Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,149

out of the way when the cold muzzle of a pistol is already pressed to the back of my head. Like prey found lurking in the woods, a jolt of awareness ripples down my spine.

Slowly, I lift my gaze to Saxon.

His handgun is raised, his expression set like stone. A façade that reveals absolutely nothing, not recognition, not even the smallest dose of fear. Meanwhile dread is a poison that crawls through my veins, swift and debilitating. A hard breath escapes me as I make brief eye contact with Isla.

This cannot be the end.

The heels of my palms grind against the armrests as I bow my head. “It’s a wonder you have any repeat customers,” I say to Keely, gritting my teeth against a surge of hate, “when you threaten them with death at every corner.”

Only, it’s not the MP who answers.

The pistol’s muzzle follows me forward, the air fairly crackling with tension, and then a figure drops down on my right side. I feel warmth on my neck, and inhale the scent of sandalwood and evergreen, but see nothing aside from the dark streaks of shadow that hug my peripheral.

“Tell them, Keely.”

Dark. Sinister. The voice of the devil himself.

The gravel-pitched baritone punches through the brightly lit room like a death knell, and I snap my gaze to Quentin. “Tell us what?”

That one finger returns to his collar to pull the fabric away from his neck. “Don’t shoot.”

Except that the shakily issued command isn’t directed at the man behind me but to Saxon, who growls, “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t blow his fucking brains out.”

“Because—”

“Louder, Keely.”

“Because,” the MP hastily repeats, raising his voice to acquiesce the order, “I don’t . . . I don’t—” His eyes squeeze shut, and he creeps backward, hands leaving the chair to pass over his thinning hair. “Fuck.”

The pistol moves.

Its muzzle rounds my skull and skims the shell of my ear; it teases my cheekbone and dances south to find the line of my jaw. Then it cuts under to the hollowed notch beneath my chin, and terror becomes a sparked flint within my soul as the hand gripping the gun forces me to turn my head.

Sooty lashes frame eyes so black, so bottomless, that there’s no telling where the pupil ends and the iris begins. I feel a chill like I’ve stepped into the North Sea in the coldest grips of winter, but his gaze is no match for the timbre of his voice, which rakes ice-taloned claws down the length of my spine:

“Everything that he is, everything that he’s ever been, belongs to me, Miss Carrigan—and if you’re not careful, so will you.”

46

Rowena

“We’re not here to cause trouble.”

Those dark eyes never leave my face. “Then tell your lapdog to put down the gun.”

Almost simultaneously, the pistol edges upward to put my head at an awkward angle. With his left arm looped around my body, I’m surrounded on all sides—a position not so unlike the one Damien took with me when he demonstrated how Ian died. But where I felt heat before, I taste only keen desperation now.

Every second that we waste is another where Damien might never wake up.

“Put it down.”

“Rowena—”

“Put it down,” I bark, the shape of the muzzle following my involuntary swallow. “Saxon, just . . . put it down.”

“And your mate,” adds the devil, his lips flat and humorless, “tell her to get rid of the blade.”

Isla.

Hysterical laughter itches to leap free because she . . . Bloody hell, Isla killed the king and she killed Ian, and here she is still, prepared to kill this man to protect me—her enemy, the woman who stands opposite her in all things but in our love for two very different brothers.

Throat dry, I manage, “Don’t—”

“Don’t what?” The now-warm muzzle notches upward, putting my eyes level with his. Cold. Detached. The gaze of a man who has hunted his way to the top, a trail of dead bodies left in his wake, and isn’t opposed to adding another to the already astronomical tally. “Speak clearly, Miss Carrigan, so we all can hear you.”

No.

I am not Young Rowena.

I am not the woman who will ever roll over and accept defeat.

It’s fury that has me gripping his thick wrist, my fingers finding his tucked away on the trigger. Baring my teeth, I hiss, “Keely may have served you his bollocks on a platter but I’ve none to give. I’m here for one thing only and I’ll gladly tear this house apart until