Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,91
I know.”
“I don’t think you do, brother.” He lets the frame go, and it splinters completely when it hits a pile of equally charred wood. “Isla is my fire, my fucking soulmate, and life without her is no life at all. But you . . .” With both wrists leveled on his bent knee, he twists at the waist to stare up at me. “You’re running from something. The rage, the panic when you think no one is watching—I’ve seen it for months now.”
My throat constricts. “You’re overthinking shit.”
Those cold green eyes don’t even blink. “You’ve lost at least a stone.”
“House arrest tends to dampen one’s hunger.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Damien.” He pushes to his full height, which is still a few centimeters shorter than me. Thrusting his face close to mine, he shoves a hand against my shoulder but we’re evenly matched, when he’s not catching me by surprise, that is, and I don’t budge. “Tell me what it is,” he growls, “tell me what you need because, Christ, I know the look in your eye. I’ve seen it before—that soul-wrenching bleakness—and I’m willing . . . Bloody fucking hell, I’m willing to step back into this life for you.”
He’s already been roped back in.
I told Guy about Saxon’s safehouse in Oxford because desperate times called for desperate measures. But in every other way, Saxon has walked free. He rang when Buckingham Palace went up in flames but didn’t return to the fight. He must have heard the alert when The Bell & Hand caught fire but didn’t make a move. He chose Isla Quinn over Holyrood and his brothers-in-arms, and I . . .
I don’t fault him for it.
“You deserve better, brother.” Clapping a hand on his wrist, I pull him away from my shoulder. “You deserve happiness. And we both know that Holyrood is the tidal wave that’ll drown you.”
The severe lines of his face go taut. “Damien, just—”
My gaze snags on something moving along Fournier. A shoulder turning. A body bending down. And then, far off to the right, the unmistakable shape of a long barrel that turns my blood to ice.
Saxon lets loose a grunt as I tackle him to the soot-covered floor.
I don’t move fast enough—fire sears my right bicep and red swims on my periphery and fucking hell. Hissing through clenched teeth, I deaden my weight so that Saxon can’t push me off. “Stop,” I snarl. “Jesus, stop moving.”
“You’re not a goddamn shield. Get up.”
Gunfire erupts above us, and I flatten my body over my brother’s, prepared to take every hit that comes our way. He has Isla. For the first time, he has a future worth living at his fingertips, and I have—
Bullets ping off the only remaining interior wall.
Moonlight shimmers over the rubble, bathing what’s left of The Bell & Hand in a pearlescent glow. Without the pub’s roof for cover, we’re ripe for the picking.
Dropping my head to Saxon’s ear, I demand, “How many do you see?”
I feel him angle his head. “Six. No, seven.”
We’re either dead men walking, or dead men buried, and since I have no plans to see my brother dressed in his funeral best anytime soon, it’s going to have to be neither of the above. With small, incremental adjustments, I move off him.
“Damien,” he hisses.
Debris coats my fingers and the taste of ash sits on my tongue. Planting one bent elbow in front of the other, I use my forearms and the toes of my boots to propel me over broken slats of wood. Rewind the clock nine days, before Buckingham Palace went up in flames, and Commercial Street would have been heavy with pedestrian traffic, even past midnight. But beyond the discharge of gunfire, there’s only stillness. It’s only us, only them, while the rest of Whitechapel locks their doors and prays for daybreak.
Bang!
I jerk my head up to see Saxon on his back, a pistol clamped between his hands. He fires from the darkness, the devil cloaked in shadow.
I don’t wait to see if his aim is true.
Belly-crawling the remaining distance, I tear open the duffel Saxon brought me. With my head lowered, I shove a hand inside and rummage around, pushing aside fresh clothes to find—
“Reunited at last,” I mutter, grasping the rifle and hoisting the stock against my chest as I roll swiftly onto my back. My fingers move fluidly over the weapon that I designed a few years back. Lifting it, I stare down the scope, find my mark, and—crack!