The tears pour freely down my cheeks as his breaths stutter in his chest. “I love you too.”
I hold him, watching his chest rise and fall. Watching his chest still. Watching as everything I’ve ever known for my whole life is ripped away from me.
A hand grips my shoulder, pulling me to my feet, forcing me to drop my father’s body long before I’m ready to.
“You need to get out of here,” MacVeigh whispers fiercely.
I turn on him, fury flooding every one of my veins. Deep down,I know there is no one but myself to blame, but in this moment, all I can think about is this man killing my father. I pull my arm back, the one holding my knife, ready to plunge it into his heart just as he did to my father, and to my future.
My hand falters when a pair of pleading honey eyes flash in my mind.
Cate, and her final plea to me.
I drop my hand after a few seconds, my chest heaving. “I will kill you for what you’ve done.” This isn’t the time, or the place—I manage to convince myself the decision to spare him is mine and mine alone—but the promise is made, and I intend to follow through. Cate will have to understand.
She played her own role in the events of this evening, and she will have to understand that whatever Harold MacVeigh is to her, I cannot let the future of this country rest in his hands.
MacVeigh looks at me with something like sadness in his eyes. “I hope you do. But Lady M will be back soon, and if you are here when she arrives, she will kill you too. Go now, while you still have the chance.”
I don’t wait. I’m outnumbered and neither my brain nor my body is prepared for another fight. I head toward the balcony doors, knowing it’s the quickest way of escape. I’m sure there are others still out there who plan on being the one to take my father’s life. Little do they know, they’re already too late.
“Callum,” MacVeigh calls softly just as I’m about to slip through to the outside.
I pause, not understanding why I care to give this murderer one more second of my time.
“Take care of her. Of Cate. Protect your Bond.”
I don’t acknowledge his request.
I climb over the balcony railings, my body aching, but somehowmanaging to push through. I dash my way to the stables, taking the reins of the first horse I find and riding away. Leaving my only home, and my only remaining parent behind.
—
I make itto the safe house quickly, without facing any trouble on the road. Scota is eerily quiet tonight, like the whole province knows of the violence brewing in its castle and wants to be as far away from it as possible when it arrives. The green hills of my home province give way to the dark and dank streets of Stratford’s lower quarter as I try to prepare myself for what comes next.
How will my people react when they hear the news that Harold MacVeigh is their candidate? Will they be happy to see my family hand over the reins to a nonroyal? Or will they be disappointed in me for abandoning them?
I’m not sure which option feels worse.
I slip my key into the lock of the dingy apartment along the river, knocking out a short and simple code on the door so Dom and Alex know not to attack me the minute I cross the threshold. I don’t think about how I must look, sweaty and exhausted, my father’s blood staining my shirt, bruises already beginning to bloom.
I’m still attacked as soon as the door opens, Dom flying across the room and into my arms.
“You did it,” she whispers into my ear, taking in the evidence on my clothing, her voice choked with tears. I’m not sure if it’s pride or devastation lacing her words. Probably both.
I set her on the ground and cross to the far side of the room so I don’t have to look at her, to see my own disappointment reflected back at me from the depths of her eyes. “Not quite.”
“Is he…you know?” My sister can’t even bring herself to say the words.
“Yes.” My hands clench into tight fists at my side.
“What happened, Cal?” Alex gives me space, staying near the tiny, filthy kitchen of the flat.
We found this space in an old tenement building during the bleakest months of the Uprising and have kept it ever since, an escape plan and our last resort. I suppose now is the time to be grateful we planned for the worst.
“Father is dead.” The words slice through me like MacVeigh’s knife sliced through his chest.
Dom approaches me, a tentative hand placed on my shoulder. “I know you feel the guilt now, Cal, but you have to remember that it’s what he wanted.”
