Page 7 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion (Tales of a Monstrous Heart, #2)

I forced the agony of it down until it consumed my forearm. The burning tightness of it as I focused on the image of that beast in my mind, as I smelt sulphur and tasted that poison, acrid and sharp. Felt my tongue split like a snake’s, brushing the inside of my mouth.

Someone’s hands were on my shoulders, pushing me up but then they stopped.

‘Fucking great, Barnabas,’ came the breathless words from Gideon as the blurry vision of him sat before me, a horrid hope blooming in my chest as the pain receded enough for me to catch my breath.

Faces came back into focus as a thick silence took hold of the room. The cracking of the fire was louder than anything else. Even the drumming of my own heartbeat high in my ears. The healer was crouched before me, face pale, staring down at my arm between us as I gasped for breath.

Thick black scales, speckled with gold and silver, sleek as if covered in oil, surrounded my forearm where it lay exposed in my lap. The trader’s coat sleeve torn away with the sharpness of them. A blue sheen beneath of the venomous coating.

You can do anything, Alma . Kat’s words came in reward and despite all the sadness and suffering I wanted to smile. But her voice faded too easily from my memory.

Then came the tight pinch of fear that it could slip from my control.

That those scales could vanish. I saw the healing blade glinting on Gideon’s belt as he knelt before me.

Hands hovering as if hesitant to touch me.

His lips moved but I couldn’t hear a word as I focused on the knife, short and razor-sharp.

I lunged for it, almost knocking him over as I dragged it from its hilt. In one swift motion I ran it down my arm, feeling each scale pull away, the intense sting of it as blue blood ran down my forearm to drip onto my bare thighs.

‘Alma,’ Emrys cursed as the knife clattered from my numb fingers. One arm across my shoulders to keep me steady as breath hissed through my clenched teeth. Emrys pressed a clean rag against my arm as spots danced in my vision. The pressure made it worse as my skin struggled to shift back.

‘That’s—’ Gideon half stuttered, half sprawled on the ground, golden hair hanging limply across his brow. Stunned. How those scales glistened in the firelight, keeping their serpent form.

‘ Gideon ,’ Emrys snapped, bringing his focus back as the healer lurched into his role. Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket as he scooped up the pieces of me. The pieces of something that shouldn’t be, curses slipping from his lips as he moved back to his own desk with urgency.

A pale William stumbled after him and awaited instruction.

Poor William.

There was a tension in Emrys’s jaw as he glared down at me, his arm across my shoulders the only thing keeping me up. The blood from my wound seeping into the clean white cloth too rapidly.

‘I’m fine.’ I pulled my arm back with panting breath, trying to take the rag from him but there was no strength in my fingers. My movements too slow and clumsy. Uncomfortable with his concern. Not knowing what to do with it.

‘I’ll do it,’ Thean spoke, so commanding and fluid. Emrys’s gaze turned to the voyav with sharp surprise where they leant casually against Kat’s desk, ignoring the mess all around them. How my blood almost touched the tip of their perfectly polished boot.

As if they witnessed impossible things every day.

‘Best not to leave the drunkard with the valuables,’ Thean shrugged, pulling their hands calmly from their pockets.

I wanted the deviant nowhere near me but I could cope with Thean’s disdain over Emrys’s open concern.

All it took was the slightest nod from me as I pulled in a steadying breath for Emrys to relinquish my care to Thean.

The voyav came around the desk, circling me like a vulture in the wastelands.

I didn’t have the energy to care as my shoulders slumped.

Breath too harsh, nausea rolling inside of me as I stared down at my mangled arm.

Letting myself fold over my own knees with exhaustion, swallowing back the urge to vomit again.

To get the beasts out, let them crawl their way up my throat.

Please, I begged in the back of my mind. Knowing there was nobody to listen. There never had been any ancestors watching me. Nobody to care if it killed me.

Then I felt the tickling brush of something at my cheek, opening my eyes to see a cushion. The tasselled end almost waving at me. I could have lost my mind, or was it just the house mothering me?

I raised my head the barest inch, as the cushion slid beneath me of its own accord. Allowing me to rest my cheek there. A blissful chill from the fabric soothing something inside of me.

Safe.

I was here. Not there. Not in the past with the monsters I’d been forced to become.

‘I believed you could be many things, darling; a fool wasn’t one of them,’ Thean drawled, their voice too soft. Too distant.

‘Tell me when they’re gone,’ I half slurred. Unbothered by what the voyav thought of me as I listened to the clatter and chaos of them work. I just needed a moment. One moment to rest and I could go back to her.

I waited for Thean’s sharp ridicule but it never came. No. That brandy and clove smell of them chased away everything else. So close I could feel the warmth from their skin.

‘They’re gone,’ came their voice again and then I let the darkness of exhaustion have me right there on the study floor, imagining someone gently holding my hair back, to see my face. To count my very breaths as if they mattered.