Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,99

so he can get a good look at the inscription. Benji sits up in the backseat to bang a fist on the window. I shift in front of him, so that he can’t see my brother.

This is for no one but Saxon.

Slowly, my brother’s head comes up. His face is drawn, his stare shuttered. Then his Adam’s apple bobs down the length of his throat, and it’s all the confirmation I need. He might not want to believe it, but he knows.

The chain loops over his forefinger as he straightens. “We buried this with her.”

I nod. “We did.”

“No.” When he shakes his fist, the necklace jerks like the legs of the hanged. “We buried this with her, Damien. Twenty-four years ago, we buried this with her.”

Feeling strangely unburdened, I hold his stare. “She hasn’t had it for twelve.”

My teeth rattle as I’m shoved against the car.

Saxon grips my vest in both fists. “Why?” His green eyes are wild, troubled. “Why the hell would you . . . Christ, I can’t even say it. I can’t even say it.”

“No mercy, brother.”

“No mercy? She was our mother.”

“Not to me,” I husk, “never to me.”

His hands loosen their grip on me but don’t pull away. “There was something wrong with her. Guy knew it, I knew it. Pa probably knew it, too, before he died. But she never . . . Bloody fucking hell, she didn’t deserve to be—”

“Unburied,” I finish, because if he can’t bring himself to say it then I will. “And I felt nothing—no remorse, no grief. That’s the man I am, Saxon, the man I’ve always been.” Nodding my chin toward the car, I mutter, “You made a choice, Holyrood or Isla, and you chose happiness.”

“Damien—”

“You deserve that,” I growl, giving him a push. “What happened tonight is for me to handle, not you. Go back to Oxford and stay there.”

“Ask me for help. Fucking ask me—”

Quietly, I utter the words that I know will break him: “You aren’t Holyrood. Not anymore.”

His chin snaps back like I’ve plowed a fist into his face. “I’m your brother.”

Always.

But I won’t have Saxon trading his life for mine. He walked away. He chose love. I want that for him. Fucking hell, I want that for him so bad that it feels like I’m being torn in two. I should never have sent Guy and the queen to him after the attack on the Palace. I should never have had him meet me at The Bell & Hand. Selfish. So goddamned selfish when he finally has a reason to put down the gun and live for a future that doesn’t carry with it the scent of death and misery.

I’ve spent a lifetime on a solitary track—it’s no different now.

“Keep the necklace,” I tell him, angling my shoulder past him so that he has no choice but to let me walk free. “No doubt she’s been turning over in her grave ever since I took it.”

30

Damien

My heart thunders in my chest as I stand before Rowena’s door with my fist raised to knock.

I ought to fill her in on what happened tonight. Explain about the men who followed me all afternoon and the fight at The Bell & Hand. At least she can take small comfort in knowing that her father wasn’t behind today’s clusterfuck.

No, according to the confession that I wrought from my little interrogation, that particular honor belongs to the Met’s police commissioner. Not that I’m surprised. Courtesy of Marcus Guthram and The Metropolitan Police, I’m the UK’s number one fugitive. And, thanks to Guthram, Saxon was recently put behind bars for a murder that he didn’t commit.

You’ll thank me for this, brother.

Maybe not today or tomorrow, but one day he’ll look back at this moment and he’ll be grateful. Because there’s only one way to make a dog like Guthram heel, and it’s to put him down.

More death.

More needless bloodshed.

Don’t do it, Godwin. Don’t go to her like this.

Bloodied. Depraved. Shattered.

The veins in my forearm pop as I clench my fist, tight, and wrench away from Rowena’s door. Spinning on my heel, I force distance between us when every chord within me is singing only one note: I need you, I need you, I need you.

Her warmth.

Her iron spine.

That cunning smile of hers that makes my bones fucking ache.

I slam my door shut with the heel of my boot then cut across the bedroom in five long strides. My palm hits the switch for the loo, flooding the room with light.