Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,10
do permanent damage, you’ll have to try harder than that.” A dark, victorious smile curves my mouth when she audibly swallows. “I don’t bruise easily.”
Her nails carve unapologetic half-moons into my flesh. “I don’t know what sort of . . . organization Holyrood is, but if Margaret catches wind of you claiming that the prime minister wants—”
“What makes you think that she doesn’t already know?” Not giving Rowena the opportunity to retreat, I pin her fingers to the table. A shocked gasp breaks from her cracked lips, and then I lean forward and close the gap between us until my breath ghosts over her mouth. “For being the queen’s best friend,” I murmur, purposely baiting her, “it seems you know nothing at all.”
“Don’t you dare throw my words back in my face.”
“Or what? You’ll strike me down? Call for backup?” My gaze tracks the thick bandages wrapped around her from breastbone to hip. Between a strained rib and the second-degree burns littered across almost every trace of exposed flesh on her upper body, Rowena Carrigan is the very manifestation of misery—and I don’t feel an ounce of pity. “No one is coming to help you, and you’ve nowhere to run.”
“I’m not going to run like a . . . like a coward.”
“Probably wise,” I drawl, “because you wouldn’t get very far.”
A feminine growl reverberates in her throat.
Too bad she can’t see that I’m not even remotely close to shaking in my boots.
It’s painfully obvious that Rowena is alone—physically, emotionally. She may claim to be the queen’s best mate, and hell, she may have saved the queen’s life tonight, but their “friendship” is clearly a one-way street.
Queen Margaret had multiple opportunities to add Rowena to the list that I had her write up, not even a month ago. “Tell me every person who might need access to you,” I’d told her, “and think hard on it.”
Via Clarke, the queen sent over sixteen names, not a single one of them belonging to the woman seated before me. The same woman whose own father so desperately wanted the king dead that he was willing to enlist a Priest to get the job done.
Fact is, the queen kept this friendship a secret for a reason. If she were her father—ruthless, cunning, albeit a bloody tyrant—I’d say that Queen Margaret concocted a plan to take out her opponent’s daughter without ever lifting a finger to do the dirty work herself.
But while she may soon be wishing that she were dead, Rowena Carrigan is still wholly alive. Shattered, maybe. Broken, absolutely. And definitely breathing fire when she snaps, “I may not be able to see you, Godwin, but I know exactly what kind of man you are.”
“Enlighten me.” Beneath my palm, her hand flexes, her fingernails turning into claws once again. “What kind of man is that?”
She barely takes a breath before she strikes: “A snake.”
The Mad Priest is a snake.
Damien Priest is a snake.
I’m . . . I’m—
Flattening her hand against the table and dragging her close, familiar fury clamping tight around my lungs. “Pretty words for a woman who won’t admit that her father would gladly slit her queen’s throat.”
“A snake,” she reiterates swiftly, spitting out the words like she hopes they’ll draw blood, “who doesn’t like to be left in the dark.”
“It’s my job to know a person’s move before they even think to make it.”
“And did you know that Clarke planned to fuck Margaret before he ever dropped his trousers?”
The word fuck coming from that mouth of hers should be illegal.
The Rowena Carrigan I remember from researching her father, back before he was elected Prime Minister, was a woman prone to obnoxious giggling and endless bouts of stroking a man’s ego. This Rowena, however, seems more likely to tear off a man’s cock with her teeth—then smile, those same teeth bloodied from her spoils.
She’s a goddamn she-wolf.
“It’s currency, you know,” she says, pulling again on her hand.
Like before, I don’t relinquish my grip.
And, like before, I don’t rise to her obvious taunt. Maybe she was right to call me a snake. I bait people to my side, then take them out before they can even consider escape. The weapons I’ve designed, the technology I’ve created, the lives I’ve ended with absolutely no remorse—all done in the name of Holyrood and the queen and the king who came before her, despite the fact that John tore my family apart.
But Guthram and Carrigan . . . I want them dead for me.