Page 127 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
Gideon gave Emrys a sharp warning look before he fell into step with us.
‘You all right, Kat?’ William asked out of the side of his mouth.
‘I’m fine,’ I answered trying to brush some of the hay dust off my leathers. How long I’d be fine for was yet to be seen. My eyes tracked over the rooftops and then the forest that bordered the village. Turning to assess the space around us. Looking for a familiar pair of green eyes. A flutter of wings or flash of scales. My panic rising, flame churning in my gut.
Alma.
‘Safe,’ Emrys’s answer came as soft as breath as it brushed my ear. I hadn’t even realised I’d spoken. I turned to see him,only for his deadly focus to be on the road ahead. On the rebels who were spread out across the streets, searching the remains of the village as if any hunters could remain.
The echoing thump of our footsteps matched the wild beating of my heart. Until we were led into a small courtyard. Hunters or the fiends they’d become lay sprawled on the ground. Eyes glassy with death. Entrails scattered across the cobbles thanks to Alma, and the stench of burnt flesh from what limited damage I’d been able to do filled the air.
Sheet-covered bodies lay there too – fey. Cut down so pointlessly. The brutality of my magic turned within me, forcing my hands into fists.
We weren’t quick enough. Would we ever be?
The hunters these rebels had managed to catch knelt against a remaining charred stone wall. Hands bound behind their backs, faces bloody. Eyes red from the venom they’d drunk. Half mad with it. Crazed enough to follow any order. One’s lips moving in quick succession, eyes rolling back in their skull in devotion to their saint. Others snapped their teeth, frothing at the mouth as if they’d taken poison.
Evidence of the madness that had torn this world apart too many times in human form. Hatred.
Our guard slowed as a striking figure observed the same carnage before us. My magic flared with curiosity, recognizing such flame in another.
Callen. The Countess’s Kysillian. Those sharp lavender eyes met my own as he turned from his consideration of the hunters. He was still wearing the same leathers as he wore in Lady Ramsey’s fighting pit, his cheeks flushed from battle and splattered with horrid dark blood. Dark hair tied back from his face as he glowered down at us all.
‘You’re in the middle of my rebellion, Blackthorn,’ Callen greeted, folding his arms, making his leathers creak. ‘Catching too much attention once again.’
‘Last I heard, it was the Countess’s rebellion,’ Gideon countered, hand resting on his weapons belt with ease. ‘You’re also beyond your bounds.’
I saw the slight flex of Emrys’s fingers as darkness rippled across his knuckles. Close to summoning.
‘Montagor is moving his hunters too quickly for us to dawdle in the north,’ the Kysillian countered, exhaustion clinging to his stoic features.
‘You followed them,’ I spoke before I could think. How else would they have known to be here?
Unless they’d spotted the same pattern that William had in what was catching Montagor’s attention.
‘They’ve decimated two fey settlements further south.’ Callen chewed over the words with displeasure.
‘Survivors?’ Emrys asked.
‘Those who survived fled east.’ Callen rubbed his jaw, his eyes moving over Aster. As if assessing he was all in one piece, before those piercing lavender eyes returned to us. ‘I suspect that’s where your little imp sent the villagers. Your Reaver loyalties are showing, Blackthorn.’
‘It’ll be interesting to know how long you’ve had a wrywing in your arsenal?’ Aster added, his smile sly.
Dread curled in my gut. The rebels couldn’t know anything about Alma. That was a danger that had chased us for long enough.
The nymph’s focus dropped oddly to Emrys’s hand. ‘I also didn’t know you were taken, Blackthorn.’
Then I saw exactly where my father’s hilt had gone. A gold ring glinted on Emrys’s ring finger. Standing out soprominently against that dark summoning staining his skin. Like a mortal wedding band. My cheeks flushed at the insinuation.
My eyes shot to Callen’s, watching a stillness come over him. Wondering if he knew. If he could sense what it was.
‘I suppose your master doesn’t know you’re both free of your leash,’ Gideon huffed, folding his arms with ease, thankfully offering another distraction and ignoring how William’s knees practically knocked together next to him.
‘From the stories you’re supposed to be dead, Gideon. Or fucking your way west,’ Aster’s reply was terse.
‘Interested?’ Gideon raised a brow in challenge.
Callen, to my surprise, laughed. A sudden ease in his bulky form that hadn’t been present in Lady Ramsey’s fighting den. No, this creature seemed so different to the one held so tightly on the cruel blood-witch’s leash.
