Page 79 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion (Tales of a Monstrous Heart, #2)

Thean’s hands fisted into my hair, tipping my head back to demand more of my mouth.

I gave it. Anything they wanted. With wild abandon I wanted their scent all over me. To hoard secretly like a dragon. Even if they’d never know.

I wanted it between my legs, soaked into my pores to ease my restless beasts – and my heart. My fingers curled greedily into their ridiculous silk shirt.

That place on my thigh stung with the absence of them, I gasped for breath as their kiss moved to my throat, taking mercy on me. Those fangs dragging over my throat, almost in warning. I pressed myself closer, feeling the ache of the fangs that had appeared in my mouth.

They hoisted me up, turning so my backside rested on the side table. Knocking over an inkpot and creasing the papers so they could have better access to my mouth.

I knew myself well enough to know what my body wanted. What it wanted from them.

‘Touch me,’ I begged.

‘Which form, little love?’ their voice trembled quietly with the anticipation of it. The pause. The hesitation.

‘All of you,’ I could barely gasp.

Wanting them. However they wished to be.

Thean froze at that. Making me fearful I’d ruined it. Those dark amber-ringed eyes stuck on mine. As if wishing to see every moment of my stuttered breath.

Their knuckles dragged over the soft skin of my inner thigh but I grabbed their hand, forcing it between my legs. A gasping whimper leaving me with the ferocity of how I needed to be claimed.

Skirts crumpled between us as I watched their thumb tease me exactly where I needed.

I should have been embarrassed, shamed by that wildness. Only as Thean watched that pleasure shift in my expression, I saw the hunger in it but also the reverence. As if I’d given them a precious gift, just letting them please me.

Scales flushed the tips of my cheeks and the curve of my shoulder as if performing for them.

Thean kissed every rough one. Leaving me to whimper as they slid two fingers inside.

The cursed hiss slipping from between their lips at how greedy I was for their touch as I pulled them closer.

Making them stroke deeper as I ran my tongue over the sharp angle of their jaw.

Tasting salt, the perfume of them. A purr rumbled up my throat.

I lapped at their pulse. Wilder than I’d ever allowed myself to be. A whining desperate sound escaping me.

Thean didn’t stop, ruthless with their strokes, their thumb mastering that bundle of nerves. As the scent of them drove me to insanity. One palm pressed against my spread thigh, keeping it open as it trembled. So they could watch every moment of what they did to me.

The dominance of it sent me quickly over the edge, consumed by the madness of that pleasure.

Then I bit down at the curve of their throat, right over the blood mark. Something feral in me wanting to destroy it. Blood filling my mouth. Delicious and just as rich as their scent. Making my hips move closer to their hand, moaning as it crashed through me.

My tongue dragged over the mark, wishing to soothe it.

Their hand curled into my hair, pulling my head back, then they kissed me with a brutal claiming.

Their hand still between my legs, as if relishing in the aftershock of that pleasure around their fingers.

Cupping me with dominance that made a shiver run up my spine.

Devouring me, nipping at my lips before those kisses brushed my cheek and jaw.

Their nose running up the curve of my throat as if they could smell the pleasure rising from my skin. Scenting me. So gently, keeping me in place as they took their time, as if wishing to remember each moment.

They pressed the softest kiss against my pulse. Down across the curve of my breasts with reverence that spoke of nothing but worship.

My eyes fell to the mark I’d made on their throat.

How it cut through that blood mark. There was some strange rightness about it.

As if I’d broken a bar on their cage. A strange soft smile coming to my lips.

A warm peace I hadn’t experienced like this.

As if I was one of my creatures, burrowed somewhere safe.

A horrid boom shook all the trinkets in the room. The window’s glass cracking as a strange orange glow enveloped us. Then the screaming started.

I was untangled from Thean and across the room in an instant, pressed against that glass, seeing the streets filled with fire. With a strange dark cloud on the horizon, twisting between the thatched houses that made up the town below.

A dark storm.

Montagor.

‘No.’ Fear gripped my heart. I spun for the door, hands becoming claws.

‘Alma!’ Thean grabbed me, harsher than they ever had before. Forcing me back against the panelling. Winding me with the force of it.

‘Leave.’ The command was given through clenched teeth, fingers digging ruthlessly into my flesh.

Another boom shook the room, pictures falling from the walls, screams coming from beyond the door. Something was happening. Something I didn’t understand.

The beasts in my blood were whining. Scared.

‘Thean?’ I didn’t understand. I needed to find Kat. We needed to leave. Only their grip tightened, pushing me further into the room. Towards the window.

Away from the door.

‘Leave!’ they barked. Their eyes fully black, something strange moving through them. Something I hadn’t seen in them before.

Desperation.

A horrid memory surfaced in my mind. Of a bloody Kat knelt before me.

Fly away. Be a bird and fly away.

Please, Alma.

The last time I’d seen desperation like that.

Something stirred in my beasts within, a flick of an ear or the flare of nostrils. Sensing something I shouldn’t have missed.

Then Thean’s entire demeanour changed in a moment. They didn’t look the same. The form they shifted into one I hadn’t seen before. Too broad and masculine. A warrior’s build. Stern and bulky. So unlike them.

Confusion furrowed my brow. There was such a strange broken look in their eyes as they watched me. As they realised I wouldn’t do it. Wouldn’t follow their command.

‘I told you to leave, little fool,’ they breathed. Such sadness sticking to their plea.

They were mad. They were mad and I had no time for it.

I twisted, changed into my mouse form. Vanishing before them. Quick and fast. Not giving them a chance to stop me. Too lost in my fear to notice they weren’t trying to stop me.

Kat. I needed to find Kat.

Only, as I slipped beneath the door and shifted into feline form to dart down the hallway, filthy carpet beneath my paws, my fur rippled. Body too tense. Something wrong.

‘No, Valeska,’ came the soft, quiet command, startling me.

Amused. She was always so cruelly amused.

I went still in a moment, but my residual momentum sent me slamming into the filthy wood panelled wall. My beasts abandoned me in the blink of an eye. Leaving me lying on that stained carpet, naked.

My fingers curled into it desperately. The chill of the air licking its way up my naked spine.

No.

‘Stay,’ came another command. Freezing me in place. So exposed, listening to nothing but those screams in the distance, as the ground beneath me shook again, dust lining my throat.

No.

No.

No.

This was nothing but a dream. A nightmare of the past. The screaming and rush of beings. The distant smell of smoke. A horrid keening sound sliding from between my lips.

You can always fly away, little love. No. It was a lie. Not when she owned my wings. Owned every part of me.

All I could see was the ground as the rough carpet dug into my cheek, as boots passed me. Thean’s. Foolishly I wanted to grab them, dig my claws through them but I couldn’t move. Couldn’t feel rage, not when fear clogged my throat and made it impossible to draw breath.

There were beings in the hall. So still. Waiting. Watching.

‘You let her mark you,’ that soft feminine voice taunted. ‘When this is done … you’ll show me just how much you missed me and I’ll decide how useful you still are, Thean Page.’

Thean.

The trap. It had been a trap.

My heart cracked inside my chest. A horrid wailing cry consuming my ears that was mine – only it wouldn’t escape my lips.

‘Kneel, Valeska,’ came the next command and there was no choice. My limbs moved like a puppet on her string. Kneeling there. So exposed. Tears blurring my vision, spilling pathetically down my cheeks, dripping onto my bare thighs.

Then all my nightmares became real. Those blood red eyes, how useless and weak I was, just as she’d met me the first time. That strange form of Thean stood at her side, not looking at me, neither did the other rebels further down the hall. Watching their master.

‘Did you forget, little rat?’ Her voice mocking as her head tipped to one side, dark hair spilling over her shoulder as a malicious smile came to her lips. ‘There is no outrunning a blood oath, Valeska. Your Keeper should have taught you better.’

That name I’d done everything to forget. The mistake I couldn’t outrun. All my hopeless prayers, and they’d just led me back to her.

‘The hunters are close, Countess,’ a voice called from down the hall but she didn’t stop her observation of me. The victory shining in hideous eyes.

Then she turned back to the rebels in the hallway. Awaiting her command like pets.

The Hunters were here. Montagor.

Kat .

Fear curled ruthlessly inside of me, beasts clawing at my ribs until I could taste blood at the back of my throat.

‘Blow it up. Bury it.’ She clicked her bloodstained fingers, and suddenly there were hands on me, dragging me to my feet.

The command was ruthless, uncaring about what was here.

That Kat was here.

No! I screamed, only my lips didn’t part. No sound escaped. It couldn’t because all of me was hers.