Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,38

I feel unmoored.

Unchained.

Forcefully, I step back and plant a hand on Guy’s shoulder, so that he has no choice but to follow me.

“We’ll have Hamish bring you home,” I tell her, needing to . . . Jesus, I need away. Out of this room. Off this bloody estate. As far as I can go because I can still feel her throat under my palm and her thumb dancing across my lips and the hitched pressure seated on my chest that’s yet to ease.

I want to throw her on the closest flat surface and fuck her raw.

Her, the liar.

Her, the enemy’s daughter.

Her, the woman who sees nothing and too much of everything, all at once.

Before I can escape the room, though, her voice stops me in my tracks:

“What color eyes do you have?”

I glance over my shoulder, rejecting the relentless tug in my gut that urges me forward to where she waits, outlined by the alcove of the Garden of Eden.

I should lie and tell her that they’re an unearthly green like Saxon’s or as black as the devil’s—as black as my soul, even. But the truth slips out on a rasp that I wish I could snatch back: “Blue, like the water in Cornwall.” The same color that I share with Guy, and with my mum. For whatever that’s worth. I fall back another step. “Goodbye, Rowena.”

Her head tips to the side. Then, low and soft, she replies, “Goodbye for now, Damien.”

13

Rowena

I’ve barely closed the door to my flat when a voice from within remarks, “So you’re alive.”

Four nights.

It’s been nearly ninety-six hours of fear and hate and heat, and I—

I slam my eyes shut, despising the way my fingers instinctively creep up to my throat. He held me, he threatened me, and I have no idea what it says about me that all I felt was relief in that moment. Freedom. A dark desperation that curled in my veins and tasted unmistakably like desire.

Damien Priest may very well be the devil incarnate but with his hand locked around my neck, and his breath hot on my cheek, he felt like the savior I never knew I needed instead.

Fuck me.

Forcing my hand down by my side, I mutter, “Were you expecting to find me dead?”

“You went dark for days. Honestly, I began to think the worst.”

I’m pretty sure that our versions of “the worst” exist on two polar axes. “I was held up.”

“You’re never held up.”

“Well, there’s a first time for everything because, oh, that’s right”—I snap my fingers—“Buckingham Palace caught on fire.”

A tiny pause precedes a rather disgruntled, “Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Rowan.”

Nothing becomes me.

Biting back the hot retort, I turn around slowly. Move forward, expecting to hit a stray piece of furniture, but I’ve had this flat for so long that the darkness doesn’t eviscerate muscle memory. Thank God. Four steps take me to the closest sofa, and, without any show of grace, I drop to the cushions in a heap of exhaustion.

“I told you this would happen—didn’t I?”

Ignoring the snide comment, I let my head fall back. Then drag in a heavy breath that doesn’t do me any bit of good in relieving the coiled tension from my body. “You failed to mention the fire.”

“Well, I didn’t know there would be a fire.”

“Isn’t that why I pay you?” I ask, my face still turned up to the ceiling. “To find out everything that I need to know, so—oh, I don’t know—maybe I won’t end up blind?”

A strangled noise erupts, followed by the quick pounding of a fist on a hard chest. “Sorry, I could have sworn that you said . . . Did you just say—”

“Turn the light on.”

“Rowan, I think that—”

“I know that you get a kick out of waiting for me in the dark.”

“It’s less of a kick, really, and more that it’s bleeding hard to catch you off guard.”

“The light. Turn it on.”

The sofa’s springs whine with the release of weight, and then heavy feet pad across the herringbone wood floor. Tonight will be the last time I use this flat, and I can’t help but feel a tug of regret about being forced to give it up. It’s not the least bit posh but it’s mine. Mine when I fled Father’s home ten years ago, and mine in all these years since—a safe haven, and then, later, a place of secrecy to gather round when we needed a change of scenery.

My heart beats in time with the antique clock on the fireplace mantle.