Page 21 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
How easily I’d killed them. The last time I’d lost control of my flame. When I’d turned our nightmares to ash.
The memory made emotion burn in my throat. How ruthless I’d been then. How foolish I’d been now. How she’d remained all the same. How easily I’d ruined everything once more.
‘I’m so sorry, Alma.’ My voice broke.
‘Never leave me again,’ was her answer as she laid a kiss on my tear-dampened cheek. Not a threat or a command. A gentle request as she pulled herself back the barest inch to look over her shoulder at Thean, whose gaze was on her backside, which was in their face.
‘Make yourself useful and go and fetch something,’ she snapped, wiping at the tears on her cheeks with irritation. ‘Master Swift or some food, perhaps?’
Thean scowled in response, then gracefully got to their feet. Looking down at our display of affection with a blank expression, lips parting probably to deliver a cruel remark but Alma’s attention had returned to fretting over me.
Thean vanished without another word.
‘You need to rest. Gideon said it’s been centuries since anyone has been treated with ravhorn venom.’ Her hands ran down my arms, as if checking to see if I’d sprouted new ones. It was then I realised I was wearing a clean nightgown. Part of me wondering if the storm had been another dream. But as I looked at my fingers I could see the remnants of dirt in the creases between my fingers, beneath my nails.
Real.
It was only then that the words she’d spoken pierced my thoughts.
‘Gideon?’ I frowned.
‘Healer Gideon Swift. Emrys brought him back to the house to help. Bloody bastard is—’ She cut herself off, shaking her head as she gently tried to press me back onto the pillows. ‘Never mind that. It’s best you lie down. I don’t know if you should be awake. I’ll get you some—’
I noticed the hesitation in her movements, the shadows beneath her eyes, and the bandage peeking out from the sleeve of her dress. Then her words penetrated my tiredness.
Ravhorn.
The ravhorn was extinct.
‘Alma.’ I reached for her arm, turning it so I could see it better. The bandage covering the remains of what she had become. The violent bruising around it. ‘What did you do?’
She pulled easily from my weakened grip, tucking her arm behind her back, turning to the bedside table, struggling to find anything to distract me with.
‘Alma.’ I leant forward despite the pain in my ribs that shortened my breath. ‘What did—’
‘It’s nothing compared to what you did.’ Her eyes were filled with tears but burnt with the intensity of those words.Stilling me. That hollow pain in my chest of all the things that should have never come to pass. Why she was afraid of changing. Why her magic was hard to control, because they’d made her fear it. Used it to hurt her.
Yet she’d changed. Changed into something too dark to speak of. She’d done it for me.
‘You could have been hurt,’ I whispered, unable to stop the rawness of my fear as it consumed me. The thought of her being something so dark. That she might not be able to find her way back. Forever lost in one of her forms.
‘If you wish to blame anyone for that recklessness … blame yourself. You taught me.’ There was a steel to those words. Unbreakable. I taught her friendship. Taught her kindness too. She’d always said that. From the start.
Nothing will hurt you again.My promise to her that now filled me with sorrow, because I’d lied. I’d hurt her.
‘Alma.’ My voice broke around her name.
‘I was so scared.’ The words were raw from her lips as she pulled in a stuttered breath. ‘I didn’t know what to do, Kat. I’m not smart like you.’
I reached for her hand, barely having to as she half fell into my arms. ‘That’s not—’
‘I didn’t know what to do,’ she admitted again and all I could do was hold her. Hold her as her perfectly formed defences crumpled. The admission was so small yet filled with so much fear.
‘I’m sorry,’ I breathed into her hair, sadness clawing at my heart as I ran my hand up and down her back. ‘For all of it. But you’re wrong. There isn’t anyone as clever as you, Alma.’ I ran my fingers through her dark curls as she pulled back to see me. So she could see the truth of it in my eyes.
I wasn’t her saviour. Alma had saved herself and she’d saved me too.
A shiver went through me before she could argue with my declaration, her fingers instantly running around the collar of my nightgown – jolting her back into action.
