Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,182
dead stop at the figure stumbling down the hallway. His hair is matted to his forehead and his trousers have been torn at the thigh and knee. His lips move, as if he’s determined to pass us a message, but then his concentration diverts to the hand seeking support from the cream-colored wall.
Big shoulders tremble.
Another halted step in our direction.
Those strong legs go visibly weak, and he reaches out a hand to claim support again—only to find that none awaits him this time.
Gravity pulls him down and his knees hit the ground.
“Christ,” whispers Saxon.
Rowena releases a short gasp. Skirting around my brother, she rushes forward to the man who shoved me from the Palace’s roof just weeks ago. Her knees collapse onto the space beside him, her hands already moving to keep his body upright. But when she presses a palm to his chest, her skin comes away with a print of blood. Slowly, with her hand raised, she turns back to look at me with horror glittering in her violet eyes. My name is a shuddered exhale off her lips.
Heart racing, I storm forward.
“Where is she?” Grasping him by the bloodied fabric of his shirt, I pull him back onto his knees. When he doesn’t answer, I demand again, “Gregory, where is she?”
Blood beads from the corner of his mouth.
All the color leeches from his skin as the wristwatch I lent him slips from his grip to clatter onto the floor. His weight teeters backward and his hands go to his right side, fingers scraping at the fabric. It inches upward. My eyes snap down—and my stomach twists and grows heavy at the ravaged skin. A knife. He was meant to be watching Margaret, and Gregory—a bastard taller than even me—proved that he is not indestructible.
A single word leaves my tongue: “Who?”
And then, to the backdrop of Carrigan’s low, maniacal laughter, Gregory raises his gaze to mine and confesses on a hoarse whisper:
“’e took her, Priest. Your bastard brother kidnapped the queen.”
Thank you so much for reading!
A New King (Broken Crown, Book 3) is coming Spring 2021. Click here to get the release alert for Guy & Margaret’s story.
Want to see more of the Broken Crown world? Leave me a review and tell me!
What To Read Next
Did you love the Broken Crown world? Do you want more murder and mayhem and steaminess? Then you don’t want to miss my Blood Duet, which features an anti-hero (who is the hot cop of our dreams) and the unabashed heroine who will bring him to his knees.
Swipe right to read an exclusive excerpt!
Sworn Teaser
Lincoln
“Tell me your name.”
At my abrupt switch in topic, her eyes narrowed and her teeth sank into her bottom lip with a sharp indrawn breath. “Why do you want to know it?”
Because I . . . well, fuck, what could I say? That from the moment I’d walked up to her, I’d felt some sort of unexplainable pull, like we were tethered to the same string . . . just at opposite ends? That beyond the random need I had to strip her of her clothes and see her eyes darken with lust, I recognized a little of myself in her?
I’d made a life out of lying and thieving.
I’d dug myself out of hell only to realize that I’d never be able to shake off the embers.
That the darkness which ran through my blood, as cliché as the saying goes, never calmed or fled, but for a reason I couldn’t pinpoint, I felt as though this girl could take it. She could handle my shadows, if not the pure darkness.
Never had I craved someone more.
“It’s Avery.” My gaze jerked up to her face, and she tilted her chin up defiantly, daring me to question her. “My name is Avery Washington.”
I rolled her name over my tongue silently; imagined whispering it against her neck as I plunged into her body; recited it two more times with the fantasy of her on her knees, her lips closing around my cock.
She was a shit liar.
To anyone else, her defiantly raised chin and the challenge in her eyes would have left them feeling as though she’d uttered the truth. But I read liars for a living—hell, I was a liar, and I recognized the twitches in her façade for what they were.
I settled back, observing the way she pressed her feminine fingers to the base of her neck and swallowed. “You from N’Orleans?” I asked, wondering if she’d lie about that too.