Page 83 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
The wishing stone fluttering against my breastbone and it was then I saw it, the ring on her finger. So out of place amongst the gold ones. The dark metal carved with small ancient runes, a blood stone in the centre.
The pinching sensation. The wrongness of it. An object from a different time. She was wearing a Verr relic. Everything in me wanted to recoil, yet my magic bit viciously into my bones in response to the threat. In a way that it had never responded to Emrys.
‘I’m certain Montagor deserves more credit than Emrys,’ Gideon answered indifferently, but every inch of him remained tense.
‘I wonder what the King’s two bastards could have been fighting over?’ Her lip curled as if knowing everything but wishing to see us squirm. ‘I hope dear Emrys isn’t losing his control, Gideon. You know how I’d hate for us to have to have a … problem.’
‘What do you want, Countess?’ Gideon demanded.
She turned that ring over on her finger. The two men by the door gave the barest flinch as if they could feel it.Callen remained stoic but it didn’t fool me into believing he was unaffected. ‘The late Lord Blackthorn gave me his word Emrys would be useful. Then again … Emmaline’s use ran out quite quickly.’
Even if I could only see Gideon’s profile, it was impossible to miss the pain that cut deeply into his expression. The groaning of his metal fist beneath his glove.
Emmaline’s use ran out.No. She was dead and this creature cared nothing for it.
‘Let us not forget your mother’s years haven’t been fulfilled.’ The Countess threw the words over her shoulder as she moved around the small space, surveying the side table and shelves for any secrets they could hold.
As if it was her own territory.
The threat was clear. Gideon owed her, or his blood did. This creature had plans; nothing had changed them. Not the suffering of the fey or Montagor’s activities. She didn’t care.
‘You need to train your fighters better, Countess,’ came the dark, terse voice of Emrys as he entered the room. The rebels at the door shifted to lay a hand on their blades but he ignored them. Callen gave not even the barest flicker of interest. No, he watched only me still, waiting. As if sensing the threat in me. Sensing the fire that slumbered in my bones.
Emrys’s shirt was open, clearly not bothering to button it in his haste to get up here. Making me wonder if he could have sensed this from below. How the thin fabric clung to his damp skin. Blood glinting on his knuckles as he moved towards Lady Ramsey, snatching her untouched glass of port off the table and draining it in one.
‘Since when did you involve yourself in fighting pits, Emrys?’ The Countess’s smile was filled with dangerous delightas she moved across the room with a dancer’s grace. Close to Emrys as he dropped the empty glass back on the table.
So close her fingertips rested against his abdomen, her long nails biting into his skin ever so slightly as if to keep him in place. My magic burnt in my fingertips, forcing me to curl them into fists. To let my nails bite into my palms. A strange feral urge moving through me and then I was the one grinding my teeth.
This was worse than that awful Lady Lovell. My magic coiling deep in my gut, willing me to strike.
‘A new hobby,’ Emrys answered, peering down at her with such cold boredom. Just as I’d seen him deal with the Council.
‘Is collecting dangerous beings another?’ She raised a brow, turning her head to see me, her eyes filled with disinterest. Only my magic’s focus was on how fractionally lower her fingers on Emrys’s skin had slipped. Almost playfully near his waistband.
My jaw ached with the urge to bare my teeth. Territorial urges I wasn’t familiar with rising in me too viciously. My flame flushing my skin.
‘I’m certain there isn’t anything about Miss Woodrow you don’t already know,’ he answered, easily.
‘Such formality.’ She tutted, only I saw the ripple of whatever magic enchanted her flesh. The barest flash of her displeasure.
She didn’t know as much as she wished, because my father knew this monster and he’d hidden me well.
‘I doubt the elders in their far mountains know about you.’ She thankfully let her hand fall away from Emrys’s chest. ‘They’re quite fond of their females, I hear. Despite your …inadequaciesto save your own kind. Isn’t that right, Callen?’
I ignored the slight. Kysillian lack of fertility was a well-known fact. If she wanted to hurt me, she’d have to be more creative than insulting my useless womb.
The lamps dimmed ever so slightly, a cold biting at the air with Emrys’s anger, but I didn’t need him to save me. Not from this creature.
‘Indeed,’ Callen answered, voice deep and empty.
As if sensing that resilience in me and the fury in Emrys, the Countess moved closer, folding her arms as she considered me. ‘However, the barren creatures always do make the best playthings.’
She would know. This creature who played with others’ lives as if she were a god.
Then she reached up to brush an imaginary strand of hair from her face. I thought she wished for me to flinch, anticipating attack. To be unnerved by that Verr relic in the space between us – but then I saw the bracelet slip down her wrist. The gold chain gleaming. Only it wasn’t the chain, but the small discs that hung from it. Each marked with a rune I knew better than my own name.
Ralmev. The marks of the ancestors. Runes that decorated the seven sacred blades gifted to the Kysillian kings by Kysillia. My heart sank to my boots, my magic churning with confusion inside of me.
