Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,131

enough to see it all through. It’s one risk after another and—”

“You don’t think I know that?” He drops his shirt onto the duffel a second before he turns for me, comes for me, and prowls across the room. “Don’t you think I know that one wrong move and it’ll all come crashing down?”

Unwilling to concede defeat, I stand my ground. “You know all that and yet you’re still willing to place your life into the hands of men who don’t care if you die.”

His nostrils flare. “Gregory and Samuel are your men.”

“They’re men that I pay!” Surging forward, I meet him halfway with a jab of my finger against his chest, directly in the eye of the raven. “I want to believe that their loyalty runs deeper than the money I’ve deposited in their accounts, but this is . . . Damien, this is—”

“This is what, Rowena?” When I don’t answer right away, he catches my finger and presses my hand flush against his naked skin so that I have no choice but to feel the rapid beat of his heart beneath my palm. “This. Is. What?”

Each syllable that falls from his lips is like a round from a rifle, deadly and accurately aimed. I feel lightheaded, exposed. “It’s insanity,” I breathe, lifting my gaze to his, “to think that if it comes down to a matter of who lives or who dies, they’ll choose to save you.”

As if the words have struck him, Damien’s hand inadvertently flinches around mine. Against my palm, the raven breathes, hard and fast, with every sharp inhalation that Damien draws into his lungs. When he finally speaks, his velvet timbre is mockingly cruel. “You seem to have the answer for everything, love. So, you tell me . . . I’m a wanted man without options—what do I do?”

Say it, Rowan. Just say it.

White noise floods my ears, drowning out the sound of my heart thudding frantically in my chest. “Choose me.”

The flame in his blue eyes burns with unholy fire. “No.”

His powerful frame spins away before I can press my case, and my words hit the rugged expanse of his back: “Whether you like it or not, Guthram is going to see my name on the register at Broadmoor. Today, tomorrow, the next day, it’s a matter of when not if. At least this way, we do it on our own terms.” When he says nothing, I fight the urge to grind my teeth. “Damien, I’m the logical—”

“I almost lost you!” he roars, wheeling back around to face me, inked shoulders heaving. His hands are clenched at his sides, those muscular, denim-clad legs spread and prepared for battle.

Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

Madness.

My feet stay rooted to the rug but my body sways like a delicate flower caught in a tempest. I fight for air and feel my hand press heavy against my heart. It beats wildly. It beats with ferocious need. It beats to the rhythm of this man who has stormed his way into my life and unleashed chaos on every broken fragment of my soul until I’m nothing but a mosaic of want, need, hope.

The hope propels me forward now, one foot in front of the other. “You weren’t supposed to care.”

“But I do. Fucking hell, Rowena, I do.” Those calloused hands descend upon my shoulders, intending to pull me close, but I duck under his arms to the melody of a harsh breath slipping past his lips. His blue eyes track me, stalk me, a god unwilling to let his sacrifice slip from sight. “I’ve only known the fear that I felt today once before,” he expels roughly, that hand at his side flexing like he recalls the moment even now, “and to know that I sent you in there—that I believed, for even a second, that Robert’s health had nosedived like Marcus said it had, and that we had a solid chance . . .” He gives a vicious shake of his head that sends his dark hair falling over his forehead. “It doesn’t really matter what I thought, does it? Because you’re not going to Tower Bridge.”

He twists away.

I bend at the knees, blinking away the dark streak that chases across my right peripheral, and swipe the knife poking out from his duffel bag. Five swift steps return me to his unsuspecting back, one deep inhale carries my arm up high, and then I touch the tip of the blade to the ragged scar that stretches across his right shoulder