Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,155

hope, all of it.

Gone.

Gone.

Gone.

49

Damien

A monitor beeps somewhere to my left and IV tubes cross neatly over my body—and I feel it all, the cool plastic against my forearms and the distinct pressure of a nasal cannula. Greedily, I lift my head to scan the length of my body that’s been tucked beneath a thin, white sheet.

I wriggle my toes.

And the sheet moves.

I press my fingers flat.

And the soft pad beneath me depresses.

Hysterical laughter scrapes my raw throat as I clench and unfurl my stiff fingers, a rhythmic gesture that drags my knuckles against the textured sheet that’s warm from my skin. Warm, as if I’m not . . . as if I wasn’t—

Shot.

Paralyzed.

Dead.

With a surge of panic, I throw off the sheet to fumble with the hospital gown, yanking at the fabric to see if the poison—

The door slams open and then an all too familiar voice barks, “Don’t you bloody move, Godwin.”

With my body laid out flat, and facing a blank wall, there’s no opportunity to turn around and watch Matthews approach. But I hear his even footsteps against the tile floor, followed swiftly by two other sets, the first tread heavier, the second almost deathly silent.

Guy and Saxon.

They’re here, in this room.

This is not a dream.

Behind my ribcage, my heartbeat is a heavy drum that echoes wildly in my ears. I remember nothing after the Bascule Chambers. Only that I fell, and Rowena tried to pull me to safety. My last memory is clamoring for the sound of her voice while everything around me faded to a cold, damning emptiness.

I’m here and you are not alone.

She gave me those words, she kept her promise, and now—

“We’ve been through this before, haven’t we, lad?”

My gaze snaps away from the ceiling to Matthews’s face. He looks the same as he always has—white hair cropped short; forehead creased as he stares down at me with clinical appraisal like I’m some medical experiment gone wrong—but it’s the stark relief in his dark eyes that breaks my composure.

I’m not dead.

Fucking hell, I’m not dead.

Emotion floods my veins and a tortured sound rises in my throat. This is a second chance. No, a goddamned third. Every day I feared would be my last. Every night, when all of Holyrood slept, I stalked the halls of the Palace, too terrified to close my eyes and accept defeat.

What if I never woke?

What if I died without ever having lived?

And now this.

I’m breathing when I should already be buried.

I’m staring at a man whose face I’ve always known, and it’s not pity staring back at me but an unholy sense of triumph that curls his mouth. Victory. When Guy and Saxon settle on my left, both leaning their respective weights on the bed, I meet their gazes, first green then blue, and choke back a hoarse noise.

Not a dream but reality.

I’m alive.

Scraping my tongue along the roof of my mouth, I ask, “How?”

Only, the word starts and stalls on my tongue.

“What’s wrong with him?” Saxon growls, turning his hard gaze on Matthews. “You gave him the antidote. Two bloody doses, at that. He should be—”

“Like I said, we’ve been through this before”—solemn dark eyes remain fixed on my face—“haven’t we, lad?”

Oh, I’ve been here before.

Voiceless. Powerless. Weak.

My body a traitor that obeyed me not at all, no matter how hard I tried to bend it to my will. Last time, it took nearly five days for mobility to return and a week for my vocal cords to produce any sound at all. My limbs are responsive this time, at least, but I’ll be lucky if I—

Antidote.

He said antidote.

With no care for the IVs still attached to the back of my hand, I lock my fingers tight around Saxon’s forearm and wait only long enough for his gaze to return to me. Antidote? I demand soundlessly.

His dark brows knit together. “We should probably hold off on all that until Matthews can clear you for—”

“She wouldn’t let you die.”

Dragging in a sharp breath, I look to my oldest brother.

His fists move from the bed to the metal railing, which he grips so hard that veins visibly throb in his forearms. Shoulders rounded, mouth flat, he meets my stare. “I saw what you did in the Bascule Chambers. You were reckless going after her,” he utters, his voice low, “and you had to know that you were damned from the start.”

No, I’ve been damned since birth.

Chained.

Collared.

Saxon once told me that if I had to ask why he gave up everything