Page 50 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion (Tales of a Monstrous Heart, #2)
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kat
There was a world before the first star fell, of Old Gods and magic from beneath.
There was a realm of princes with darkness in their veins, and truth in their hearts.
A world of harmony. Of a deep devotion sung into the dark of night.
There was peace before the world burnt and monsters called themselves kings.
The Compendium of Souls – Unknown
I straightened the jacket of my new fighting leathers.
The style worn in the wars, from the depictions I’d found in the library.
Cut close to the body, the trousers clung to my legs like a second skin – a freedom I’d missed since my days of ransacking the restricted library beneath the Institute in my breeches.
Only these leathers were enchanted to resist magic attack, runes pressed into the inside.
With the numerous sheaths and pockets it wasn’t hard to find somewhere to put my father’s hilt.
I was unable to hide it now. What would be the point?
The Council were dead and keeping my secrets had done nothing but burden me with guilt.
As if sensing my apprehension, the wishing stone thrummed comfortingly against my breastbone as I made my way back to the study, leaving William to get Alma fitted in her own leathers.
Despite her reluctance to conform to Gideon’s commands.
Especially since she tended to end up naked anyway after a change.
Her irritable quips about where Gideon could shove his orders made me smile, distracting me only to stumble to a stop as I entered the study.
Emrys was a formidable dark presence most days.
Now he wore his own fighting leathers, all competent thoughts left my head.
His jacket was open, showing the thin loose training shirt beneath.
The lacings at the collar undone to show the strong line of his throat.
How the trousers clung to his muscular thighs.
Shadow blades strapped to his belt. An ease to his stature as he braced his palms on the desk, reading something on the papers scattered there.
Maybe it was something in my Kysillian blood.
Something about the warrior build of him that made a strange insatiable hunger rise in me so desperately.
The thought of him in that fighting pit threatened to consume my thoughts once again, the sheen of sweat on his abdomen. How deadly each movement had been.
Heat flared through me that had nothing to do with magic and was completely inappropriate for such public spaces.
‘Watch out, darling, you’re drooling,’ came wickedly from behind me, making me lurch around to see amber eyes gleaming in delight from where the voyav sat petulantly in the chair by the fire.
‘Shouldn’t you be busying yourself elsewhere,’ I half spluttered.
‘Indeed.’ Thean rose from their perch, beyond satisfied with my embarrassment. ‘However, I wasn’t expecting you to have such a cracking arse.’
I half choked, resisting the urge to cover myself with my hand. ‘You’re supposed to be watching William . Not my arse .’
‘I agree,’ Emrys added. A flush bit at my cheeks at just what part he was agreeing with.
I turned to him, finding his stormy grey eyes on the leathers I wore. Disappointingly not on my arse.
My awkwardness was ridiculous. I’d worn breeches before. Been caught numerous times by the Council in them. But there was something very different about standing before Emrys in them. Having very vivid memories of his hands cupping my thighs with more firmness than the leather I wore now.
‘William had to modify this.’ I cleared my throat, tugging the hem of the jacket. ‘Nothing else fitted me.’
Too tall and too full in certain areas. Magic could do a lot, but it needed something to work with.
‘They’re mine,’ Emrys smiled, small and filled with the faintest shadow of sorrow as his fingers ran over the small repair at the inside seam of the arm. ‘My first leathers. Lady Blackthorn put the protection incantations in the stitching herself.’
His thumb and forefinger traced the edge of the sleeve’s stitching. ‘Emmaline had to repair them for me far too often.’
‘I’m sorry you have to see them again on me,’ I swallowed, hoping the enchanted tailoring was easy enough to reverse. I didn’t want to ruin something so sentimental to him.
‘I’m not.’ His voice was rough like gravel, as those pitch-black eyes took me in. ‘I’m more concerned about just how much I like it.’
There was a simmering in my blood in the hunger that lingered in his eyes. So potent it could have derailed our whole mission – so, like a coward, I moved to the pages he’d been considering.
The remains of the diary were scattered amongst everything else.
The curve of dark text and ink smears shaped into demonic form.
The pages old and growing older the further I flipped through the pile.
Things I didn’t know. Had never seen before.
So much to understand I felt my shoulders droop.
This wasn’t healing incantations and fey summonings. It was so far beyond me.
‘What is it, Croinn?’ he asked, as if seeing the small furrow of my brow and the weight of my thoughts.
‘I don’t know these things.’ I turned another page in the thick ancient script I couldn’t understand. All the markings I’d need to learn. The things they could lead to. ‘Not as I should.’
No, because I’d read the Councils sterilised records. Listened to their lies and devoured it all like poison.
‘You don’t need to know everything, Kat,’ he offered gently, his hands cupping my elbows in comfort. The softness of those words brushing my neck.
‘Then what use am I?’ I asked over my shoulder. Knowing had kept me alive. Had kept me safe and it felt strange to venture forward not having that protection.
He turned me to face him, his hands capturing my face with reverence, thumbs gliding across my cheekbones. A small secretive smile on his lips. ‘We might need improper storage of a ghoul.’
I huffed in annoyance, aiming my fingers to prod his still healing side but he was quicker. Capturing my hand and laying a kiss against my palm, his quiet laugh brushing against my skin.
‘You’ll learn everything you need to and before we know it, you’ll be telling everyone what to do … because, as always, you understand everything better than anyone else could.’
‘You might have too much faith in me.’ I blew a loose strand of hair from my face.
He caught it, that small smile never abating as he tucked it behind the point of my ear.
‘You’re the only thing I have faith in.’
The depth of those words pierced my doubt so easily. How he hadn’t let go of my hand, as our fingers intertwined and I saw the shadow of his magic curl beneath his skin.
Everything had fallen apart, yet we hadn’t. This small delicate thing between us.
‘What are these then?’ I nodded to the papers scattered closest to us. Family trees incomplete and pages from what appeared to be record ledgers.
‘The lords’ bloodlines and all the bastards that could be used to open those houses’ compendiums,’ he answered, his free hand running over the lineage lines.
I eyed the list warily. ‘There are more than I thought.’
‘Most are dead. However, lords tend to produce more of themselves – especially bastards.’ Emrys’s brow was furrowed as he considered the same thing.
There was something about the pensive stance of him that picked at a loose thread in my mind.
‘Do you?’ The question slipped free before I could stop the thought. ‘Could you? H-have any, I mean?’
Idiot. I scolded myself. Why the bloody hell did that matter?
‘I took severan weed when I was seventeen,’ he answered, unfaltering.
I pulled back slightly, unable to suppress my shock.
Severan was dangerous. Yes, it was beyond effective as a contraceptive – however, heirs were prohibited from taking it.
It rendered the consumer infertile and was difficult to reverse.
Verging on impossible from the books I’d read.
‘The withdrawal from severan weed is complex,’ I grimaced.
‘I wasn’t thinking that far ahead.’ There was something dismissive in the words and I knew he hadn’t believed he’d survive any of it, so why would it have mattered? How he’d never given much thought to his life because he never believed it was his.
I thought he’d say more but instead he reached into his pocket, pulling out two vials that seemed like healing syrup and then a short hilt for a throwing blade.
The steel gleaming with a white hue. A shadow blade.
Mortal-made to fight the dark. Magic folded into the metal.
A summoning that made them more powerful.
‘Just in case.’ He handed me the vials before slipping the small dagger’s handle into the sheath at my hip. Despite my father’s blade already resting there. Perhaps he understood my aversion to using it so publicly.
‘Also,’ his fingers moving the buckles and straps with ease as if he knew every inch of these leathers by heart, ‘I do hate to agree with Thean, but you do have a magnificent arse.’
I barked a laugh, watching his eyes darken at the sound as I tipped my head, unable to stop my smile. ‘I didn’t have you down as a lecher, my lord.’
He moved closer until I was trapped against the desk, his hands coming to rest on the curve of my waist. His warmth seeped easily through the leather.
His smile made my breath unsteady. ‘I’m very particular in my lecherous tendencies. Mostly for a singular troublesome Croinn.’
I let my fingers fidget with the buckle on his own jacket.
‘You should tell me to stay behind,’ I offered quietly, still burdened with all my other mistakes. All the secrets I should have shared sooner.
‘I won’t tell you what to do, Kat.’ He brought our interlaced fingers to his lips. Pressing a kiss to my knuckles. ‘Besides, I’m not overly fond of having you out of my sight.’