Page 13 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
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.
Chapter Five
Kat
Chapter Six
Alma
Be wary of the beast with many forms for it is always on the hunt to consume one more.
A child’s voice sang those words into my dreams, cruel laughter trickling through the warning. A child I’d never been allowed to be. Rhymes to mock and strip me. Making me desperate, to cling to the crumbs of my humanity. Wishing my claws could bury themselves deep into it. That my fangs could drink the merest moments of innocence dry.
That I could keep the parts of myself I used to be, but they cut them away effortlessly. With knives too sharp and skilled. Until I was just a girl with no name. Nothing but a pet.
A beast waiting to be fed.
Those memories sat heavy and sour in my gut like bad gruel. Then came the rattle of chain and the burn of copper down my throat. The snap of bone and the searing pain of my flesh as it peeled away to become something else.
I lurched forward, gasping away from the coldness of my nightmare’s hold, only to find my wrists captured in soft, warm hands. Halting my escape.
‘I must say …’ Thean Page sighed before me, the usual cruel upturn of their feminine lip absent as they peered downat me. ‘I didn’t anticipate you having such a flare for the dramatic, darling.’
Their hair was uncharacteristically braided back from their striking face. Showing one of those ancient runes marked on their flesh, tucked behind their ear. Amber eyes gleaming like a calculating cat under their dark lashes, as their fingers curled gently around my forearms. The sharp smell of cloves coming off them that easily chased away the haunting stench of my dreams.
‘What are you doing?’ Slipped from their grasp, almost stumbling back onto the chaise, a tattered blanket discarded and tangled around my feet. A chaise that wasn’t there before. Not in this study. One the house must have manifested.
I’d fainted. Only there was no space for shame as I pressed my clammy palms against my forehead, trying to ease the throbbing pain at my temples.
‘Babysitting, clearly.’ They turned, returning to their perch by the fire. Those long legs hugged in a pair of riding trousers so tight that it was a miracle the stitches were still intact.
I dropped my hand, only to wince as I moved my arm, finding it covered by a dressing gown sleeve. The fabric thick and luxurious, swamping me. I pulled back the sleeve to see my wrist. Expertly wrapped with clean, white bandages. The dark scales still protruding at the edge of the cotton, not fully settled back into my skin.
The cut across my palm was also wrapped neatly. The sticky sensation of healing balm as the pungency of mint and bitter healing herbs met my nose.
In the firelight I could see the small marks on my skin. My scars. Almost easily missed but I saw every one, the barest shade lighter. Every cut where they’d made me change and took something from me. Every nick of their blade thatthey hadn’t bothered to heal. Allowed to be open too long, forming small divots.
I pulled my sleeve down. Refusing to remember as I looked to the window. Unable to hide my deep swallow of relief. It was barely dusk. I hadn’t been unconscious long. Hadn’t lost any more time.
‘Gideon—’ I turned back to Thean, seeing the voyav’s elegant hand raised to stop whatever unarticulated rubbish was about to come spilling out from between my lips.
‘He’s still with the patient.’ They rested their elbow on the arm of the chair, perching their chin perfectly on the back of their hand and pursing those full lips. ‘You,darling, had the fortune to be tended to by me.’
Something about being the centre of the voyav’s attention felt dangerous as my fingers traced the edge of the bandage, how neat and careful it was. How they’d wrapped it further down my arm than was needed, covering up the mottled, scarred skin of my wrist. My shackle marks. Not out of pity, I was sure.
‘I’ll commend myself to save you the trouble,’ they goaded at my silence. It was only then I realised I was in a dressing gown. Not the trader’s coat.
