Page 63 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion (Tales of a Monstrous Heart, #2)

Then I heard the soft voices, the familiar deep tone of Emrys.

I moved around the cluttered mess of the study and into the hall.

Seeing it bathed in the weak dawn light, multi-coloured from where rays seeped through the stained glass the house had made the ceiling out of today.

Depicting wrywings and griffins in flight.

Kat was in her leathers, her hair unbound, face turned to look up at Emrys. In some deep conversation, their fingers intertwined. Almost unable to let each other go. She was also strangely missing her boots.

‘Where have you been?’ I asked, slightly appalled at her relaxed ease. Especially after how we’d parted last night. The panic I’d smelt rising from her flesh that I couldn’t sense now.

Kat jolted, turning to me. Her strange golden-hued skin flushed pink, making the freckles across the bridge of her nose stand out.

Lavender eyes wide as her lips parted, not speaking but somehow telling me everything I didn’t necessarily want to know.

I suppose I should thank the ancestors I’d lost my sense of smell.

‘A safe house. The portal stone ran out somewhere in the west fields,’ Emrys replied, saving my dear friend from her own incriminating embarrassment as he pulled her down the hall.

‘Bloody saints. Locked in a safe house all night.’ William appeared in the hallway, running a hand through his curls as if he’d been summoned by their return too. ‘Good job it let you out.’

‘Yes, William, I’m certain it was quite harrowing for them,’ Gideon replied dryly from where he’d come to lounge in the doorway behind me. Unimpressed. ‘Now you’re back from your escapades … how do we get this fucking book open?’

I expected the interest from Kat, or her eagerness to get started on the cursed thing. Instead, I felt the gentleness of her touch as she took my arm. That warm bite from her magic as if it was concerned. The deep worry marring her features. So reminiscent of the first night we’d met.

‘Are you all right?’ She pressed the back of her hand against my forehead.

‘I’m fine.’ I pulled back, shame wounding deeply inside of me. Of course she saw everything – even the things I wished to hide – because she cared.

I didn’t want her to be distracted by me. By how weak I’d become. How useless.

‘You look … different .’ Her lavender eyes roamed across my features unable to place what was wrong. I saw her own fear there, as if she could see that pain in me. As she tried to understand it just as she always had.

‘That happens when a being gets shot out of the sky,’ came the annoyed sharp voice of Thean. Turning me to see the voyav where they had apperated against the wood panelling of the hallway in female form, amber eyes hard with annoyance and focused on me before they moved to Kat.

Of course the bastard would choose now to turn up.

‘What?’ Kat demanded, her voice hoarse as if she’d been struck by the words.

‘It was nothing,’ I snapped, wishing there could be a ferocious growl building in my throat but there was nothing. Hating the pain in her eyes, the horror and shadow of her guilt. As if any of it was her fault.

‘With a verium dart,’ Thean continued, unbothered. Producing the offending item from their jacket pocket with a flourish. The silver dart. I didn’t see them pick it up. They must have gone back for it, but why?

Only Thean Page wasn’t quite finished ruining my day.

‘Not to mention the hunters that caught her. Who knows what would have happened if I hadn’t turned up?’

‘No.’ Kat’s voice was nothing but a whisper. Her eyes filled with horrid sorrow as they took me in. ‘Alma – I didn’t—’

‘I told you not to say anything,’ Gideon bit out, glaring at the voyav as he snatched the dart from Thean’s grip.

‘Alma. You didn’t say it was hunters .’ William looked stricken, his freckled skin pale. Blackthorn was considering me with those serious grey eyes where he’d come to stand behind Kat, focusing on the dark circles I knew were beneath my eyes.

Evidence of everything I couldn’t hide. Not without the creatures I longed to become.

Too many people watching. Too much concern. Panic and shame coiled inside of me. Twisting into a painful rage. Turning me on Thean with clenched fists. The burning sensation of my claws manifesting. That wildness in my blood unfurling from its slumber.

‘Trust me. I’d manage those hunters fine on my own,’ I leered. Feeling the sharp point of the barest fang in my mouth, the ghostly pinch of tightening skin at my cheek. The faintest hint of my magic coming back.

‘You don’t need to prove that to me , darling,’ they smiled wickedly, those hard amber eyes tracing my features before they softened slightly.

No. I needed to prove it to myself. It was me who had panicked. Me who had let those hunters catch me. A horrid growl rumbled in my chest, slipping easily up through my clenched teeth.

The voyav leant closer, that smile never diminishing. ‘There she is.’

It was then I realised I was seeing them through my feline eyes, and that it was claws that bit into my palms. How I’d found my way back to my magic. Incensed the voyav had something to do with it.

Bastard.

‘Alma?’ Kat asked again, but I stormed past them all and into the study, unable to bear another moment of their proximity.

I didn’t deserve all of their worry. Thankfully, the house had materialised a tea set on Kat’s desk.

I busied myself with pouring all the cups.

‘Never mind me, we need to work out how to open the book.’

‘Why were hunters at the Grey house?’ William asked. The question halting the cup halfway to my lips. I turned, seeing Kat the closest. Her confused expression mirroring my own as we both turned to William.

I shook my head. ‘They weren’t—’

‘Alma was over the bordering lands. Weymouth lands,’ Thean answered effortlessly from where they lounged in the doorway as if we were all an inconvenience. As if they had turned up for nothing more than to cause trouble. To piss me off.

‘Hang on …’ William held up his palms. ‘Did you say Weymouth?’

Although he didn’t need an answer as the boy moved to one of the sideboards, ignoring us as he picked up one of the maps and held it open between our gathering.

‘Lord Weymouth died in the third uprising three centuries ago. His lands were claimed by the fey and the Council never sought to take them back because of the ancient fey ruins there. The Mouv Settlement was formed shortly after. It’s also on the boundary of rebel territory.

Mouv. A fey settlement built on ancient ruins. A place Montagor suddenly had interest in; enough to send his men. Enough to rile up the Countess.

‘We need to go,’ Kat said, a flare of lavender at her fingertips. She knew what Montagor’s men would do. What men like him were capable of in such rural settlements. We both did.

‘We’re not bloody taking everyone,’ Gideon snapped, his finger pointed at Emrys before moving it to the rest of us. ‘They can stay here.’

‘Make me,’ I hissed, feeling the sting of my fangs as they slid through my gums. Something writhed inside of me. A wildness that wanted to take flight. To claw and bite.

A horrid whining growl came from the corner of the room, making my ear twitch and unease ripple down my spine as I looked towards the table where the cage sat with the dark fiend curled up at its centre.

Glaring at us from where it had wrapped its tail around itself, as if we’d disturbed it from slumber.

‘Why is that thing here?’ Kat asked.

‘It keeps appearing,’ William flushed. Making me suspect he was more afraid of the nipping bastard than forgetful of its existence. In answer, the table the thing perched on rattled. The house was clearly not done with the pest to bring it back up here.

Emrys moved closer to it, I saw the rush of that strange darkness beneath his skin. His body tense.

‘ Nhair .’ The command seemed to drain all the warmth from the room as it rumbled from Emrys’s lips, the morning light fading as if clouds had passed over the house. I felt the chill rush down my spine, hackles rising.

Darkness respects its master.

The beast in the cage began to chortle and growl. Turning itself in circles as if distressed. A horrid retching sound coming from it as it began to convulse.

‘Is he choking?’ William asked, worry furrowing his brow.

‘Good riddance,’ I huffed.

‘Alma,’ William whispered, scandalised. Yet it was Kat who moved, with caution, towards the thing, touching the side of her neck. Right where that bitemark was.

Emrys’s dark gaze darted to her instantly.

Thean remained quiet too. Watching the creature with sharp amber eyes, jaw tense as if suspecting something was far worse than the creature simply choking. The voyav reached for that shadow blade at their thigh, taking a step closer to me.

I wish they hadn’t. Wished they’d keep their wretched scent to themselves.

The gobrite retched one more time, a clank of metal upon metal before the fiend let out a little uncomfortable whine, its tail curling around itself as if embarrassed. There, at the bottom of the cage, was a small shard. Gleaming like—

‘It’s a relic,’ Kat whispered. ‘The fiends from the compendiums are hiding relics.’

Everything crashed together in my brain. The blood. The compendiums. The fiends.

It was why the old lords had protected and hidden them so reverently. Why Montagor was suddenly seeking compendiums. Why he’d been after the Ainsworth one.

And Montagor believed he’d just found another one. That was the only reason why his hunters were in the Weymouth lands – why he would send them to the boundary of rebel territory.

‘Fuck,’ Gideon cursed – and that was the only warning we got of how much worse this was all about to become.