Page 26 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
A gentle teasing shiver ran down my back, like fingers tracing my spine. The light of the fire dipped. A rush of footsteps turned us all to the doorway.
And there he was.
His hair was in dark disarray, shadows cutting across his jaw. There was a breathless dishevelment about him, his coat half-unbuttoned. As if he’d run all the way here. That rich scent of beasam bark filled my lungs in an instant – or maybe it was simply the memory of it.
Emrys.
A sadness lingered in his features – and it broke my heart. He was alert, as if some great threat was about to befall us. Endless dark eyes focused on nothing but me.
Tauria.The softness of how he’d called my name made a quiet sob come to my lips. I could see the image of him pressed flat against the bloody, ashen earth, his arm reaching for me as his mouth moved, desperate and pleading. Screaming something over that firestorm.
Me. He was calling for me.
‘William, I think you left some west herb stewing on the stove.’ Gideon cleared his throat.
‘No, I didn’t—’ William barely finished before Gideon took the scruff of the boy’s shirt, pulling him towards thedoor in a forced march, a clumsy scuffle that Emrys didn’t seem to notice.
No. Nothing broke his focus on me. Such a stillness to him I didn’t think he even dared to breathe.
You thought you could keep him, Tauria?That dark voice came back. Filling my memory with the torment of his screams. Panic made me try to move, fingers curling over the arm of the chaise.
‘Emrys.’ His name came broken from my lips as I felt the dampness of tears on my cheeks, breaking the spell over him, and in the blink of an eye he was before me, his gloved hands capturing my face so gently. Thumbs brushing away my tears. Looming over me as I grasped the sleeve of his coat. Desperate to make him reel.
‘Kat.’ His gaze traced every inch of me. Unbelieving. One hand moved to cup the side of my throat.
Such deep emotion burnt in those eyes as they flicked from black pools to stormy grey. Breath slipping unsteadily from his lips. I held onto him. Desperately.
‘You’re here,’ I half sobbed in my quiet hysteria, forcing myself further into his arms as I pressed my face to his chest and dragged in deep breaths of his forbidden scent. Allowing it to calm that small part of me that still didn’t believe it.
‘Croinn,’ was his only answer, breath unsteady as he crouched before me and wrapped me in the strength of his embrace.
Croinn.The gentleness of that word soothed over some raw place inside of me. The soft reverence of it.
Real.
He’d found me again.
‘You should be in bed.’ His voice was so hoarse. Pained.
‘I want to stay here,’ was my muffled response, not wanting to move. As I trembled with exhaustion.
‘We can stay here.’ His words were soothing, but I couldn’t stop the brutal pounding of my heart as panic spiked inside of me.
Serus. That darkness had called. The hunger of it. How viciously it had wanted him.
I pulled back the barest inch to see him. ‘H-how long—’
‘Thirteen days.’ I knew by the raw hurt in those eyes and the tension in his jaw he’d know every moment. Every second if I asked.
Devastation ploughed through me. All that time. How silent my magic was. My hands shook and his shirt slipped from my grasp.
‘Kat.’
‘I’ve ruined everything.’ The words broke apart on my lips. Breaths too short with terror. What the Council would do. All the things I’d failed to hide. ‘I should never have come here. You and William—’
‘Don’t.’ He captured my face once more, so gently. Hurt shadowing his features as if my words were a knife I’d driven into his heart. As if I could mean it. ‘Don’t say that.’
I shook my head. He needed to understand. ‘It’s all my fault.’
