Page 116 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
He broke my gaze, turning to see where the dawn light seeped through the windows.
‘We were rats fighting in a trap. He didn’t forgive me for saving him. Didn’t forgive himself for not saving Emmaline.’
He ran his palm down his face, trying to pull in a steady breath as his head fell in defeat. ‘I wish I wasn’t like this.’
‘I don’t.’ I brushed my fingers across his jaw. Watching that magic weakly ripple beneath. Those now dark eyes met my own. ‘There is a lie here somewhere, Emrys. This darkness isn’t what they said it would be.’
No. There was a feeling in that darkness and in that pit I couldn’t shake off. Not evil or consuming. Just desperation. Fear that I’d mistaken for my own.
He shook his head ever so slightly but I saw his hesitation. ‘They killed it for a reason.’
‘They’d kill me too,’ I answered, watching those dark eyes come back to me. The magic rippling across his skin in threat at the mere mention of that truth.
The stories had to be wrong, because how could such evil darkness make something as wonderful as him?
‘They can be wrong,’ I played with the hair at the nape of his neck, seeing the swirls of silver in his gaze. ‘They have to be wrong.’
Had to because there was nothing wrong about the man in my arms. Nothing wicked or strange.
‘None of it makes any sense.’ Verr couldn’t be cursed. Couldn’t be so hateful if they remained above. If they were beings just trying to survive, and their presence had done nothing to corrupt those seals. It was mortal men who had. Mortal men who had hungered and sought to awaken the Old Gods. ‘I know deep down you believe that too.’
He’d seen. Other Verr. He’d been searching for that very reason.
His forehead pressed against my own as he dragged in a deep breath.
‘I’m scared of what I’ll become.’ Those words were too soft from his lips. Too hopeless.
‘I’m not.’ I pressed a kiss to his shoulder, his fingers curling into my hair to hold me. I should have felt relief, only the depths of how he cared, of how much I loved him made something else bloom inside of me. Childish, desperate fear. How easily things could be taken away.
A wild, deep sadness suddenly clawed at my ribs.
‘My only fear is that they’ll take you away,’ I whispered into the barest inches between us. The words broke apart, small fragile things I was too scared to hold. ‘That they’ll take it all away.’
To be left with nothing but the pain of it. To be lost once more. I didn’t think I’d survive losing him, not as I’d survived losing everything else.
His lips brushed my brow, gentle in his reassurance before ducking to the shell of my ear. ‘There is nowhere I couldwander where I wouldn’t find my way back to you, Kat. In this life or the next.’
I wrapped my arms around him, perhaps desperately.
‘Promise?’ I demanded softly, feeling the sheer strength of him as he held me just as tightly as I held him.
He took my hand from around his side, interlocked our fingers and slid it up to that cursed scar over his heart. The crescent moon. The mark of Serus. ‘I swear it on my mark, Tauria.’
A dangerous promise tangled with his very being, sealed with my true name.
Unbreakable.
My fears quelled as he fell into the cushions and pulled me to lie on him. As I pressed myself against his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart against my cheek. The reassuring curl of his magic around my limbs as if it wanted me closer. Knowing how such promises could be broken so easily. Knowing the depth of my parents’ devotion to each other, yet seeing how horribly it all ended.
Only that wasn’t the point. Emrys gave me his devotion anyway.
Chapter Thirty-One
Alma
Be blessed she sees value in you, little rat.
For what other use do you have?
