Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,51
face obscured. I hear the tread of footsteps, the grate of a calloused palm skating over something equally rough. Bristles, maybe. Trousers. Something that remains entirely elusive, no matter how I narrow my eyes and wish I could peel back the layers of darkness. More irony. My world is a shroud even as the bedroom light unveils all.
I have seconds.
Long enough to envision a future I’ll never live, never know. Short enough to feel a burst of regret that after thirty-three years, it’s all come down to an assassin whose face I’ll never see.
Anonymity has never been so overrated.
“Do it,” I hear myself bite off, cool, confident. A façade I’ll wear like a second skin until my very last breath. “You want me dead? Then go ahead. Shoot me.”
Unseen hands grip my wrists and a hard thigh wedges between my legs.
I arch my back and a whimper rises in my throat and before I can even think to struggle, lips graze my cheek, warm breath heats my skin, and the voice of the devil himself husks in my ear, “No, I don’t think I’ll make it that easy for you.”
18
Rowena
His name escapes on a ragged breath across my lips.
“Oh, Rowena,” he purrs, his voice low, mocking, “don’t sound so shocked.” The shadow of his scruff scrapes past my cheek, but I barely have time to register the sensation before he clamps a strong hand around my wrists and boldly pins them to the wardrobe above my head. “And here I thought you’d be happy to be reunited.”
Oh, God.
I’ve been submerged in a nightmare, the kind that clings like seaweed, dragging you down, down, down, until the pocket of sunlight kissing the water’s surface turns a murky gray and disappears altogether.
This can’t be happening. This can’t be real.
“I didn’t think . . .” Stretching onto my toes, I swallow a gasp when the blade of his nose nudges my jaw. “I thought you were—”
“Dead? No. Men like me never stay dead for long.”
The gritty words are whispered against the shell of my ear, and this time, there’s no smothering the startled whimper that begs for release. Everywhere I am, he is too. His muscular leg thrust between mine, his calloused hand clasping my wrists against the glossy grain of wood, his soft lips drifting south to claim the hollow of my throat.
I’m surrounded, contained.
This is not the man who cradled my hand and let me trace the bold lines of his face.
No, this is the man who handcuffed me without remorse.
The man who caged me within his arms and danced his fingers across my throat.
This is the Mad Priest, the man who destroyed Parliament, and any chance of escaping his wrath disappeared the second Gregory took it upon himself to shove him from the Palace’s roof.
He’s going to kill me.
Desperation floods my veins and I squirm in his hold, hips churning futilely against the muscled plane of his thigh. “Damien, what happened tonight . . . what happened to you, I mean, it’s not what you think.”
He shifts closer, presses into me harder, chest to stomach, thigh to core. Not even a sliver of space remains between us, and air comes thin and reedy through my nose when he snarls, “You have no fucking idea what I was thinking then, what I’m thinking right this second. If you did, you’d run and you’d never look back.”
“Is that a suggestion?”
“It’s a promise that you could try, and I’ll always find you. Catch you.” A merciless chuckle reverberates deep in his chest, and I feel its twin echo in mine. A shattering bleakness howling its fury. “I’ll haunt you from the bloody grave, Rowena. You’ll pray for safety and only ever find me.”
“The big, bad wolf.”
“No one would ever mistake me for a saint.”
Every pull of oxygen into my lungs carries with it the scent of cloves from his skin. It scrambles all conscious thought, leaving me scattered and aching for something I don’t dare name. Grasping the last threads of my sanity, I flex my fingers and roll my wrists within their constraints of human flesh. “Is that why you’re here?” I demand. “To give me a head start before you hunt me to the ends of the earth?”
“Oh, you won’t make it that far.” His lips hover over my pulse like he enjoys me trembling under his touch. A man pleased by fear. Submission. “You won’t even make it out of this room.”