Page 55 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
‘Alma?’ I asked cautiously, reaching out for her arm. The house groaned. Desk draws rattling as if something was trying to escape. Then the fire went dead in the hearth.
Wrong.A voice mocked in the back of my mind. Alma’s eyes opened. No green to be seen. Only black. Endless as the night. A flash of darkness moving beneath her tanned skin.
One minute she was mortal, beautiful and familiar. The next she was nothing but talons and smoke. Lurching right for me with a feral scream of sharp yellow fangs in a demonic jaw. Forcing me back as we tumbled over the desk in a tangle of limbs and black vapour. Papers and books raining down as Ihit the floor hard. Not having a moment before those fangs went for my face.
‘Alma!’ I screamed, hands on her monstrous jaws as putrid breath and saliva dripped onto my throat. The weight of her claws against my ribs squeezed the air from my lungs. Only they didn’t pierce Emrys’s coat. Or whatever charm he’d worked into the fabric.
Thankfully Emrys’s powerful forearm came beneath the creature’s chin, stopping its attack as it screeched into my face. Strange leathery skin too hard to hold.
‘Gideon!’ Emrys roared. Blue summoning light in the corner of my eye, only we didn’t get a chance because then the creature that was Alma formed wings.
The strength of them manifesting threw Emrys and Gideon backwards, crashing into one of the bookcases as paper ruptured skywards.
‘Fucking saints!’ William shrieked from somewhere in the commotion.
‘Alma!’ I snapped, trying to push her back. Only for her horrid sharp teeth to catch my hand between my finger and thumb, making blood flow. ‘Stop!’
I forced my knee up and used the momentum to throw her demonic form off me and into the sideboard. Breaking its legs and making it collapse, artifacts littering the floor with heavy tomes.
Only as I rolled and got my knees back beneath me, turning in defence, did I notice she was gone. Nothing but smoke curling where she should have landed.
‘Bloody fucker,’ Gideon cursed, blue aether crackling in his metal fist as he and Emrys regained their feet. Emrys’s eyes were pitch-black, veins of dark magic crawling up the side of his tense jaw. As if he was resisting summoning.
‘Don’t kill her!’ William cried, his hands buried in his unruly hair to grip his horns from where he crouched low as if anticipating attack.
‘Nobody is killing anyone!’ I snapped, trying to drag air into my lungs as I turned, watching the eaves, waiting to see from what direction she’d attack next. To sense her. My hand stinging from where she’d bitten me.
‘It’s still too early in the evening to make promises, darling,’ Thean pointed out, completely unconcerned, lounging against the shelves with folded arms. Of course – because the fiend form of Alma didn’t appear to be coming for the voyav.
My gaze shot to William, who was also unharmed. Despite the fact he’d been in the hallway with one of the things. It hadn’t bitten him. No. The creature had been desperate to make its way down the hallway … towards—
I looked down at my hand, blood dripping between my fingers.
Blood.
My heart stopped, sinking into my gut.
Salvek hunted blood on command. And Alma was hunting mine – just as the creature she took that claw from had been.
Maybe it was Thean’s smug smile that made the idea materialise as the house began to groan and creak. A warning that she was coming.
I lunged forwards, right for the voyav, dragging my bloody hand across their face. Smearing it red as a curse slipped from their lips. Before they could push me off, I was already diving for the floor. Just as Alma swooped in from the shadows above for another attack. Taking Thean down instead of me.
The voyav swore, becoming nothing but a jumble of limbs as the creature roared and tucked its wings tight.
I lunged, locking my arms around Alma, holding onto my wrists. Her folded wings trapped between us, talons at thetop digging into my chin but my Kysillian strength held her. My call for it the strongest it had ever been.
‘Kat!’ Gideon barked, lurching forward to help as Emrys grabbed the voyav under the arms and dragged him from beneath Alma’s claws. The front of that ridiculous frilly white shirt torn.
‘Alma!’I cried desperately. Her strength in this form almost too much for me to hold.
Then Emrys’s dark summoning wrapped around us, holding her in place. The cold ferocity of it biting into my flesh.
‘Le Mev,’ Emrys commanded, his voice darker than I’d heard it, but that word made my magic flare in challenge.
Yield.A command in the old tongue. Something about the darkness of his magic against the smoke and strange pallid marked flesh that formed Alma. Making her shudder. Curving into herself with submission, a strange keening sound slipping from that demonic sharp mouth.
Sensing her withdrawal, Emrys’s magic slowly released her, but I felt it curling between my fingers as if trying to get to my palm. To see where I was hurt.
