Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,128

blood hits the stone, and he confesses nothing when his cries fill the undercroft, and he continues to confess nothing until thirty-two strokes of the knife leaves him unconscious and slumped over in the chair.

38

Damien

“We kill him.”

Sparing my brother a dark look, I close the bedroom door behind me. “We aren’t going to kill the man who’ll get us what we want.”

“And what the hell do we want, Damien?” Guy’s hard stare tracks me inside the room as he uses the hem of his shirt to wipe Guthram’s blood from the back of his hands. “Do we want our entire lives to end up on the telly? Is that what you want? Because after the stunt you and Rowena pulled today, we’re one step closer to making that happen.”

I grit my teeth. “Clearly, it didn’t go as planned.”

Agitation chases swiftly across his features and he opens his mouth like he wants to lay into me. At the last second, he turns on his heel and prowls deeper into the room instead. “Whatever’s happening at Broadmoor, we handle it on our own. One call to the lads in Southampton and it’ll be over within hours. Those people . . . they’ll go home to their families.”

“And us?”

He pauses at the window, shoving aside the curtains to peer down onto Swain’s Lane. “What about us?”

“More will go in,” I say, “and soon enough, we’ll be heading back for another rescue mission. Is that how you want this to play out?”

“We don’t know that’ll happen.”

“No, we don’t, because Guthram won’t bloody talk!” Rage crawls beneath my skin and, in a moment of weakness, I twist at the waist and slam my hand against the door. The wood rattles under my palm as my shoulders drive north to my ears. “He sat there,” I bite out, “like we were nothing to him. He sat there like Holyrood didn’t exist to him. And what he did to Rowena—” Cutting myself off with a harsh curse, I drop my gaze to the carpet before I reveal too much.

Like a snake choking the life from its victim, silence invades the room. It pulses and it thickens, until, finally, my brother breaks it with an indrawn breath that audibly rattles his chest. “Why did you go Broadmoor? The truth.”

I slam my eyes shut. “Guy . . . don’t.”

“You may want to save those people—I don’t doubt that—but it’s not why you went.”

With my temple against the door, I pinch the bridge of my nose and try to tame my racing pulse. “It doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

“Tell me, dammit.”

“I want to be free!” The confession explodes from my soul, shattering the silence and splintering my brother’s thin veneer of control when I turn on him. He physically steps back, his ass hitting the window, but still I let the words bleed out: “I want to walk down the street without having to look over my bloody shoulder every two seconds. I want to know that if someone is seen with me”—if Rowena is seen with me—“it’s not a death sentence.” Heat powers through my limbs, tightly wound and exponentially fragile. “I’m tired. I’m so tired, don’t you fucking see it?”

Guy’s gaze shutters.

His hand finds the windowsill.

And then, quietly, he destroys me: “You won’t ever be free, brother.”

I hear the words, see his familiar face, but he may as well have taken that knife of his to my own legs. They weaken beneath me and I throw out a hand to catch my balance.

I don’t make it.

The room spins as my spine collides with the door and I sink down to the floor. I inhale only darkness and exhale only light, and no matter how I try to snatch it back—to fill my chest and collect every rare memory of stepping into the warmth of sunshine—it disappears as if it never was.

“This life . . . your life . . .” Breathing hard, Guy slams his fist down on the sill. “Fuck, Damien. You won’t be free—don’t you understand that? I’m trying . . . Jesus, I’m trying to keep you alive!”

Chained.

Collared.

I feel the noose tightening now, cutting off my air supply, until my only options are to accept defeat or unleash destruction.

My fingers dig painfully into my thighs. “I can’t do this.”

“Damien—”

“Did you see her?”

Guy’s stare sharpens. “See who?”

“Rowena. Did you see her, really see her?”

Clearly trying to buy himself time before answering, he passes a hand over his mouth. “What does she have to do with