by Maria Luis
“I can pardon you.”
Catching her crown to ensure that it doesn’t fall from her head, she sends a hasty look toward the pandemonium. Anti-loyalists chant for usurpation; loyalists demand capital punishment. Hauled against me, the woman who claims to be my half-sister wears an expression of steely determination. “Dad changed the laws after the Riots,” she says. “He may not have claimed you, but you have royal blood, Damien, which means that I can pardon—”
“Pardon me?” I shake my head, breathing heavily. “They want me dead.”
“Authorities can’t oppose, not if you’re in line for the throne.” She winces as something new hits my back, and I don’t have it in me to turn around and see what it is. “Carrigan won’t ever let you go free and we can’t risk . . . Dammit, Damien, we can’t risk a new PM hating you too. This is the way—the only way—you have to believe me.”
“No, you’ve fucking damned me to—”
On my periphery, I spot Rowena springing free from Saxon’s arms. Her face is ashen, her body twisting sideways to slide between two MPs gunning straight for me. Only, they turn for her instead, and I watch it all unfold with horror crashing through my system.
The pistol.
The wild glint of betrayal in their eyes.
“Rowena, get down!”
Violet spears my chest, the fear in her gaze sending my pulse into a mad race. As humans, we promise to do better, be better, until those we love most are threatened. Then we become the wild beasts of mankind’s worst nightmares.
The sound of my handgun discharging echoes with a resounding crack!
A scream follows and I feel its vibration in my bones.
Never stopping, I take down the second man. Pain pulses in my wounded thigh. I feel the heat, the silent demand of my body to sit and rest. Instead, I destroy the distance separating me from Rowena in seven quick strides. Sliding my free hand to the back of her neck, I press my mouth to her perspiring temple. “I’m here, love.”
When I plant my body in front of hers, I feel her fingers sink into the back of my armored vest as we take in the sight before us. The Commons Chamber has devolved into Hell. Fists fly and blood spatters the Commons’ green benches. There are no divides based on gender or age or wealth but solely on matters of the Crown.
Loyalists.
Anti-loyalists.
Madness.
“We have to go,” I tell Rowena and Saxon, whose eye I struggle to meet after the queen’s announcement. The bastard prince, she called me. Dread punctures my lungs. “We’ll grab the queen and then get out of—”
“My father,” Rowena gasps, pushing past my right arm to look at the front bench. “He was right there. Literally, right there.” Her gaze turns to me, wide and frantic. “Damien, if he goes free, after what I told everyone today, he’ll—”
Kill me.
She doesn’t need to say the words.
Locking a hand around Gregory’s arm, as he passes, I point to the queen. “Get her, do you hear me? You get her and take her out of here, and then you watch over her like it’s the last thing you’ll ever fucking do.”
Without a spoken word, he turns on his heel and heads straight for where she stands by the Speaker’s chair. Her crown is clutched in one hand, the Robe of State spun like a velvet noose around her legs. Good intentions or not, she began a war that we’d all hoped to see end today. And as Saxon and I follow Rowena out of the chamber, I throw one last glance at her over my shoulder.
Her blue eyes are locked on my face.
If what she says is true, I should feel kinship. Trust. But all I taste is a blinding fury that she revealed a secret that should have gone no farther than the two of us—and she did so before all of Parliament in a move that now makes me the most hated man alive.
The Mad Priest.
The bastard prince.
Soft hands grasp my wrists, and a husky voice pulls me away from the edge of the proverbial cliff: “Breathe, Damien. Please breathe for me.”
Clarity hits as I realize, slowly, that I’ve thrown my back against the wall closest to the Commons Chamber. I’m breathing too hard, too loud. I’m . . . Oh, fuck, I’m panicking. “Rowena—”
She settles gentle hands over my heart.
As if she holds all the answers to my past, I meet her gaze and rasp, “I’m Henry Godwin’s son.” No mercy, no mercy, no mercy. It’s an omen, a goddamned curse. Needing her warmth, I clutch Rowena’s hands in mine. “I was born to take an oath to the Crown and I’m the fifth generation of Holyrood. I’m not . . . Fucking hell, I’m not the son of—”
John.
I can’t say his name, not out loud, and Saxon saves me by jerking his head, still in the black helmet, toward the hallway. “We wait any longer and we’re going to be ripe for the picking, brother.” He says the word with purpose, conviction. “Move before I make you.”
It’s only when we’re following Rowena down the hall, toward her father’s office, that my brother adds, “She could be lying.”
“Margaret never lies.” Rowena’s mouth settles into a straight line. “It’s her superpower. All the world could be crumbling down at her feet and she’ll have not even the smallest false hope for a single soul.”
I kill things, Priest.
Words that the queen gave me while surrounded by unpotted flowers.
Did she know about me then? Has she always known that I’m her half-brother? My gaze tracks the corridor for threats but the biggest danger of all seems to reside in my past with two dead parents who took the truth about my birth with them to the grave.
My heart pounds a quick, furious tattoo, and I stifle a rough grunt when I step on my leg at a bad angle.
Registering my broken stride, Rowena immediately slides her hand against mine. Calloused versus soft, large swallowing small. She squeezes, once, and whispers, “I have you, Damien. No matters what happens next, I have you.”
Her iron spine.
The courage in her bones.
Dragging her hand to my mouth, for a kiss to her palm, I growl, “I love—”
We spot Edward Carrigan at the same time.
With his head tucked down to his chest, he’s hauling ass down the hallway. His right arm is heavy with a stack of papers that he tries to shuffle into an oversized leather bag—a sheaf slips away to drift lazily to the floor. Muttering a curse that echoes down the corridor, Carrigan twists turns back around.
“You seem to be in a hurry, Father.”
At Rowena’s voice, the prime minister’s entire body goes perfectly still.
Stepping out from beside me, Rowena strolls down the hallway, hips swaying, her back ramrod straight. When she nears Carrigan, she makes a point to plant her foot down on the sheet of paper. “What? Nothing to say?” A serene, too pleasant smile spreads across her face. “And here I was thinking that you’d enjoy some time to reminisce with your daughter.”
As though someone has taken a foot to his spine, Carrigan jerks upright. “There’s already been enough reminiscing for one day.”
He makes a move to sidestep her.
She follows with a quick shuffle to the right.
“How about you look at me, Father?” Though her voice is laced with steel, I sense the rage quivering beneath her skin when I stop behind her, Saxon on my right. “It’s been at least ten years since you’ve actually acknowledged my existence.”
“Rowan, I’m not in the mood.”
“You never have been.” Squaring off her shoulders, she intercepts his second attempt to escape their conversation. “Let me give you the quick rundown, shall I? Three weeks ago, I survived the fire at Buckingham Palace. There were complications. Then, a little over a week ago, I survived a madman trying to kill me at a psychiatric hospital. Ask me what both events had in common.”
“After your little demonstration back there, I don’t have the time—”
“You.” Her arm slashes in a diagonal line to block Carrigan’s access to the corridor. “You are the comm
on link, Father.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course, you don’t.” With her hands fisted down at her sides, she stands her ground. “Because there isn’t a single thing that’s off-limits to you when it comes to gaining more power. You are . . . you are—”
“Haven’t I done enough for you?” Exasperation pulls Carrigan’s eyes up to the ceiling for half a breath before he jabs a finger at his daughter. “You may not see me, Rowan, but every decision that I’ve made impacts you directly.”
“I doubt that.”
“I’ve let you keep Holly Village for all these years. I’ve left you alone even when you’d be more than welcomed back into the fold at Westminster. And when I saw you at the Jewel Tower, three months ago, I helped get rid of that low-brow professor hanging around you.”
Rowena reels backward. “Ian? But he wasn’t even there for the meeting. He met me—”
“It was pathetic,” the prime minister grinds out, “how he followed you all around London like a lost little puppy. As if any daughter of mine would waste their breath on the likes of him.” Nostrils flaring, Carrigan tightens his jaw. “You should be grateful that I stepped in. Not that he took the money that I offered him but after that, at least, he understood his boundaries when it came to his interactions with you.”
The email.
The fifty-thousand pounds Carrigan promised Ian Coney if he would stay away from Rowena.
Jesus.
“Now,” he says, his voice mocking, “if that’s all you need from me, I’ll be—”
“I want you to care!”
Hot air lodges in my throat at the desperation that I hear in those fragile words. I want to pull her close and dip my mouth down to hers in comfort. I want to shove Carrigan up against a wall and plow my fist into his face. One glance at Saxon reveals that even my stoic brother is struggling to remain impartial.
But Rowena is no damsel in distress. So I force myself to stand sentry, even though I’d love nothing more than to end Carrigan, and I remind myself that she’s waited years to unburden her soul. My turn will come, and when it does, there won’t be much of Edward Carrigan left to scrape together.
“You’ve left me to drown my entire life,” she says, breathing hard. “And when I was no longer of value—when I chose to leave this world of ruin that you’ve created—you turned your back on me like I was nothing.”
“It’s politics, Rowan.” He shakes his head with a dismissive grunt. “Sometimes bad deeds are the foundational blocks to all things good. And while I’d love to stand here and discuss the philosophies of moral decency with you, I’m reached my daily quota for—”
“Love is sacrifice.”
“What?”
“Love is sacrifice,” she repeats, lifting her chin with queenly defiance, “and you, Father, are the one to be sacrificed this time around.” She sends me and Saxon a hard glance. “Take him.”
We move in tandem.
The muzzle of Saxon’s rifle is shoved against the prime minister’s back. In the same breath, I reach for my wire coil and quickly tie Carrigan’s wrists together. Loose sheafs of paper float to the floor like confetti caught in a cross-breeze and his leather bag hits the ground with a heavy thud.
“Rowan,” he barks, thrashing wildly against me and Saxon. “You’ll release me right now—do you hear me? You’ll release me—”
“The same as you released me from my room twenty years ago?” She snatches up the bag and pulls the strap over one shoulder. “Or maybe you mean the way your old mate Silas Hanover released me after you failed to rescue him from Broadmoor Hospital?”
“Hanover?” For the first time, the prime minister’s voice carries a trace of unease. His gaze darts to me—and doesn’t waver. “Is this a joke?” he demands. “Your way of striking back at me after what I did to you?”
I make a point to shove my face close to his when I growl, “You’ve played a fancy game of trickery all these months. Sending your men after me at The Bell & Hand, poisoning me, and then burning down the place down just the other week. But—”
“I didn’t burn down the pub.”
Saxon releases a low chuckle. “You’re a liar, Carrigan.”
“I’m the liar? Your family is nothing but—”
“What deal did you offer Silas Hanover to get him out of Broadmoor?” Rowena asks, her eyes narrowing on her father. “Because we all know that you promised him something.”
“I don’t enjoy being played the fool, daughter.”
I grit my teeth. “You may have been able to get away with what you’ve done to me, but the same can’t said for the hundreds of anti-loyalists that were held at Broadmoor Hospital. So, let me ask you this one more time—what were the terms for Hanover’s release?”
“And what will you do for me in return?”
Saxon releases a tight growl. “Don’t think that I won’t pull the trigger.”
“If you care at all about your life,” Rowena bites off, “then tell us what we want to know.”
“He agreed to do whatever I wanted for just the death of one man. I could have made it happen sometime in the last ten years, but Hanover proved more resourceful in Broadmoor than he ever would have outside its walls.” The prime minister’s laugh is low and rough. “Who could blame me for letting him rot away in there?”
It’s an unexpected confession.
Even more unexpected is when he murmurs, “Take off the helmet.”
“Why?” Saxon growls.
“Because, Mr. Priest, I prefer to look a man in the eye when I tell him a secret.”
I shouldn’t be surprised that Carrigan recognized Saxon. The man couldn’t have climbed to the post of prime minister without a keen eye. With my jaw clenched, I gesture for Saxon to get on with it.
And he does.
The helmet comes off and Saxon’s scarred mouth curves in a sneer. And then Carrigan gives us a slow, uneven smile. “And so here we are in the end, aren’t we? The Priest who killed John. And the Priest who John apparently fathered.” His smile turns lethal. “And, of course, we’re missing one, aren’t we? The third to our trio, and the particular Priest that I promised to an old—”
Footsteps come from behind us.
I turn, rifle raised, and come to a dead stop at the figure stumbling down the hallway. His hair is matted to his forehead and his trousers have been torn at the thigh and knee. His lips move, as if he’s determined to pass us a message, but then his concentration diverts to the hand seeking support from the cream-colored wall.
Big shoulders tremble.
Another halted step in our direction.
Those strong legs go visibly weak, and he reaches out a hand to claim support again—only to find that none awaits him this time.
Gravity pulls him down and his knees hit the ground.
“Christ,” whispers Saxon.
Rowena releases a short gasp. Skirting around my brother, she rushes forward to the man who shoved me from the Palace’s roof just weeks ago. Her knees collapse onto the space beside him, her hands already moving to keep his body upright. But when she presses a palm to his chest, her skin comes away with a print of blood. Slowly, with her hand raised, she turns back to look at me with horror glittering in her violet eyes. My name is a shuddered exhale off her lips.
Heart racing, I storm forward.
“Where is she?” Grasping him by the bloodied fabric of his shirt, I pull him back onto his knees. When he doesn’t answer, I demand again, “Gregory, where is she?”
Blood beads from the corner of his mouth.
All the color leeches from his skin as the wristwatch I lent him slips from his grip to clatter onto the floor. His weight teeters backward and his hands go to his right side, fingers scraping at the fabric. It inches upward. My eyes snap down—and my stomach twists and grows heavy at the ravaged skin. A knife. He was meant to be watching Margaret, and Gregory—a bastard taller than even me—proved that he is not indestructib
le.
A single word leaves my tongue: “Who?”
And then, to the backdrop of Carrigan’s low, maniacal laughter, Gregory raises his gaze to mine and confesses on a hoarse whisper:
“’e took her, Priest. Your bastard brother kidnapped the queen.”
Thank you so much for reading!
A New King (Broken Crown, Book 3) is coming Spring 2021. Click here to get the release alert for Guy & Margaret’s story.
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What To Read Next
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Sworn Teaser
Lincoln
“Tell me your name.”
At my abrupt switch in topic, her eyes narrowed and her teeth sank into her bottom lip with a sharp indrawn breath. “Why do you want to know it?”
Because I . . . well, fuck, what could I say? That from the moment I’d walked up to her, I’d felt some sort of unexplainable pull, like we were tethered to the same string . . . just at opposite ends? That beyond the random need I had to strip her of her clothes and see her eyes darken with lust, I recognized a little of myself in her?
I’d made a life out of lying and thieving.
I’d dug myself out of hell only to realize that I’d never be able to shake off the embers.
That the darkness which ran through my blood, as cliché as the saying goes, never calmed or fled, but for a reason I couldn’t pinpoint, I felt as though this girl could take it. She could handle my shadows, if not the pure darkness.
Never had I craved someone more.
“It’s Avery.” My gaze jerked up to her face, and she tilted her chin up defiantly, daring me to question her. “My name is Avery Washington.”
