Page 28 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion (Tales of a Monstrous Heart, #2)

Chapter Sixteen

Kat

‘Fucking saints!’ came the echoed scream, the house’s doors slamming as I darted into the hall the same moment Thean did.

Tumbling into the wood panelling as I used it to push myself further down the hall just in time just to see William appear at the other end, hands over his horns as he ducked low.

Diving to slide across the tiled entryway.

I skidded to a halt. Thean slamming into my back.

A dark fiend came scuttling around the corner at the other end of the hallway.

Its bony body made of dark grey smoke with glowing red eyes and lethal, long, gleaming talons.

It screeched, flapping two thin pairs of beetle-like wings.

In moments it formed into pallid grey flesh instead of smoke, covered in markings.

Archaic rune-like carvings on its body as if it had freed itself from an ancient text and imprinted the words on itself during its escape.

It was unlike any fiend I’d seen before.

I felt the house groan as it swung one of the high beams down, swatting the beast into the wall with a crack of plaster.

It screamed, claws cutting through the wood to free itself.

I saw the darkening at the corners of the hall as shadows gathered, felt the brutality of Emrys’s magic.

Cold and vicious. The dark creature recoiling as if sensing his threat. Too late.

A long shard of Emrys’s summoning shot past mine and Thean’s stunned forms. Burying itself in the creature’s chest as it fell and curled into itself with a screech. William let out another panicked shriek. Scrambling across the tiles towards us.

‘Gideon!’ Emrys barked from where he’d appeared from a doorway just down the hall, eyes jet-black and shadows crawling up his forearms.

Only I didn’t hesitate to finish the job as I sent my power rippling down the blade in my grasp, waiting until the fiend leered and screeched, neck extended.

One swift fury-fuelled turn. Fast enough to miss its claws as I cut off the fiend’s head, spraying the hallway with thick black blood. A loud squelch as the remains hit the tiled floor. A sizzle; dark smoke curling along the length of my blade.

Silence consumed the hall only to be broken by the pleased creak of the house, and then the shocked gasp of Alma as she rushed up from the kitchen stairs to my left. Wiping her flour covered hands on an apron.

‘Bloody bastard,’ William panted as Alma knelt to help him up, checking him for injury.

‘Does nobody know the fucking meaning in—’ Gideon came to a skidding halt on the stairs landing above us. Lips still parted in the beginning of whatever lecture he was about to give, a pair of spectacles perched on the end of his nose as he took in the chaos and now the reek of demonic blood below.

‘Bravo, darling.’ Thean gave a slow clap as they slouched against the staircase banister. ‘Gideon, you should recommend decapitation to all your patients. It seems to have cured dear Kat marvellously.’

‘That’s a blood seeker,’ Gideon replied sharply, ignoring Thean as he came down the stairs. Pulling his glasses off as if he didn’t trust them.

‘A salvek,’ Emrys agreed darkly as he examined the remains with a cold expression, suddenly at my side. Then his dark gaze found my own, ran over the entirety of me. It was then I remembered I was only in my slip, worse for wear since Thean’s impromptu sparring session.

‘It came in through the bloody greenhouse window!’ William swallowed, looking peaky.

Salvek . The name of a demonic blood seeker. A beast from beyond.

It had flown here – been summoned nearby.

‘That’s not possible,’ I whispered, watching black blood drip onto the hardwood from my father’s blade. Yet even as I said the words I knew they were a lie as a shiver raked its way down my spine.

‘Montagor has a relic. The full extent of such a weapon is not known,’ Gideon continued, speaking to nobody in particular but more to unburden the thoughts from his mind. ‘Records have been lost to time and—’

Gideon’s focus dropped to see my state of undress and my sweaty dishevelment before he turned that sharp, annoyed gaze to Emrys. ‘What the bloody fuck have you two been up to?’

‘Nothing,’ I snapped, ignoring the heated flush on my cheeks as I fixed the strap of my slip.

‘I don’t recognise any of those markings,’ William frowned as he leant over the remains of the creature hesitantly as if it could lurch back to life at any moment, mercifully dragging everyone’s attention back to it.

Emrys pulled off his coat and draped it over my shoulders. I slid my arms inside instantly, clutching the lapels closed. Suddenly cold as the potency of my magic abandoned me. Slipping my father’s hilt into the pocket.

Then he moved to the creature, crouched down and ran his finger across the flesh, the ink smudging and coming away. ‘Summoning ink.’

‘We’re beyond fucked, Emrys.’ Gideon glared at his brother over the still-twitching corpse.

‘I’m aware.’ Emrys sighed, rubbing the back of his neck in thought as he got back to his feet. A deadly silence left between the two.

‘Why?’ Alma asked, her dark curls tumbling over her shoulders as her assessment then moved to me. Partially in undress and probably in a worse state than how she left me.

Only those green eyes also moved to Thean, her nose twitching as her eyes narrowed. Of course, nothing got past Alma.

‘Every record of ancient darkness no longer exists. Thanks to the purging during the peace treaties.’ Gideon let out a frustrated breath, his metal fingers curled into a fist. ‘Even the fucking mad king didn’t go this far.’

‘Montagor has nothing to lose,’ I corrected. No kingdom to impress, no lords to keep quiet. No, he just had that hunger. The madness.

‘Something must have survived.’ Alma wrapped her arms around herself, the bitter truth of how dire the situation was like a ruthless chill. ‘It isn’t like they kept their word.’

‘Wonderful, just what I need. A cursed fucking treasure hunt,’ Gideon snapped, making William flinch with the venom in his tone. Earning him a sharp glare from Alma but before her claws could interfere, Thean stepped into the fray.

‘Yes, because you have so much else on your plate,’ the voyav drawled, earning themself a dirty look from the healer which they seemed unbothered by. ‘Let’s not ignore the fact your dear brother, Emrys, has allowed his senses to dull so much he couldn’t even sense a relic until it was too late.’

Something dangerous shifted in the air between the voyav and Emrys. The beasam bark had suppressed his magic, but also suppressed his natural senses. Suppressed the predator that all Verr in those dark tales had the potential to be.

‘Couldn’t sense that Montagor would be present in that Council hall. Or what dangers he carried on his person.’ Thean grinned. ‘Now Montagor is ahead and awakening ancient relics this house swore to silence. So, what are you going to do about it, Blackthorn ?’

I heard the challenge and felt the wrath in Emrys’s magic as it darkened the hall. The Blackthorns were the last keepers of the dark, of all it could do.

‘We need to find out where he made his summoning from,’ I intervened, trying to ease the worry in the house and William, if for nothing else.

‘And how do you propose we do that?’ Gideon snapped.

‘All dark things return,’ Alma answered, turning all eyes to her. The one story we all knew. Yet her focus was on the remains of that creature, the leathery flesh covered in blood.

I saw the thought in her gaze. Saw the remains of the bandage still around her wrist.

‘No.’ The word left me sharply. Guttural, recoiling from the danger in the mere suggestion of it.

‘That creature came from a summoning, which means the others were summoned too. They can communicate with each other.’ She put it together quickly, rolling her shoulders as if she could slip into the beast’s form at any moment. ‘So it will remember where it’s been.’

Remember how to get back to its master.

‘Theoretically,’ Gideon offered.

Alma took a step towards the remains but Thean suddenly blocked her path.

‘I wouldn’t do that, darling.’ The voyav’s words were short. Almost as if they cared and were repulsed by the fact. ‘I doubt you want that thing crawling around in your pretty little head.’

‘Concerned?’ she mocked. ‘You said they were summoned, so wherever they were resting, there could be something else there.’

‘Alma—’ I began but then those sharp feline eyes were on me, burning with fury.

‘Something useful ,’ she added sternly.

‘No.’ The word slipped free before I could control myself.

She bristled, her furious gaze now pinned on me. ‘That isn’t your choice, Kat.’

‘You’ve never changed into anything that dark,’ I snapped, heart pounding painfully against my ribs with my panic.

‘Haven’t I?’ she challenged, so stony and distant that for a moment I didn’t recognise her.

Haven’t I? Then I remembered the barest impression of scales on her skin the first night we’d met, so large and dark that she wouldn’t let me anywhere near her.

Not until they faded. How she’d curled herself around them as if guarding a treasure.

She never spoke of them again and I’d never seen them since.

In all her forms. I’d never seen them, as if I’d imagined it.

‘If I can connect with that beast, we’ll know where they’ve been and where they’re going next,’ she continued, her voice too distant for me to work out her thoughts, her expression too hidden.

‘Why not? Considering the torture was so fun to stomach last time,’ Thean threw in dryly, their arms crossed and lips pursed in annoyance at the idea.

‘It worked.’ Alma bared her now fanged teeth.

‘What is your plan when those creatures also remember you, darling? When they hear you crawling around in their mind and tell their master. The girl who becomes beasts.’

Alma stilled at that, a flare of panic in her eyes for the barest moment before her expression slipped back to annoyance.