Page 58 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion (Tales of a Monstrous Heart, #2)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Kat

A smear of colours rushed past us with the power of the portal stone, making the rain sting my cheeks before the summoning dissipated as quickly as it had arrived.

Disorientating me as my boots skidded on wet cobbles, fingers curling into Emrys’s leathers as my panted breaths clouded in the bitter winter air.

The strength of Emrys’s arm around my waist the only grounding thing as reality came back to me.

Murky lantern light revealed the dark street where we’d staggered to a stop. The portal stone flickered out of life against Emrys’s palm, casting his face in shadow as the veins of that darkness began to curl and sink back beneath his skin.

A cat yowled, skittering out of the entry we’d stumbled into. Small wooden gates lined the street on either side of us, hanging lopsided on their hinges, and the cobbles covered in moss.

Emrys caught my hand, urging me towards one of the gates, entering a small walled yard with discarded crates, shattered wood piled and discarded.

We crossed the space towards a green door of what appeared to be another townhouse.

One in a row of many, most of which had been boarded up, but from the flickering of lights through the cracked wood we could see it was still occupied.

We moved up the weed-covered steps. Emrys’s other hand illuminated with pale summoning light as he grasped the doorknob and it opened upon his unspoken command.

Leading into a short hallway and a rickety set of stairs that went steeply upwards.

He shut the door, only to fidget with something next to it in the gloom.

A dial. Then the door vanished into nothing but a solid wall covered in peeling patterned wallpaper.

A silence encompassed us, nothing but our breathing disrupting it as our bodies, damp from the rainstorm, were pressed together.

‘This way.’ He tugged me gently up the stairs, each step groaning in protest. Cobwebs strung across the path. A damp, dead air filling my lungs, the small pictures hanging unevenly on either side showing scantily clad imps with iridescent wings in provocative poses.

It wasn’t like all the ruins of the Greymark estate or Fairfax. No sour rot or decay. Just forgotten.

‘What is this place?’ I whispered as we reached a narrow landing covered in a fraying rug. Doorways either side of us, some bricked up as if this place didn’t have the energy to manifest any more rooms.

‘Safe house,’ he answered, eyes scanning the dim room before us. A welcoming hearth barely sparking. ‘What little magic is left here seems to have taken pity on us.’

The room was small and had seen better days.

A narrow four-poster bed sat crooked where it was pushed against the wall, one of its legs caved in.

A strange relic from a different time. The drapes moth-eaten and stained yellow with age.

Before the fire was a scattering of blankets and pillows.

As if the room was doing its best to be hospitable despite the ruin that surrounded us.

The beams drooped and the decorative paper curled away from the walls.

Rain lashed against the latticed windows; the weak golden lamplight through the storm from the streets below.

My braid sagged with how wet my hair was, so I pulled it free, twisting the water out, examining the space.

Emrys ducked to open a cupboard, pulling out a small chest before he rooted inside. Then in his palm were two portal crystals, one of them like what we’d used to get here. No glow coming off either. Empty of magic. A curse slipped from his lips as he tossed them into the fire.

Natural energy was the only way to charge a crystal. My flame couldn’t be trusted not to break the delicate enchanted item, and I supposed Emrys’s dark summoning would have the same issue.

‘Those stones will need a few hours to charge.’ He ran a hand through his damp hair as he tended to the fire, adding the few logs strung with cobwebs that rested next to the hearth.

I bent to pull off my boots, damp and covered in dust.

Not dust. The remains of my mother’s house.

I tossed them into the hallway. Not wanting any remnant of it near me.

Not now.

I rubbed my cold fingers. Seeing the residual flare of magic, how they didn’t tremble.

No, because there was nothing more natural than being as I was always intended to be.

I should have felt shame at what I’d done.

The viciousness of it. Only there was a strange rightness in my bones.

How I felt more myself than I had in weeks.

‘Show me your shoulder.’ I looked up to see Emrys bathed in the orange light of the fire.

Eyes pitch-black as the darkness of his magic rippled beneath his skin.

He unbuckled his weapons belt and dropped it next to the hearth where he’d discarded his own jacket.

Leaving him in his damp shirt, which clung to the expanse of him.

Something feral rolled through me at the sight. Maybe it was the Kysillian in me that hungered for such a warrior’s build. Why I was drawn to power and the strength in it. Or maybe it was just Emrys. Covered in light smears of ash from my summoning.

Like claiming marks.

‘I think the leathers worked.’ I peeled off my damp jacket, feeling the stiffness from where those davror bones and the debris had struck me.

I pulled the lacings at the top of my shirt, letting it slip off my shoulder.

Emrys came to a stop before me like a foreboding shadow, the sheer size of him blocking out the fire.

His magic touched me before he did. Urgent, as if it couldn’t resist.

‘It’s starting to bruise.’ His fingers traced the mark on my flesh, the cool authoritative brush leaving gooseflesh in its wake. ‘Does it hurt?’

No, I should have answered, but I was struggling to pull in a settled breath. I definitely felt something as his fingers traced my collarbone – and it wasn’t pain.

‘Kat?’ He frowned.

Then I think I surprised both of us as my fingers curled into his shirt. The other sinking into his damp hair as I kissed him. His hands falling to my hips. Dragging me closer on instinct.

The strength of his arms came around me, gathering me closer but I could feel his hesitation. So I slipped my hand beneath his damp shirt, fingers dragging over the hard contours of his chest. Nails biting into the hard plains of his abdomen where the Countess had touched him.

‘Croinn.’ There was a dangerous edge to that word as his hands captured my face. Despite the softness of his breath as those eyes looked at me, stormy with indecision. A thousand thoughts flicking across his expression.

He remained so still and cautious. ‘I’m a curse, Kat.’

Such absolute certainty pressed between those quiet words made my heart ache.

He wasn’t a curse. Not to me. And he needed to know that there was nowhere else for me but here with him. No matter what he became or how that darkness called to him.

So I pressed my lips against the scars on his cheek.

‘My father created that malice out of devotion to my mother.’ I brushed those words against the curve of his jaw, my fingers making quick work of his shirt buttons so I could lay my palm over his mark. ‘That vengeance is nothing compared to what I’d do for you, Emrys.’

His hand at my hip got fractionally tighter, his gaze heated as that darkness danced beneath his flesh. Yet, he still didn’t move.

I was done waiting. Done with not claiming the things I wanted.

‘Maybe I should remind you why Kysillians are formidable opponents, my lord.’ I understood now. The power I held when it came to him. How restless his magic was in my presence, how curiously it rushed over my skin.

I stepped back the barest inch out of his reach and tugged the shirt over my head. Letting it fall from my fingers to pool at my feet, I bared myself to him completely. Watching how his hands curled into fists at his side. Shadows weaving between his knuckles, wishing to touch me too.

I took his fist in my hand, that darkness wrapping like a caress around my wrist as I eased his palm flat. Running my thumb down his arch. Seeing that magic shift beneath his skin. Alert to my presence. I laid a gentle kiss there. Feeling the cool bite of his summoning against my lips.

I stepped closer until my naked chest barely brushed against his. He was so still I wasn’t certain he was breathing as I guided his hand around me to press against the bare skin of my waist. Sliding it right over the scarring at my back.

The pitch-black depths of his gaze awoke something within me. The rage I’d felt tear the Council chamber apart like a dark storm. The ruthlessness of it that had found me beneath Fairfax. Desire coiled tighter in my abdomen at the memory. At the brutality of him, of the things he’d do for me.

I left his hand there, tracing my finger up his chest, pressing a kiss to that mark over his heart.

‘ Eria .’ I laid that word there. My love . The sacred word he’d given me first.

Then his fingers curled into my damp hair, so he could tip my head back, and his lips brushed my cheek.

‘Croinn.’ The plea left him darkly, another warning, but I brushed my answering smile against his lips.

‘You burn, I burn, Emrys.’ I gave that promise back to him. Even if the darkness consumed him as my flame had me. I wouldn’t leave him. Even to the monster he believed himself to be.

Then something changed. His hand against my scarred flesh became firmer, pressing me closer as his other cupped my jaw. Thumb tracing the curve of my cheek.

‘I could hear them in my head in that pit. In that endless dark. It offered me anything to submit.’ His voice was suddenly hoarse as if raw from the pain of that memory. Eyes solemn grey.

I gave the barest shake of my head. ‘You didn’t.’

‘I don’t want anything but you, Kat.’ The words came in surrender as he ducked his head, his mouth the barest inch from my own. ‘I’ve never wanted anything the way I want you.’