Page 139 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
Of course. Gideon had said as much. We’d dropped those fey at the eastern border with no warning. I pressed the note to my chest, tumbling back to the pillows and staring up at the canopy above the bed. I should be relieved he felt better – that he’d gone back to working on all the things we still needed to do. Yet unease remained, prodding incessantly against my ribs as if I had missed something.
I pulled myself from the bed, and moved to where I’d left my leathers, pulling out my mother’s note where I’d tucked it into the pocket. I pressed it to my nose again, seeking her scent that had long faded.
Leaving nothing but dust and the bitterness of ink behind.
‘I miss you.’ I ran my thumb over the parchment. Over the familiar curve of her writing. My only wish was that they found each other. That all the stories were real and something existed beyond this. I’d face whatever the ancestors sent my way, as long as they could be together again.
I tucked the last fragment of her safely away in Emrys’s desk, grabbing my robe and making my way downstairs.
I didn’t get far before the bustling presence of Alma greeted me. Seemingly her usual self. Her dark curls pinned beautifully away from her face, a simple blue cotton dress making her green eyes appear sharper than ever.
‘The dead awaken at last,’ she teased.
‘How are you?’ I demanded. Pulling her into a tight embrace. Surprised that she let me. Wondering where she’d gone and how she’d missed the rebellion. Thanking the ancestors silently that she had. Also for how quickly she seemed to now be recovering from her changes.
‘Remind me never to take a bite of a hunter again,’ she mumbled against my shoulder before pulling back, and there was something about the avoidance in her gaze – I couldn’t help feel that she was hiding. Every inch of her covered.
‘I’m certain you already know Lady Ramsey summoned them before dawn. As you can guess, Gideon was thrilled.’ She rolled her eyes before doing her own inventory of me, as if she needed to check every freckle across my nose. There was a strange intensity in her stare – unsettled, perhaps.
‘I should have been with you.’ Wondered if she was angry with me – even distantly. Her small smile didn’t falter, but the sharpness in her gaze softened.
‘You can’t save me all the time, Kat. The hunters and the verium wasn’t your fault.’ She hooked her finger around one of my own.
I’d promised her safety and I’d failed her. Failed to find any purpose to all this chaos.
A rattling turned our attention to the doorway where William stood grinning, cheeks flushed as he hopped on the balls of his feet as if unable to contain his excitement.
‘Good, you’re both here,’ he began. ‘We have something …wonderfulto show you!’
‘Who iswe?’ Alma demanded, her hands falling to her hips. A dangerous pose – I’d learnt the hard way.
‘You have to promise not to get mad.’ The boy held his hands up in surrender, but he barely got a moment to finish before the dark head of a hound poked between his legs.
A hound formed of dark matter and smoke. Like a …
‘What the bloody fuck is that ?!’ Alma seethed, grabbing my arm as if to wrench me behind her. Her hands twisting into claws in an instant.
‘Look!’ William smiled, dropping to one knee to scratch behind the fiend’s ear. ‘Isn’t hedelightful?’
‘Please tell me that’s not the gobrite,’ I half stuttered, unable to put it all together.
Did we lock the cage again after Gideon had removed the shard? I couldn’t remember.
‘I want to call him Orin,’ William announced, ignoring me. ‘It means dark ghost. He does his business outside and everything.’
‘It should be in itscage,’ Alma warned as she bared her teeth at the creature. The fiend’s ears went flat, head bowed as if scared.
‘He looked sad.’ William’s face fell.
‘I’m sure it’ll cheer up when it’s ripping out our throats in our sleep,’ she snapped.
‘I already have you to worry about for that, darling,’ Thean interjected as they suddenly appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
They were in a feminine form, billowing shirt, tight riding trousers and corset, a multitude of weapons at their belt as if they’d been on patrol. Hair braided and twisted around their head like a crown, dangerous amber eyes gleaming with irritation.
‘I think whatever you did to trap it made it lose its power, Kat,’ William reasoned, petting the fiend’s head again. The bastard creature had the audacity to tilt its head in enjoyment. ‘It’s quite tame.’
Then I saw the delight in the boy’s eyes, an almost shy pleading. Asking something with no words.
