Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,3

you that you won’t be going to Buckingham Palace to save the queen, who’s more than likely already dead, anyway, then you’ll fucking stay.”

Irritation festers beneath my skin.

Seven months.

Jude’s shoes clip against the ancient tiles.

One step.

Two.

“Don’t tell me that the cat’s got your tongue.” His mouth twists with anticipation, like there’s nothing he enjoys more than seeing a Priest—a Godwin—backed into the proverbial corner. “And here Paul thought we were going to have a big problem on our hands tonight. You know, considering that you’ve been kept here against your will and all.”

My feet remain rooted in place.

“But”—that sneer hardens—“I told him that the fight’s gone out of you, that we have nothing to worry—”

The words stutter into silence the second my gun kisses his forehead.

His eyes go wide.

Mine only narrow.

“Pulling the trigger,” I murmur coolly, “would be the highlight of my year.”

“You wouldn’t.”

I fit my finger over the polymer lever. “There’s really not much I wouldn’t do.”

“If you kill me, your brother—”

“Won’t give you a bloody thing. No other reason you’d be crawling up my ass unless he promised you something.” I stroke the trigger, a gentle, loving caress that turns Jude’s gaze cross-eyed. “So?” I prompt, voice low. “How much are we talking?”

His hands flex down by his sides as though there’s nothing he’d like more than to stab me in the gut. Not that he can when he’s clearly unarmed.

His mistake.

There’s no one here to stop me. He knows it as well as I do. Matthews is on the other side of the Palace, prepping the operating room, and Paul is no doubt squirreled away somewhere, still nursing his wounded shoulder from when I stabbed him three weeks ago.

“Cat got your tongue, Calvin?”

His dark eyes narrow into slits. “Don’t mock me.”

My finger never wavers, and the muzzle never retreats from his pale skin. If he were smart, he’d swing out a leg and kick me in the knees. Turn the tables around so that I’m the one begging for life. He won’t though. Jude Calvin should never have been allowed to take Holyrood’s oath, and I’d be doing us all a favor by ending his contract here and now.

“Damien . . .” Warily, Jude’s gaze darts from my face to the gun. “You can’t actually shoot me. You know that, don’t you? It’s against the—”

“Get the hell out of my sight,” I clip out, then turn away.

I anticipate the counterattack as soon as I hear the air sing.

Balancing on the balls of my feet, I evade his swinging fist with a sharp twist of the waist. My fingers snag the material of his shirt, and then he’s flying forward, stumbling over his feet, and crashing down onto his hands and knees. The sole of my heavy boot lands on the center of his spine, and—crack! his chin collides with the tiled floor.

“Jesus,” he groans, hands splayed out on either side of his head. “Get the fuck off me.”

Without remorse, I dig my heel into the bones of his back as I holster my gun.

“I’ll tell him.” Jude’s lungs wheeze with a harshly drawn inhale. “I’ll tell Guy that you’ve tried to kill me twice now. D’you hear me?”

Dark laughter reverberates in my chest. “You go ahead and do that.”

Lifting my foot, I wait for Jude to rise before ruthlessly driving him back down. No mercy. Wasn’t that what Mum whispered to me minutes before she died? You are a weapon, she’d said, and you will be shown no mercy when they come to destroy you. If the last number of months has proven anything, it’s that. I’ve been hunted by the Met—by its bastard police commissioner Marcus Guthram—and even here, in my own home, I’m hunted.

Chained.

Collared.

No fucking mercy.

Fisting the back of Jude’s hair, I snap his head up, so that he has no choice but to look at me. “Stop me from leaving one more time,” I mutter, jerking him closer with my foot propped on his spine to stretch his neck, “and you’ll be lucky if you ever piss again without a catheter.”

Fury bleeds from his gaze.

Too bad that I don’t give a damn.

I leave him sprawled on the floor.

Holyrood has bigger problems than Jude Calvin, starting with the fact that no one ought to have been able to breach Buckingham Palace’s security. Cameras positioned in every hallway. Fingerprint-activated sensors on every single doorknob leading into the queen’s apartments. If an unlicensed hand so much as brushed one, they’d receive the shock of a lifetime. The