” Saxon growls from behind me, “go.”
Do or die trying.
Escaping the cell, I careen into the far wall and bite back a moan. Faster, move faster! I can hear Alfie Barker screaming for help. I want to turn, I want to save him, too, but then I hear the piercing sound of a siren, so eerily similar to the ones that play during a riot in London, and suddenly I’m sprinting for all that I’m worth.
Down the darkened hallway with the diamond-paned windows.
Run.
Down past a rickety stairwell that winds up to the first floor.
Run.
A gun explodes. My skin twitches at the sound, and I crash into the wall, instinctively twisting to look behind me with wild eyes, my knife poised to slash first and ask questions later. The dim hallway remains blessedly empty, and I—
Boom!
I take off again, not slowing down until I spot an old-fashioned door that must lead outside. But where it may have been clamped tight before, the lock now hangs loose from its hinge. Saxon. Only Saxon would have anticipated this escape and destroyed any obstacle standing in my way. Without hesitation, I fling open the door and am immediately purged from the darkness.
Stars twinkle like diamonds in the sky, and the full moon hangs heavy within the clouds, illuminating the wooden drawbridge extending over the darkened moat. It’s a sight out of a fairy tale, beautiful and hair-raising, all at once.
On shaky legs, I run across, only to hear thundering footsteps behind me. Shite! Hilt in hand, I spin around, expecting Guy or the Mad Priest or another faceless spy assigned to take me out.
But it’s Saxon who bears down on me.
The drawbridge trembles under the weight of his powerful frame; the moon above casts shadow over his hard features; and then his muscular arm loops around my waist as he hauls me into his embrace like some ancient warlord claiming his prize.
He carries me like a bride.
Like I’m his bride.
“I told you to run,” he grunts.
“I was running.”
“Not fast enough.” He cuts through a small courtyard, enclosed by what looks like trimmed bushes, with me locked against his chest. He grips me so possessively that I barely bounce in his hold. “We have forty-five seconds.”
“Until what?”
“Until Damien realizes I’ve blown the cameras to smithereens and they’ll start blocking the road.” When we clear an opening, I spy a car nestled within the trees, some five meters away. “You’ll need to drive out,” he says, “but I’ve already programmed the GPS to take you to where Josie and Peter are in Oxford.”
Four meters.
Desperation controls my tongue when I beg, “Come with me.”
Three meters.
“Don’t stop driving,” he replies instead, his breathing unlabored, despite the run, despite the fact that he’s carrying me as if I weigh nothing at all, “no matter what you think you see.”
Two meters.
“Saxon—”
“You’re free, sweetheart.” Stopping in front of the car, he lowers me to the ground. Snaps open the driver’s side door and promptly nudges me inside. I’m so weak that I all but collapse in the seat, my energy zapped from that initial sprint. “Free of this life and free of Father Bootham. You don’t have to worry.”
Free of Father Bootham? But the man is already dead. Not by my hand, of course, but still dead.
“What did you do?” Dread pervades the rush of adrenaline when I clutch Saxon’s thigh. “Saxon, answer me. Please.”
He ducks down, swiftly bending at the knees, so that we’re at eye level. “I chose,” he rasps, pressing a soft, devastating kiss to my mouth, “and I chose you.”
Framing his face with my hands, I stop him from retreating. “But what did you do?”
His unholy gaze flickers between mine, once, twice, before he clasps my hands. Mine are sweaty, his cool to the touch. But I feel them trembling, as though he’s seconds away from coming undone. Then he physically pulls back.
His absence hits me like I’ve been dunked in a frozen lake.
“You need to leave.”