Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,11

reason alone that I’m willing to bide my time, to play the game most likely to satisfy my end goal. And that game is entertaining the prime minister’s daughter, no matter the fact that I’d enjoy nothing more than to finish what the fire started and drop her dead body on Edward Carrigan’s front steps.

Sweet, fucking temptation.

I tilt my head to the side, faking curiosity. “What currency?”

“The space between a woman’s legs.”

Lip curling, I drag my gaze down over her ruined body. “Is that so?”

“It is.” That stubborn chin of hers goes up a notch. “And I learned a long time ago how to become very wealthy while opening my legs to no one.”

“Is that a warning?”

“It’s a reminder,” she replies, a razored edge to her voice, “that I know your games because I’ve bested them before. So, whatever you think that you’re planning with this interrogation, I suggest going back to the drawing board. I’m not easily swayed.”

If she expects applause for that little performance, she’s come to the wrong audience.

I don’t clap my hands and I don’t offer praise.

Instead, I move—my fingers to her shoulder, still bare from the post-op with Matthews, and my other hand to the tweezers left abandoned on the rolling station set up next to the exam table.

The rise and fall of her shoulders freeze. “What are you doing?”

“Following the good doctor’s orders,” I return softly, lethally, “and removing the rest of the glass from your back.”

“No—”

The glittering shard disappears between the tweezers’ twin metal teeth, and I pull it free from her bruised flesh.

A sob bursts from her lips.

I lower my head, my mouth finding her ear, and utter a warning that’ll stay with her long after I’ve left this room: “This snake leaves his mark, Miss Carrigan, and trust me when I say—my bite is always fatal.”

5

Damien

“Clarke fucked her.”

It’s the only thing out of my mouth when Guy finally strides into the library at half past six, his face covered in soot, one sleeve burnt to shit and hanging from his elbow.

I expected shock. I expected his infamous temper to splinter the hard-fought control he wears like a second skin. I expected too fucking much, apparently, because Guy stops only long enough to tear the frayed material from his arm and throw it on the floor. Without sparing me a glance, he unholsters the gun from his waistband and sets it down on the closest side table, a seventeenth-century piece with ruby-encrusted edges that looks delicate enough to snap in half.

My eyes narrow on his lean frame. “You’re not surprised.”

“No,” he answers, easing his weight forward as he plants his hands on the table, “I’m not.”

Age-old frustration eases into my blood, a low, simmering fury that’s stayed with me longer than any dream, any woman, any tangible scrap of hope. I unwind from the armchair and come to my feet. “You knew.”

The admission is there, written all over the harsh grooves of his face and embedded in the rigid set to his shoulders. He knew Clarke and the queen were together, and he never uttered a bloody word. Not to me, not to Saxon either. If he had, I’d know.

“How long.”

Fisting a hand on the table, he blows out a heavy breath. “Damien, it’s not—”

“How. Long.”

A muscle flickers in his jaw. “I put Clarke with her for a reason. Is that what you want to hear?”

“You assigned him to her over a year ago.” Disbelief creeps in on the heels of frustration. When my brother resolutely keeps his silence, I . . . “Fucking hell.”

Swinging his head in my direction, Guy pins me with a glare meant to intimidate. Twenty years ago, that pointed stare might have been enough to shut me up. Hell, it probably would’ve been enough to have me retreating to the computer he stole from a Parisian university. Numbers were my safety zone, code my haven. And with almost seven years separating us, Guy became more of a father figure to me than Henry Godwin ever was.

Guy gave an order, and I did it to perfection.

He barked at me to get in line, and I crept back with my tail limp and dragging behind me.

But I won’t bend to his will, not on this.

Like every other member of the royal family to come before her, Queen Margaret is off-limits. Forbidden. Instead of thinking with his prick, Clarke should have considered the ramifications for all of us if things went south and the queen kicked him to the curb.