Page 54 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
Alma took a step towards the remains but Thean suddenly blocked her path.
‘I wouldn’t do that, darling.’ The voyav’s words were short. Almost as if they cared and were repulsed by the fact. ‘I doubt you want that thing crawling around in your pretty little head.’
‘Concerned?’ she mocked. ‘You said they were summoned, so wherever they were resting, there could be something else there.’
‘Alma—’ I began but then those sharp feline eyes were on me, burning with fury.
‘Somethinguseful,’ she added sternly.
‘No.’ The word slipped free before I could control myself.
She bristled, her furious gaze now pinned on me. ‘That isn’t your choice, Kat.’
‘You’ve never changed into anything that dark,’ I snapped, heart pounding painfully against my ribs with my panic.
‘Haven’t I?’ she challenged, so stony and distant that for a moment I didn’t recognise her.
Haven’t I?Then I remembered the barest impression of scales on her skin the first night we’d met, so large and dark that she wouldn’t let me anywhere near her. Not until they faded. How she’d curled herself around them as if guarding a treasure. She never spoke of them again and I’d never seen them since. In all her forms. I’d never seen them, as if I’d imagined it.
‘If I can connect with that beast, we’ll know where they’ve been and where they’re going next,’ she continued, her voice too distant for me to work out her thoughts, her expression too hidden.
‘Why not? Considering the torture was so fun to stomach last time,’ Thean threw in dryly, their arms crossed and lips pursed in annoyance at the idea.
‘It worked.’ Alma bared her now fanged teeth.
‘What is your plan when those creatures also remember you, darling? When they hear you crawling around in their mind and tell their master. The girl who becomes beasts.’
Alma stilled at that, a flare of panic in her eyes for the barest moment before her expression slipped back to annoyance.
‘Alma, it’sdangerous.’ I interjected before she lacerated the voyav. It sounded like a plea, soft and desperate as I moved closer to her. Blocking out everyone else until it was just us. So those very human green eyes could meet my own. Clear and filled with her iron resolve. She’d made up her mind and there was no unmaking it.
‘This ismycurse, Kat. I will be its master.’ The unwavering weight of those words struck me like a blow. The painful truth pressed between them. Shame coursed through me at my attempt to stop her. She was right. How much agency she’d been denied that I had no right to take more from her.
No matter how scared it made me. She’d been caged long enough and I knew the madness of it. Her eyes didn’t even flicker in Emrys’s direction, nor Gideon’s. She needed no permission. She never had.
‘William.’ She held out her hand patiently, the boy going pale, eyes moving to Emrys, who gave the barest of nods. He wouldn’t forbid her. Not as those words hung true between us.
William reached into his apron and pulled out his sharp small shears and a knife.
Alma ignored the knife, taking the shears as she gave him a small reassuring smile. Moving to where the fiend still twitched.
There was a horrid crunch as she cut off the thing’s clawed finger, straightening before making her way to the study and giving us no choice but to follow. Moving straight to my desk, turning over her sleeve, revealing the webbing of scars that bit into her flesh. Paler than the rest of her skin. Rolling the fabric higher to where the small white marks lay from other extractions. All the things she never spoke about.
‘Miss Darcy, if you—’ Gideon began but Alma ignored him, already making the cut with the small healer’s blade I’d left on my desk.
The barest slice just at the base of her thumb, enough to bead against her skin. Then she smeared that dark foul blood from the beast’s finger across the wound. Let the talon drop from her hand to thud against the desk; a small puddle forming of dark liquid and smoke.
Her back straightened as her eyes fluttered closed. Nothing but the weary groan of the house and our own breath.
She was so silent, so still for the longest moment. I’d seen her change before, but never like this. Never with such focus.
‘Is she all right?’ William whispered out of the corner of his mouth, before huffing when Gideon elbowed him in answer.
Alma didn’t even flinch, not a twitch. Slowing until her chest stopped moving, her stillness becoming deadly.
Too long.
Unease rolled through me as I moved the barest step forward. Missing the curl of Emrys’s fingers in the back of the coat I wore as if to wrench me back.
