Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,55
between applauding her little performance and dragging over her my lap, ass up, I grit my teeth. “This is the way it’s going to work. You aren’t going to scream and I’m not going to—”
“Threaten me?” she offers, one dark brow arched. “Intimidate me and then remind me of all the ways you can put me in a corner and make me cry?”
“Yes.”
“To which part exactly?”
“All of it,” I bite off. “These are peace talks. You, me, and our good mate transparency. Think you can manage that, Rowan?”
At my deliberate use of her nickname, Rowena leans back, head bolstered by the wardrobe behind her, one wrist propped atop her bent knee. She looks cool, poised. A queen prepared to squash a revolt with just the toe of her shoe.
“I have nothing to hide,” she replies smoothly, “and now that we’re both fully aware that you can’t stomach the thought of actually killing me . . . Well, it looks like I have more leverage than I previously thought.”
My chest tightens.
Lowering my voice, I growl, “Talk like that some more, Miss Carrigan, and I’m going to look at it as an invitation to take you down a peg or two.”
Her gaze shifts, locking with mine, however incidentally, and I feel pinned in place. Known without being seen; understood while having told her none of my past. Unchained for the first time in so many years that my wrists actually ache from the release of their phantom shackles.
“I didn’t think a man like you would need an invitation.”
“It’s my only courtesy before I bring a woman down to her knees.”
A wash of color darkens her cheeks. Then, with an audible swallow, she straightens her shoulders. “I want to know how you found us. You couldn’t have followed Gregory here, not without risking getting caught.”
“Alfie Barker.”
“What?”
A dark smile curves my mouth. “You didn’t think we let prisoners go untapped, did you?”
Her reply is slow, measured. “What exactly do you mean by . . . untapped?”
“I track them.”
“Hunt them, you mean.”
With my feet on the rug, I drop my elbows to my knees and hang the book between my spread thighs. “Track,” I repeat, firmly. “A little device I insert under the skin, not even the size of a penny.”
“Where?”
“Wherever I think it won’t be noticed. Barker’s is just above his kidney.”
I watch as her tongue darts out to slip across the seam of her lips. Then track its return, a second later, when she does it again.
A nervous tic.
Ask the question, Rowena. I know you’re dying to.
Finally, she caves. “And mine?”
“What of it?”
“The tracker,” she grinds out, “where is it? Above my kidney like Alfie Barker’s? In my arse cheek?”
Nowhere at all.
She’d arrived at the Palace too wounded, and I couldn’t risk her getting an infection. But clearly she thinks that I’ve embedded it somewhere; with agitated sweeps of her hands, she runs her palms over the length of her legs, pressing here, digging there. The devil on my shoulder quips, “Tell me who you take orders from and I’ll give you a clue. Might even help you remove it before I leave.”
“Sadistic bastard,” she mutters, not quite under her breath.
Casually, I cross my legs at the ankles. Keep my mouth shut because I know the silence will drive her mad. And it does, bringing a deeper flush of color to her cheeks just as she clamps a tight fist over her extended leg. “They take orders from me.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why?”
“Why,” I repeat, dipping my chin, “would they listen to the prime minister’s daughter? You’ve no military experience. No relevant history at all to prove that out of everyone in this country, you’re the one to lead them.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“And here I thought you had nothing to hide.”
She shoves onto her feet with a nimbleness that I wouldn’t expect from someone so injured. But move she does, stalking past me with a surprising elegance that twists me around in my seat, elbow propped on the back, so that I can follow her with my gaze.
I wait until she’s halfway to the bed. Then, “I know who you are, Rowena. I don’t understand the reasoning behind it, or why you’ve banded together the way that you have, but I know enough to put together the basics.”
That stops her in her tracks.
She whirls around, her face bearing a mask of righteous fury. “You know nothing.”
I set the book down by my feet, then stand. “Listen here—”