Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,52
the slope of my neck, a smile that feels like the beginning of the end. “Poor Rowena Carrigan,” he rasps, his voice seductively dark, “blind, alone. Defeated. You spun such a pretty tale—an estranged father, a heartbreaking past. And like a fool, I fell for every bloody trick in the book.”
“Damien—”
“Ask me what I thought of in those last few seconds.”
His thumb presses down on my inner wrist, immobilizing me against the wardrobe, his body the nails that anchor me in place. He wants to crucify me, to bring me to my knees with intimidation and power.
“No.”
It takes me a second to realize that I’ve spoken out loud, the single word ringing with absolute authority, even though it would be so much easier to submit to the fear spiraling through my veins. But I’m already one step closer to the end, and so I twist my head and hiss the rejection again, “No.”
He goes eerily still.
“Blind. Alone. Defeated.” A harsh laugh rattles my chest. “You’re the villain I don’t ever want to meet on a dark, quiet street, you said, the monster in my dreams. But Damien”—my lips brush his ear—“you never stopped to realize that I’m the devil in yours.”
His fingers go taut around my wrists.
And then the mouth of the revolver touches my temple.
Chilled.
Firm.
Deadly.
I don’t allow my legs to buckle, not even to sway.
It’s fight or flight, and I’ll bury myself twice over before I ever break again. Not even for the man I thought was dead, whose life I willingly mourned for the span of a heartbeat. A lit candle. A hushed prayer. All in all, a serious lapse in judgment that I’ll carry with me to the grave.
“It’s all coming together now, isn’t it?” With my shoulders squared off, I ignore the muzzle getting firmly acquainted with my forehead. Do your worst, Damien Priest. “A supposed insane asylum. A secret estate hidden away from the world. How was anyone to know Holyrood existed when you and your brothers clearly took such care to keep it off the grid? It must have hit you, right before Gregory threw you over, that Margaret was never my target.”
“Then who.”
A demand, not a question. And I’m not so disillusioned to think that he’s actually clueless. No, he craves the confirmation off my lips, and hell, I want to give it to him. For Ian. For Sara’s father and Frederick and Victor and Russ and Gregg. For every single person in this blasted country who’s met their end at the hands of the Priests, supposed guardians of the Crown and yet deceivers to all.
“You,” I whisper, angling my chin upward, wishing I could capture his gaze. “Every hour of every day, it was you.”
A noise rumbles deep within his chest, but I press onward toward the realm of no return. Reckless, in a way that I never am. Brave, the way I’ve only ever been in my dreams. A woman who knows her fate and reaches for it with wide open arms.
Finally, my soul sings, finally.
“The irony,” I say, “is that I hunted you, searched for you, and I almost walked away without ever knowing the truth. But you just couldn’t resist, could you? Pride goeth before the fall. You wanted the upper hand—no one escapes the Mad Priest, you vowed—and then you gave yourself away, just like that.”
The air thickens.
The revolver never pulls away.
I feel every breath that Damien draws into his lungs, the rhythmic expansion of his chest touching mine on each inhalation. In, out. In, out. If I were to ask to see his face, to read his expression with my fingers, there’d be no softness waiting for me. Not a single hint of mercy. Firm lips, furrowed brows. Harsh. Furious. I want to tear at his shirt, to fist the material and tell him to explode, to let me feel his rage and match it against my own.
But he only stands there, his arms a cage with no escape, his breath a ragged melody of death and retribution.
“Don’t you have something to say?” Something dark and twisted and desperate gathers in my stomach. “You hid in here with something prove, to kill me the same way Gregory tried to kill you. And here you are doing nothing.” When the revolver remains perfectly steady, and the seconds tick by, one after another, I let out a choked laugh. “You may be the villain, Damien Priest, but somewhere, deep down, you’re just begging to be the hero.”