Page 13 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion (Tales of a Monstrous Heart, #2)

‘You need to rest. Gideon said it’s been centuries since anyone has been treated with ravhorn venom.

’ Her hands ran down my arms, as if checking to see if I’d sprouted new ones.

It was then I realised I was wearing a clean nightgown.

Part of me wondering if the storm had been another dream.

But as I looked at my fingers I could see the remnants of dirt in the creases between my fingers, beneath my nails.

Real.

It was only then that the words she’d spoken pierced my thoughts.

‘Gideon?’ I frowned.

‘Healer Gideon Swift. Emrys brought him back to the house to help. Bloody bastard is—’ She cut herself off, shaking her head as she gently tried to press me back onto the pillows. ‘Never mind that. It’s best you lie down. I don’t know if you should be awake. I’ll get you some—’

I noticed the hesitation in her movements, the shadows beneath her eyes, and the bandage peeking out from the sleeve of her dress. Then her words penetrated my tiredness.

Ravhorn.

The ravhorn was extinct.

‘Alma.’ I reached for her arm, turning it so I could see it better. The bandage covering the remains of what she had become. The violent bruising around it. ‘What did you do?’

She pulled easily from my weakened grip, tucking her arm behind her back, turning to the bedside table, struggling to find anything to distract me with.

‘Alma.’ I leant forward despite the pain in my ribs that shortened my breath. ‘What did—’

‘It’s nothing compared to what you did.’ Her eyes were filled with tears but burnt with the intensity of those words.

Stilling me. That hollow pain in my chest of all the things that should have never come to pass.

Why she was afraid of changing. Why her magic was hard to control, because they’d made her fear it. Used it to hurt her.

Yet she’d changed. Changed into something too dark to speak of. She’d done it for me.

‘You could have been hurt,’ I whispered, unable to stop the rawness of my fear as it consumed me. The thought of her being something so dark. That she might not be able to find her way back. Forever lost in one of her forms.

‘If you wish to blame anyone for that recklessness … blame yourself. You taught me.’ There was a steel to those words. Unbreakable. I taught her friendship. Taught her kindness too. She’d always said that. From the start.

Nothing will hurt you again. My promise to her that now filled me with sorrow, because I’d lied. I’d hurt her.

‘Alma.’ My voice broke around her name.

‘I was so scared.’ The words were raw from her lips as she pulled in a stuttered breath. ‘I didn’t know what to do, Kat. I’m not smart like you.’

I reached for her hand, barely having to as she half fell into my arms. ‘That’s not—’

‘I didn’t know what to do,’ she admitted again and all I could do was hold her. Hold her as her perfectly formed defences crumpled. The admission was so small yet filled with so much fear.

‘I’m sorry,’ I breathed into her hair, sadness clawing at my heart as I ran my hand up and down her back. ‘For all of it. But you’re wrong. There isn’t anyone as clever as you, Alma.’ I ran my fingers through her dark curls as she pulled back to see me. So she could see the truth of it in my eyes.

I wasn’t her saviour. Alma had saved herself and she’d saved me too.

A shiver went through me before she could argue with my declaration, her fingers instantly running around the collar of my nightgown – jolting her back into action.

‘You must have had night sweats again.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Let’s get you cleaned and changed.’

I instantly regretted my stubbornness in forcing myself to sit up.

Clearly deceiving her into thinking I had more energy than I did.

She untangled me from the covers and moved me to the edge of the bed, quickly laying out warm towels, and brought a steaming bowl of water.

Then she set about getting me out of my damp nightgown.

I sat obediently, ignoring the horrid sudden cramping sensation in my middle as my fingers curled into the sheets and I let my eyes close. The motion of just sitting up exhausted me. Too weakened by everything that had come before.

‘I’ll get you another tonic.’ Alma ran her hand through my hair before she quickly braided it to stop it tangling.

I could only nod weakly. Numb fingers trying to catch hers in the barest brush of thanks.

How effortlessly she took care of me despite how foolish I could be.

Fatigue wearing too heavily on my limbs.

Understanding the pain was another way for my body to tell me how far I’d pushed it.

Almost punishing me for my recklessness.

She managed my clumsy limbs effortlessly as she towelled me off only for my focus to fall to my bare thigh, seeing the curving streak of scar on the delicate inner skin. A vicious mark, still puckered from healing. My fingers dragged over the raised texture. How strangely cold it was.

Kyvor Mor . That creature’s voice hissed in the back of my mind. The glee in its torment. The phantom agony of its claw digging into my thigh making me wince.

The warmth of Alma’s hands gently brought me back as she tried to put me in another nightgown, only for her to see where my focus had fallen.

‘It looks better than it did,’ she reassured me. ‘Emrys stopped the bleeding, but he had to revert to mortal practices. He was too fearful there were shards left inside.’

A grief clung to her words as she pulled the nightgown over my head. Perhaps it was a mercy that I didn’t remember any of it. Yet they all did. What Emrys had done to try to save me.

My fingers moved to the side of my throat, feeling uneven, cold skin there too. Remembering the ache of where the galmoth had bitten me.

Alma caught my hand, curling it into the safety of her own grasp. ‘The galmoth left a scar. It’s better than it was. Emrys said it should be less noticeable in a few weeks.’

Her reassurance was small and weighted with too much grief. Grief I’d given to her.

‘He isn’t here.’ The words slipped too painfully from my lips. A crushing weight to them. Remembering he was calling for me.

‘He was,’ she sighed, worry creasing her brow as she fixed the nightgown around me, before gently bullying me back under the covers. ‘Get comfortable and I’ll try to read some of those hideously boring soil books William left.’

I wanted to laugh, but a small broken sound escaped my lips as she tucked the covers around me.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. Sorry for my foolishness. For making too many mistakes. For being incapable of keeping her safe.

‘Enough of that,’ she chided, brushing her lips against my forehead. ‘You’re here. You’re safe. That’s all that matters.’

Yet as exhaustion weighted my limbs and consciousness drifted away, fear dug its claws into my heart that those words were a lie. They had to be.