Page 110 of Tales of a Monstrous Heart
I shook my head, unable to understand. It was Alma, I knew it was and yet, her eyes were clear and mortal with her truth.
I’d seen her. Just as I’d felt that pain. Just as I’d seen that blood.
Grief was a monster all its own. I’d forgotten that.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered breathlessly, exhausted with my fear as I sagged onto the bench.
‘It’s no bother,’ William said, and patted my shoulder gently ‘I’ll make some tea.’
‘Thank you, William.’ Alma smiled, crouching before me. Those feline eyes running over me with concern as she reached up to wipe my tears away. I should have resisted with my shame. With all the fuss I’d caused, but my limbs felt heavy as the pounding of my heart slowed. Unable to understand any of it.
‘Are you sure you won’t be missed?’ William asked carefully as he began to mess with the tea pot.
I gave him a pointed look as I pulled off my gloves and he quickly went back to making the tea.
‘I’ve been studying those earth samples Emrys gave me from the ruins. I think I’ll have some results in the morning.’ He continued to talk as he worked, filling the silence with conversation as Alma led me to the table.
‘What happened, Kat?’ Alma asked, taking my trembling hands between her own as she remained before me.
‘I’m probably just tired.’ I smiled weakly, my throat burning with all the things I wanted to say, to tell her about the horrid things I’d seen, but what good would it do to give my nightmares to someone else?
Daunton and the foul things that haunted me.
She frowned, leaning closer to gauge my expression. ‘It’s not like you to make mistakes.’
Perhaps I just didn’t know myself anymore. Not like I thought I did. Breaking my own heart with foolish thoughts and thinking I could play games that were way beyond me.
‘Kat,’ Alma whispered, her grip on my hands tightened as if sensing that darkness in my thoughts. ‘I’m here.’
A promise she’d made me before, when Daunton’s blood was still on my hands and the madness still in my veins. She’d held me even when it had burned her. Knowing the danger but staying anyway.
I pulled her into an embrace, finally letting an even breath slip between my lips as her hands made soothing circles at my back.
Here.That voice whispered in my mind. Too real and I was fearful that not even Alma’s reassurance could chase it away. As if something had followed me from that darkness.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Please.
The ghost of that word occupied my thoughts in the dark of the night. Desperation pressed into it. Then that pain that had overwhelmed me, the warmth of blood between my fingers.
Real. It had been so real.
Rolling over in the lumpy bed, there was nothing but the damp darkness and the pounding of the night rain rattling the thin window to greet me. Weak, cloudy moonlight seeped through the threadbare sections of the curtains. Shadows slid ominously across the walls as trees swayed in the storm winds beyond the house.
Alma had asked if I wanted her to stay, even if she had to be as small as a mouse not to get caught by a maid, but I didn’t want her suffering the dank confines of Fairfax Manor. This was my own punishment for bringing us all here.
Unable to bear another moment of my own restlessness, I got out of bed and found my robe. Thankful at least that I had a way back to the study through the wardrobe.
I wandered easily through the study bookshelves in the darkness, only stopping as the muted orange light of the fire reached me. It appeared I wasn’t the only one struggling to sleep, haunted by too many things I couldn’t change.
The familiar form of Emrys was slumped in a chair before the fire. His eyes narrowed at my presence, seemingly awaiting my arrival. As if there was a meeting I’d missed.
‘You’ve decided to torment me some more then, Croinn?’ he called conversationally, continuing to enjoy his drink. His untucked white shirt was rolled to his forearms and unbuttoned so the firelight could play off the sparce dusting of hair on his chest.
‘Are you drunk?’ I asked, moving further into the room to stand at the cluttered table at its centre.
‘Unfortunately not.’ A dry, mirthless laugh left his lips. ‘Tonight served as a reminder how blessed I should be for the war in saving me from such an existence.’
