Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,31

the door.

It’s an unfamiliar model.

“You’ve been busy, Carrigan,” I mutter. Not that I’m surprised.

He knew I’d come. I don’t know how, and I don’t know who could have warned him—especially since Rowena is currently locked away in the Palace—but it’s a feeling deep in my gut that just won’t quit. One look at the scanner and it’s easy to deduce that he built it with me in mind: the back paneling is so deeply lodged into the ancient stone that I can’t access the wiring.

I lower my chin to look at the guard.

Time for drastic measures.

Hooking my hands under his armpits, I haul him onto his feet and lean him against the Tower, careful to keep my hip against his thighs so that his unconscious body won’t topple over. I rip off his glove, yank up his hand, and press the pad of his forefinger to the scanner.

It doesn’t register.

Fuck.

Hastily, I pull up my coordinates again on my watch, then set off another round of gunfire within one of the enclaves of Westminster Abbey. My ears prick a second later when I hear the echoing charge of fake bullets firing, and then I’m back in the game.

I pat down the guard, searching for a badge, and come up with absolutely nothing. I shove all ten fingers on the scanner, one by one. When all that fails, I tear off his helmet, shove his face against the screen, and grunt, “Smile for the camera, mate.”

My thumb lifts his thin, fragile eyelid.

The scanner awakens with a soft beep-beep, a half-second before the door audibly unlocks.

Without preamble, I plant the heel of my boot against heavy oak and step inside, dropping the guard’s body just within the entrance and nabbing the helmet off the pavement before the arched door swings closed. I jam it on my head—it would be just like Carrigan to install cameras all over this place—and prowl up the spiral stairwell.

I haven’t stepped foot in the Jewel Tower in years, but its stone interior hasn’t changed. Carved into the curved ceiling are the grotesque faces of animal heads with their twisted grins, bared teeth, and taloned fingers. All of which would look more at home if they were sheathed in blood.

The helmet muffles the clip of my footsteps, but it doesn’t hide the double doors that come into view when I hit the landing of the second floor. They yield without trouble, as I figured they would—because if Edward Carrigan is hiding anything here, it’s in the turret room.

A room that’s blockaded by an iron door.

I move swiftly, noting 1621 embossed in the iron—marking the year King James I began using the Tower—and dart a glance at the vaulted ceiling . . . and at the security camera I knew would be waiting.

Predictable.

Yanking the grenade off my vest, I pull the fuse and toss it toward the corner of the room. It activates with a soft pop and, almost immediately, wisps of smoke become thick and impenetrable plumes that shield me from view as I crack the lock on the iron door and step inside.

All over the room, papers are piled atop desks and tables, even on the floor. Backed into one corner is a bronze bust of King James I himself—and I laugh. Low and dark and gritty, because only Edward Carrigan would convert this room to be exactly what it was under James I’s reign. A place to hold secret documents. A place fit for only a king.

Turning on the overhead light, I move from desk to desk, tearing through paperwork, searching for the one thing we’ll need to pin Carrigan’s ass to the wall. The thought of finally catching him . . . of forcing him to suffer the way he’s made me suffer . . .

Death shouldn’t make me smile.

It shouldn’t make me feel this alive.

But it does.

Fuck, it does, to the point that my pulse races like I’ve taken a hit of the most potent drug.

I was never innocent; life in Holyrood strips naivety early on, until it’s forever erased, never to be resurrected from the broken fragments at your feet. But I was hopeful, once. Dedicated to the cause and the Crown and my brothers. Determined to one day find happiness outside the death and the bloodshed and the never-ending battle of keeping the royal family alive.

And then it was gone.

A rasp of movement behind me; darkness shoved down over my head.

An unfamiliar hand pressing a taser to my spine, its voltage sharp and