Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,78

to even scrape together.

I wind the chain between my fingers, running my thumb over the links. “Why was this so—”

A scream shatters the quiet.

Feminine. Bone-chilling. Rowena.

Shoving the necklace back into my pocket, I snatch my blade from its ankle holster and launch to my feet. Another scream, this one sounding strangled. No, terrified. I’m out the door in under three seconds. A hard glance down the hall reveals Hugh Coney stepping out from his bedroom as well.

His gaze falls to the knife.

I beat back the snarl that rises in my throat and give him my back. I shimmy the doorknob. Locked, as it should be. Unless someone else took inspiration from me and climbed the trellis. The thought turns my blood to ice. With all my strength, I ram my shoulder against the wood.

The door concedes with a battered whine.

When my eyes slowly adjust to the darkness within, I finally understand what it’s like to mourn the living—because there, on that bed, Rowena Carrigan looks like she’s in the throes of death.

The heavy comforter has been kicked to the floor and pillows hang precariously on the edge of the mattress. The sheets wrap around her knees like a noose. A whimper dredges to the surface, sounding nothing like the ones she breathed in my ear last night and every bit afraid of whatever hunts her in her dreams.

Closing the door behind me, I set the blade down on a small table and monitor the weight of my steps as I approach her. On nights that Guy stays—stayed—at the Palace, I could hear his screams from the other side of the medieval manor while he slept. I made the mistake of waking him only once, years ago, and found myself on my back with a knife pressed to my throat.

Keeping my voice to a low hum, I utter Rowena’s name.

Her hands twitch, her chin straining upward.

Slowly, I reach for the sheets tangled around her bare legs and loosen them with a gentle pull. I pull again, and again, steeling myself against the sound of her cries and her whimpers as I work to get her free.

“No.” She kicks her feet. “No, no. Help!”

She’s as imprisoned in sleep as I am by life.

Broken, kindred souls.

The acknowledgment burns within me. This, I would spare her, if I could. The chains, the shackles that never slacken no matter how you try to shake them free. The fear that follows, like the reaper stalking its next victim, until you’re frozen, paralyzed, and know that the end is near.

I toss the sheet to the floor.

Dropping one knee to the mattress, I reach for her clenched hand. She fights against me. “Rowena, love, you’re free now.” Behind trembling lids, her eyes jerk right and left. A tiny gasp inflates her chest, and, clasped within mine, her fist tightens then unfurls like she’s battling a war known to no one but her. “I would chase it for you,” I rasp, my gaze moving over her face. “If I could, I would chase—”

She comes awake with a sharp cry, her hand jerking free from mine as she scrabbles up the bed to press her back against the headboard. “Who’s there?” Her eyes dart left then right, searching the shadows. “Please. Please, tell me who’s there?”

Pressure caves in on my chest.

Last night, I stormed this room and kept to the darkness, never revealing myself until I could smell the fear on her. Because I wanted her scared. Because as I fell from the Palace’s roof, all the anger and rage had unleashed within me, until I could have decimated all of London without a single trace of remorse.

It would be so easy to do the same now.

The Mad Priest would capitalize on the trepidation raking her expression. But the little boy who once hid beneath a rickety kitchen table, away from his mum, can’t find it in himself to bring this woman any more pain.

Even villains have their limits.

The pressure deepens, carving a space where my heart ought to be. I feel hollow, gutted. “It’s me.”

Me, the man you sought to kill.

Me, the man you mourned.

“It’s only me,” I repeat, gruffly.

Like I’ve flicked a switch, the tension in her shoulders deflates as she whispers my name. Bringing her knees to her chest, she wraps trembling arms around her bent legs. Against the headboard like that, she looks small and vulnerable. Too damned innocent for the life that she’s lived.

“Can you . . .” She rubs her lips together like her