Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,8

skin. With a hiss, I feel its jagged edges tear free, just as Godwin’s thumb smooths over the curve of my shoulder. “She didn’t have you listed, but you were at the palace anyway—and on the night that all hell broke loose.”

“You can’t be serious.” I whip around, intending to say my piece, only to be held immobile when his palm moves to the back of my neck. Unable to shake him off, I gnash my teeth together. “Margaret is my friend.”

“And yet she never gave us your name.” The razor rakes down my spine, Godwin’s hand still damn near collaring me like a dog. “An alleged best mate decides to spend some quality time and the fucking place goes up in flames. A bodyguard is dead. The queen has been shot. A mysterious killer is out causing havoc, and you—”

A scream rips from my throat, and it has nothing to do with Godwin’s ridiculous assumptions and everything to do with the agony enveloping my left shoulder blade. Nausea looms, and though my world remains elusively dark, I slam my eyes shut anyway.

“Stop,” I breathe, fingers spasming, “please stop.”

I’m covered in bandages, and crystallized shards of hell penetrate my back, and my eyes see absolutely nothing, all the while this man—this blasted bastard—twines my weaknesses to his advantage and bends my body to his will.

My nails carve indents into the thinly padded table beneath my thighs. “I did not shoot the queen.”

“Someone gave you access to her,” Godwin says, “and it wasn’t me.”

“And who are you?” Agonizing pain or not, inevitable death or not, I won’t let this man do to me what so many others before him have done—run me to the ground, use me for their own gain, steal my light and fortitude.

Never again.

“I don’t know you,” I hiss from between clenched teeth, “and yet I’m not accusing you of anything. I’ll only say this once more: I didn’t shoot Margaret. I definitely did not kill Clarke. And, in case you’re busy coming up with more absurd conspiracy theories, I can promise you that it wasn’t Clarke who tried to take out Margaret either.”

Those calloused hands briefly pause on my back before peeling away completely.

“Clarke was her bodyguard.”

For the first time since unofficially meeting him, there’s hesitation in Godwin’s voice. It’s subtle, maybe even a bout of wishful thinking on my part. But there’s no mistaking the thread of disquiet when he stiffly adds, “Only her bodyguard.”

Turning my head, I plant my chin on the curve of my right shoulder.

Though I can’t see him, I take strange delight in knowing something that the Almighty Godwin doesn’t. Only, the delight is extremely short-lived when I think of Margaret in the car as we made our way to Sevenoaks—of the sobs that racked her body. Tears that she didn’t shed for herself, or even for me, but for the man I left slumped outside her door.

The man who took his very last breath protecting her.

Quietly, I confess, “She was with Clarke.”

“What the hell do you mean she was with him?”

“They were together—in every meaning of the word.”

Godwin rises, the air between us straining with tension that feels suffocating. Menacing. A chill strokes down my spine when he growls, “You’re lying.”

Ten years ago, I would have trembled before all that anger.

Rowena Carrigan at twenty-three had no courage, no self-respect. A whore, my father’s friends whispered behind his back—but they could have said it to his face, and he only would have laughed. Because it was through me that Edward Carrigan scaled the ladder of ambition. The charm I wielded like a weapon, the tears I hid, the inner confidence that never lasted more than a handful of hours. Each rung he climbed was on the back of his daughter’s defeat.

I’ve tasted dirt, I’ve drowned in self-loathing, and though it’s clear that I’ve hit rock bottom all over again, I turn toward Godwin, desperately wishing that I could see the smug look wiped clean from his face, and throw down the metaphorical gauntlet:

“From where I’m sitting, it looks like you know nothing at all.”

4

Damien

Clarke and the queen—together.

Bloody fucking hell.

I pride myself on knowing every detail about a person—their triumphs, their failures, the secrets they’d move heaven and earth to keep under lock and key. No one is off-limits. Not our enemies, not even our allies.

But this . . . Jesus.

Clarke never let on, and the damned bastard knew me well enough to keep all PDA with the queen hidden away from the