Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,139

stay on my feet. Despair propels me forward, my arms cinching tight around Rowena. So close. So close to those shadows and to that safety, however temporary they each might be. Except that the fire is already spreading—climbing up my thigh, crawling down my spine. A sensation that I’ve never been able to erase from memory.

My body may be a shield, but like all armor, I’m not infallible.

Agony punches through my right calf and, this time, there’s no stopping the fall.

I release my arms from around Rowena at the very last second, hoping to set her free before I crush her under my weight. Coarse brick tears through my trousers when my right knee hits the ground. The collision rattles my jaw, bursts a blood vessel on my tongue.

Rowena’s fingers grasp mine and she pulls with all her might. “Damien, run with me.”

My lips part to speak but no sound emerges.

I’m voiceless, again.

Dying, again.

“Damien, get up. Get up!”

She yanks on my hand and I see her—oh, fuck, I see her hands on mine, but the fire is flooding my veins and my chest is caving in with panicked breaths and I can’t feel her. Fear jerks my gaze to hers and I try to force the words past my tongue:

Run.

I need you.

I’m not ready. Rowena, I’m not ready!

None make it past my dry throat.

Greed for life has me clenching my core to stay upright on my knees, to be strong and pretend that I haven’t already traversed this path and know exactly where I’m heading—but my muscles are completely unresponsive. Dark brick comes up on me, hard and fast, when I crash face-down.

Paralyzed. Frozen.

The same as I was outside Christ Church Spitalfields.

The brick disappears from sight as I’m shoved onto my back and Rowena’s beautiful face appears above me. I feel nothing but terror as she beats on my chest with her fists, feel nothing but heartache when tears coat her dark lashes. “Damien, you can’t leave me. Please.”

A battered breath rattles my lungs when she buries her face against my chest, which burns with the heat of a thousand suns. The beginning of the end. In the alley, I had only minutes before everything faded, and I need to see her. God, I need to see her just one more time.

I try to move my fingers.

Look at me.

Her shoulders shake with heart-wrenching sobs that gut me.

Please, love, just let me see you.

“You promised to chase me.” Her hands grasp the front of my kit, her throat working hard, and then she’s scrambling onto her knees as if she plans to drag me from this pit of hell all on her own. “You promised to chase me to the ends of the earth, Damien Godwin, and I won’t let you die on me. Do you hear me? You are not dying on me!”

I’ve never been a man who cries.

Never been the man who sheds the rage to reveal the softness beneath.

But as Rowena struggles to push my unresponsive body, and fails, I finally learn what it means to break.

Silent sobs crack my chest wide open and I strain my paralyzed limbs to reach for her, to crush her to me and press my mouth to hers. I wanted freedom and I wanted sunshine, and while my body may leave this chamber to experience both, my soul never will.

I’m as chained and collared as I’ve always have been.

Only, Rowena keeps her vow.

As the last threads of consciousness slip away, she walks through the darkness with me, her tear-stained voice a guide that I cling to desperately, her touch a balm that soothes the panic of stepping into the abyss—even though I feel her not at all.

I’m not alone.

And, with her alone, I know love.

42

Rowena

Damien won’t move.

His chest rises and falls under my palms.

His flame-blue eyes flicker with an agony that destroys me.

But his limbs remain heavy as stone no matter how hard I push. And I push. As Guy takes down Hugh, I shove Damien’s body with all my strength. My trainers skid against brick and my heart weeps for what I refuse to believe might possibly be true—and I get him absolutely nowhere.

Looping my fingers around the straps of his armored vest, I pull and pull and pull.

He doesn’t budge.

Another sob claws its way out and I taste the ear-shattering scream threatening to follow in its footsteps. Bleakness ransacks my soul, killing every seed of hope within me until I’m on my knees before him. “Don’t give up. Please, Damien.