Page 124 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
I wanted to bare my teeth but no fangs would manifest. If my beasts were silent, then I’d deal with the bastard voyav in mortal form.
‘Probably the same reason we are,’ they offered as I snatched the cloak off them, holding it across my front.
‘Stop helping me,’ I grumbled, another shiver coursing up my back, leaving sharp bumps in its wake.
They glowered down at me. ‘Stop getting caught.’
I bared my useless mortal teeth. I wasn’t caught. That was the problem. If I was caught, I’d have no choice but to choose fury over fear.
I moved inside the cottage. Needing to collect myself, to get the flesh from between my teeth. Wash the rancid taste from my mouth. To think.
‘You need to get down there to—’ Only as I stepped into the cottage, it wasn’t a cottage at all. There was a rush of magic against my skin, pinching and old.
The familiar bookcases and desks of the Blackthorn study. The fire roaring, the doors across from me creaking open and shut like a waving hand glad to have us back.
We were back in Blackthorn Manor. Impossibly. My head spun. I turned back to the doorway. Only to find bookcasesbehind me. The house covering up where it had pulled me through the portal door. Away from that village. Away from Kat.
No.
Thean was fixing the cuffs on their jacket, short auburn hair disturbed by the wind. Completely unbothered by the ease of their deception.
‘You bastard!’ I seethed, turning to go back, finding nothing there but the space between the bookshelves, and the voyav standing with folded arms. Jaw tense as if the sight of the bramble scratches on my calves personally offended them.
‘Get out of my way!’ I shrieked, the cloak forgotten, tangling around my feet as I lashed out with my claws. Intent on going for their throat.
I was quick. Always had been, but the voyav was quicker. Catching my wrists so gently, as if I was nothing but a petulant child.
Forcing me back against the shelves.
‘Not likely, darling,’ the loathsome creature grinned, yet there was a wildness in their eyes. Maybe fear, but it flared into amusement too quickly for me to be certain.
A growl rumbled in my throat. Fuck them. I let my scales ripple, starting to change. My beasts not complying as I wished, cowed by the mere presence of this being, and I hated it.
Thean’s hand took my shoulder, pinning me in the blink of an eye. The cupboards rattling with the house’s input. Somehow complicit in this madness.
My breath was too panted. Too wild. I’d abandoned my friends to my fear. Left Kat there. William too.
‘Let me go,’ I sneered.
Thean leant closer until that rich fucking scent chased away the stench of cursed blood and my own fear. ‘You’re the one holding on, sweetheart.’
My claws curled into their shirt, almost desperately. Even now.
‘You wouldn’t have been hiding if you wanted rebels sniffing you out .’ Their words were terse with warning and soft with seduction all at once as they stirred the loose hair next to my ear. That bastard warm clove smell filling my lungs.
I bared my fangs, ignoring the warmth of their skin against my collarbone. Only, just like the heat of their proximity, those words settled my rage. The rebellion. The strange threat in Thean’s knowing. They’d seen things I never wished anyone to. The power of my beasts, how valuable I was.
Fear gnashed at my heart.
‘Just as I thought.’ Those amber eyes dropped to where my pulse fluttered in my throat.
‘You don’t know anything about me,’ I spat, pushing them away. They went easily. Which I hated most. That they knew I was all bark and no bite. That I wouldn’t leave. Couldn’t.
‘Strange … your Kysillian said the same thing. Perhaps that’s why you huddle so closely, finding commonality in the secrets you keep,’ they taunted, hands slipping so easily into their pockets. But there was nothing relaxed in their stance, eyes too dark with the hunt.
Only their words struck their intended mark. How similar me and Kat were. With all the things she didn’t know. That she was far more dangerous than she seemed. So was I. How long had I been running from that truth? Changing into anything to avoid it?
How the voyav mocked me with it now. I was sick of them. Sick of how they wished to play me like a fool.
